How Romantic Partners Build "Sound Relationship Houses" through Shared Gaming

We investigated romantic partners’ shared gaming through semi-structured interviews with a majority-heterosexual participant group of 13 co-located couples ( N = 26). We employed the Sound Relationship House, a Gottman Method Couple Therapy framework that describes seven characteristics of happy, stable romantic relationships, to analyze our participants’ perspectives on their joint gaming experiences. We conclude that shared gaming can support romantic couples in strengthening their relationships through contributing to the friendship and shared meaning systems of the Sound Relationship House. Gaming experiences that afforded these relationship-building aspects were characterized by congruence between couples’ joint needs, their play strategies, and game design. In contrast, when game designs failed to address couples’ joint needs or accommodate their play strategies, shared gaming could prompt frustration and relational challenges. Taken together, we suggest design provocations to enrich relationship-supportive opportunities in shared gaming through facilitating congruence between couples’ joint needs, their play strategies, and game design.