{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,14]],"date-time":"2026-07-14T13:16:42Z","timestamp":1784035002031,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":57,"publisher":"MDPI AG","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,1]],"date-time":"2025-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1751328000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"Horizontal Research Project of Xi\u2019an Jiaotong University","award":["HX2024187"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["HX2024187"]}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Systems"],"abstract":"<jats:p>The accelerating pace of digital life has intensified psychological strain, increasing the demand for accessible and systematized emotional support tools. Relaxing video games\u2014defined as low-pressure, non-competitive games designed to promote calm and emotional relief\u2014offer immersive environments that facilitate affective engagement and sustained user involvement. This study proposes a computational framework that integrates sentiment analysis and topic modeling to investigate the affective mechanisms and behavioral dynamics associated with relaxing gameplay. We analyzed nearly 60,000 user reviews from the Steam platform in both English and Chinese, employing a hybrid methodology that combines sentiment classification, dual-stage Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA), and multi-label mechanism tagging. Emotional relief emerged as the dominant sentiment (62.8%), whereas anxiety was less prevalent (10.4%). Topic modeling revealed key affective dimensions such as pastoral immersion and cozy routine. Regression analysis demonstrated that mechanisms like emotional relief (\u03b2 = 0.0461, p = 0.001) and escapism (\u03b2 = 0.1820, p &lt; 0.001) were significant predictors of longer playtime, while Anxiety Expression lost statistical significance (p = 0.124) when contextual controls were added. The findings highlight the potential of relaxing video games as scalable emotional regulation tools and demonstrate how sentiment- and topic-driven modeling can support system-level understanding of affective user behavior. This research contributes to affective computing, digital mental health, and the design of emotionally aware interactive systems.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.3390\/systems13070540","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,1]],"date-time":"2025-07-01T10:45:08Z","timestamp":1751366708000},"page":"540","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.3390\/mdpi_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":3,"title":["Modeling Affective Mechanisms in Relaxing Video Games: Sentiment and Topic Analysis of User Reviews"],"prefix":"10.3390","volume":"13","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0005-8499-6603","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Yuxin","family":"Xing","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Humanities and Social Science, Xi\u2019an Jiaotong University, 28 Xianning West Road, Xi\u2019an 710049, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Wenbao","family":"Ma","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Humanities and Social Science, Xi\u2019an Jiaotong University, 28 Xianning West Road, Xi\u2019an 710049, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0001-8892-267X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Qiang","family":"You","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"College of Design and Engineering, National University of Singapore, 3 Engineering Drive 2, Singapore 117578, Singapore"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Jiaxing","family":"Li","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"School of Humanities and Social Science, Xi\u2019an Jiaotong University, 28 Xianning West Road, Xi\u2019an 710049, China"}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1968","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2025,7,1]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref_1","unstructured":"Rosa, H. 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