earticle

영어

This study investigates the applicability of place attachment theory in digital environments by analyzing Steam user reviews of the narrative game . A total of 6,267 English reviews were collected, and location-related sentences were extracted and classified using BERT-based sentence embeddings. Based on established theoretical frameworks, the sentences were categorized into four components of place attachment: place dependence, affective attachment, place identity, and conative response. The analysis revealed that affective attachment (24.8%) and place identity (24.0%) were most prevalent, indicating strong emotional and identity-based engagement with in-game spaces. In contrast, place dependence and conative responses were less frequent. These findings demonstrate that narrative-driven game environments can evoke place attachment comparable to that formed in physical spaces. This study further supports the methodological potential of combining user-generated text and semantic modeling for analyzing emotional responses to digital places.