Emotion as Interface: A Self-Determination Theory Framework for Gamified Digital Fashion Engagement

Abstract

Digital fashion is evolving from a visual novelty into an infrastructure for consumer engagement, yet research and industry practice remain dominated by technology- and attribute-centric perspectives that explain what digital fashion is rather than why consumers emotionally commit to it. Drawing on self-determination theory and recent advances in fashion-technology consumer research, this conceptual paper develops the Emotion-Driven Gamified Digital Fashion (EDGDF) framework, which positions culturally grounded emotional narrative as a design antecedent of psychological need fulfilment, engagement, and digital fashion adoption. The framework is illustrated through three landmark cases — Sky: Children of the Light, Papergames' Nikki dress-up franchise, and Animal Crossing: New Horizons — whose documented emotional design pipelines, stage-based identity models, and wearable digital assets exemplify the framework's mechanisms at global scale. Five propositions specify how emotional narrative depth, gamified interaction, stage-based personalisation, and cultural grounding shape the fulfilment of autonomy, competence, and relatedness, thereby driving engagement, digital fashion adoption, and the perceived value of emotional digital assets. The paper contributes an emotion-centric extension of self-determination-based fashion-technology research, derives managerial implications for fashion brands and game-industry collaborations, and discusses how emotion-driven design travels across cultural origins, including the global rise of Chinese-originated digital fashion worlds.