Body and Brains of Gamers Probed

ElvenMonkey writes "The BBC News is reporting about researchers at the University of Hull who are performing what they call the first scientific research into what actually happens when you play computer games, using a method called 'mood testing' (previously used on athletes.) Hardly surprisingly results so far show that we don't like losing, and that gaming puts you into an altered state. I can see it now.. computer games, the next designer drug."

Comments

Best Slashdot Story Tittle

[Anonymous Coward]

EVER!!

Re:Best Slashdot Story Tittle

[Anonymous Coward]

Yuo misspeled 'EVAR'!!!!!1111

Re:Best Slashdot Story Tittle

[wbtittle]

HEY! I made a headline.

Tittle: An insignificant speck as in the dot above an i.

Probing?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure I'd want to probe the bodies of computer gamers. Some of those players aren't in the best shape or display the best higiene

What??

[bucket74]

WTF? The article mentions nothing about bleeding eyes?!

gaming as a drug

[Anonymous Coward]

Gaming, the next drug? Hardly.

But doing drugs WHILE gaming? Thats never going to go out of style.

Re:gaming as a drug

[javaxman]

It's not the *next* drug, it's the *current* drug.

Re:gaming as a drug

[Bricklets]

Dude, it's not a drug. In fact, it sounds an awful lot like an athlete getting into the "zone." Nothing new here. I've heard this before, except that study was done on some Virtua Fighter professional player. Something about an increase of alpha waves or the sort.

Re:gaming as a drug

[KDan]

Tell that to those people who come out of planet evercrack after having lost 2 years of their life to a complete fantasy. For those who have read Red Dwarf, the "Better Than Life" volume, doesn't it seem obvious that games - especially the graphical MUD (ok, call it MMORGP if you feel like twisting your tongue) type - are heading straight that way? Considering the social symptoms that these games are already having in Asia, I don't think it's far fetched at all to imagine that within the next decade certain types of games will start to be treated like controlled substances.

Daniel

Re:gaming as a drug

[PacoTaco]

Tell that to those people who come out of planet evercrack after having lost 2 years of their life to a complete fantasy.

What losers. Think of all the great television programs they're missing.

Re:gaming as a drug

[gurkha711]

This is what the psychologist Csikszentmihalyi (1993) refers to as "the state of flow"; when this happens, you find a number of clear characteristics of the experience:

1. Clear goals: an objective is distinctly defined; immediate feedback: one knows instantly how well one is doing.
2. The opportunities for acting decisively are relatively high, and they are matched by one's perceived ability to act. In other words, personal skills are well suited to given challenges.
3. Action and awareness merge; one-pointedness of mind.
4. Concentration on the task at hand; irrelevant stimuli disappear from consciousness, worries and concerns are temporarily suspended.
5. A sense of potential control.
6. Loss of self-consciousness, transcendence of ego boundaries, a sense of growth and of being part of some greater entity.
7. Altered sense of time, which usually seems to pass faster.
8. Experience becomes autotelic: If several of the previous conditions are present, what one does becomes autotelic, or worth doing for its own sake. (Csikszentmihalyi, 1993, p.178-9)

The fact that you still retain many of the details in your memory marks this as a significant event, which validates both the article and Csikszentmihalyi's hypothesis.

-------

Csikszentmihalyi, M.(1993) The evolving self. New York: HarperCollins

Gamers probed....

[djfray]

This time they don't have to pay that girl on the corner of fifth and broad in camden!

Mother's Opinion

[enforcer999]

Well, I am glad that they finally figured out what most of us mother's have known for a long time. Have you ever tried to talk to your kid when they are playing a game? Or, have you ever heard a group of boys ages 11-14 play Halo? Yikes!!

Re:Mother's Opinion

[Chewie]

Or, have you ever heard a group of boys ages 11-14 play Halo? Yikes!!

My friends and I (all 26-28) routinely play Mario Kart Double Dash, and get *way* into it. So much so that a) little kids don't want to play with us because we "race too mean", and b) I've used a *lot* of language I wouldn't want my mother to hear me use. We are extremely competitive, and social pecking order is somewhat determined by video game prowess.

We're such nerds.

Re:Mother's Opinion

[marshmeli]

nevermind a group of boys ages 11-14...

all my friends at college would carry their big 21 inch TV 2 blocks away to another friends house and play 8 person halo... nevermind the times we tried to have a party while they where playing...

any age of guys (and some girls) got into another state when playing...

Re:Mother's Opinion

[Moonshadow]

Heh. You think Double Dash is bad? Try four-player Legend of Zelda: Four Swords. That game can turn even the most kind-hearted friends into enemies out for your blood. The sorts of language I've observed in theoretically cooperative games would make a sailor blush.

Re:Mother's Opinion

[Paleomacus]

Why is that?

I would guess that it's the same reason people talk dirty during sex.

I will let the reader reconstruct the train of thought that brought me to that conclusion.

Re:Mother's Opinion

[rowanxmas]

yeah, I am the undispputed master of warcraft3, Halo and Kart in my peer group... strangely it does not help my standing on the social pecking order.

Splash screens

[Zorilla]

I'd like to see the brain readings when a console game gets started up. Nothing like seven unskippable splash screens in a row to really affect the enjoyment of a game.

Re:Splash screens

[LoudMusic]

I'd like to see the brain readings when a console game gets started up. Nothing like seven unskippable splash screens in a row to really affect the enjoyment of a game.

No doubt. I bet scientifically that is the most unenjoyable part of the gaming experience. I'd rather lose a game that have to sit through the splash screen sequence of most games.

Drugs are bad, mmkay?

[ActionJesus]

>>computer games, the next designer drug

Just as well computer games arent addictive.
*cough evercrack cough*

In summary:

[Anonymous Coward]

Body: fatter
Brain cells: fewer
Skin tone: paler
Wallet: less money
English skills: worse

Re:In summary:

[SlowMovingTarget]

What? You lost me after "cells." Oh, look... shiny ad banner...

So this research proves...

[ahsile]

Based on this, the researchers have hypothesised so far that the psycho-physiological impacts are similar to physical sports.

That if we have more games like Dance Dance Revolution, or VR games where we move... we'll be healthier on the whole?

computer games, the next designer drug...

[Anonymous Coward]

"computer games, the next designer drug"

not that far fetched considering they let burn victims play video games because it helps distract them from the pain.

Video games are a terific distraction from a lot of things.

Interesting, but nothing really new

[Second_Infinity]

How many of you have been immersed in a game of [whateverFPSyouPlay] and someone walks by and says something to you. You respond 2 minutes later, not realizing that much time had passed. Obviously an altered state of mind (or reality at that point). Show us something REALLY interesting, like how much fat is burned during an intense 5 hours of counterstrike. Show us if we have to worry about high bloodpressure from the games (disregarding inactivity and weight problems in the study).

Re:Interesting, but nothing really new

[Chi Hsuan Men]

I think the altered state of mind would be the most interesting part of the entire study. After all, I don't play video games to burn fat and calories.

Getting into "the zone" is something atheletes and researches have been curious for decades. Easter cultures have been interested in it for much, much longer. The Japanese call it "mushin" or "no mind", that is, the body and mind acting in perfect harmony together, so no error can be committed. Michael Jordan has often spoken about being in the zone. Tiger Woods has been there often. Perhaps the most recent athlete I have seen the zone? Carlos Arroyo on the Cuban Olympic team against the U.S. in Athens. He couldn't miss.

The only problem is, no one really knows how to get there. Meditation is one way to do it, and is the preferred was of practicing to get there. Sitting very still and not thinking of anything is a very difficult chore, hence why katas were developed (the element of exercise combined with moving meditation).

I think studying gamers' brain activity while they play is one way to figure out how to get into "the zone". After all, there is minimal motion involved and most of the effort is exerted by the mind.

Re:Interesting, but nothing really new

[aardwolf204]

"The Zone" is a wonderful place to be, and you can find yourself there doing anything from reading, to running, to coding, or gaming. However, once you realize your in the zone you are more connected to reality and the zone may suffer, IMO. Its interesting to draw analogies to lucid dreaming, when you realize your dreaming and can do anything you wait in your dream (except read a book, but who wants to do that in a dream?). But its not the case for being in the zone.

When I find myself in the zone I try to quickly forget it and focus on the task at hand, whether it be gaming or coding. There is nothing more upsetting then playing a game and being in the zone only to have someone interupt you, and if you lash out they have no idea what your talking about because to them you were just sitting there playing a game. very annoying. I also find that if I *try* to get into the zone I'm unsuccessful. Its something that must naturally happen.

Moral of the story: Try not to realize you are in the zone when you are, but thats like trying not to picture a penguin drinking lemonaid. (Gotchya!)

Games?

[Pan T. Hose]

Frankly, I don't really care what actually happens when I play computer games, since games are mostly for children. Real, adult men, especially those of high IQ, seem to be addicted to Wikipedia much more often than to games. What I would really like to know is what actually happens when I keep clicking Special:Randompage all day. Sorry, gotta go now!

What will those wacky scientists discover next?

[deacon]

Next week, "scientists" discover that:

Sex feels good! (Readers here will have to take my word for it)

What is after that?

Chocolate is addictive?

Feh.

Re:What will those wacky scientists discover next?

[out_of_ideas]

comeon how cud you possibly know that

TV, of course.

yikes!

[Guano_Jim]

method called 'mood testing'

After the title incuding the word "probe" I read this as "wood testing" and was very disturbed.

Re:yikes!

[TopShelf]

Hey, for most gamers, that's probably the best offer they've had in years!

not that I was ever a gamer at all, no, not at all...

ummm

[dotslasher_sri]

umm really boss..playing doom 3 helps me do my job better ..no really..ohh about the explosions in the office i can explain that.

Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Video games already are the best contraceptive on the market.

Re:My Wife often complains

[garcia]

that talking to me while I'm playing is like talking to a robot, or a zombie.

It's called concentration. When I am playing a game seriously I am lost in it. It's the same as a serious athletic event (or even practice). I would be completely blacked out from concentration. If I did happen to be able to discern what was going on around me I had lost concentration to the point of losing my edge in the competition.

Just because video games don't carry the same social weight as athletics doesn't mean your mind/body don't treat them the same way.

Correlation vs. Causation

[webword]

"Scientific testing of physiological and psychological responses, or "mood profiling", could help developers robustly plan which games will be hits."

While I believe this is very interesting I have a hard time understanding how they are going to map mood to design. Some people might be in the zone and very angry at the same time. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Furthermore, this smacks of correlation only, not causation. Determining mood is like checking your horoscope: you might get correlation but is there really causation? Put another way, can you really reverse engineer a mood to figure out what characteristics of a game will be useful for other future games, and in turn, expect success? The causal chain is weak, if you ask me...

Goes beyond that

[Ra5pu7in]

The altered state can last beyond the time playing the game. There have been times when I have played a game like Tetris (wonderfully addictive) for long hours on end. After turning it off and going about other activities, I find myself trying to fit thoughts into place - turning them this way and that. It's the "Gaming Zone" in which things are done almost without conscious thought.

One thing that makes this more obvious is to take someone who is used to playing alone and talk to them as they try to accomplish the same task in a game. Chatter can bring a gamer out of that altered state and frustrate the living daylights out of them. Unbelievable how hard it is to jump from platform to platform if someone is demanding some of your attention.

Re:Goes beyond that

[B5_geek]

I have another more distrubing situation happen to me.

I have been a Tribes fan since it first came out, and when I was in school after a long night of intensive gaming, my comments and speach were restricted to things like: vgh
(which in Tribes these 3 keys activate a voice command: (V)oice (G)lobal (H)i!

Another simplar situation occurs after long periods of time on IRC. I would goto speak with someone in real-life, and my fingers would move to the imaginary keyboard, and in my minds eye the keys would be in front of me.

I found that both amusing and scary at the same time.

Next(?!!?) Designer Drug?

[i_r_sensitive]

Where has the poster been for the last 25 years or so...

Hell I started with the gateway drug, Space Invaders, and I've never looked back since!

But is this useful for game development?

[CFresquet]

I don't see anywhere in the article where they claim that their results are any better than simply asking the player "Was this game fun to play?"

Said question is already asked of focus groups extensively during development of games.

The methodology the article provides isn't going to provide any better feedback to the developers than the way we already do it -- it just lets them put nice graphs and numbers up that tell us what we already know.

Yes, it is interesting to know that the psychological reactions to playing computer games are similar to the psychological reactions from playing real-world sports, but that doesn't give us a better process for making computer games than we have now.

Add to that the fact that often 75-90% of the game development has to be finished before you really have something playable that could be used for this testing. It is only after the majority of the game is done that user feedback actually becomes useful -- before that what you have is a pile of compiling code that only superficially resembles what the final product will be. Come up with a system that we can use on a game design document BEFORE we spend a year programming to the alpha stage of the game and you will have something useful.

Basically, I get the impression that the people behind the study don't really understand how computer games are actually made.

sex, drugs, and video games.

[sxtxixtxcxh]

if you go by the definition of "drug" as anything that alters your body chemistry nearly everything IS a drug.

it's those with dependency problems that blow things way out of proportion AND attract the most attention. it'd be a sad day if video games start getting regulated like any other drug.

sex is addictive as heroin. yet it's not regulated (yet). the difference being that most normal people (/.ers excluded ;)) participate in it thereby rounding out the bell curve of addiction, where as heroin use is nowhere near as pervasive as sex. it attracts a certain personality and usually someone predisposed to addiction.

it's nearly the same w/video games. they're not the problem, they're the symptom of something larger.

Altered State...

[Universal Nerd]

You know, I have a secret.

I've never had the need to take any drugs, other than booze, because I'm a hardcore gamer. I get such a rush playing that I find myself totally walled off from reality while I'm fragging.

The rush I have is sort of like the one Alex has in "The Clockwork Orange" (the book is a lot deeper into the pleasure he's having but the movie version captures the soul of it, especially the scenes in the hospital bed in the end). I should add that I don't go around beating people up for fun, but I found that Anthony Burgess (and Stanley Kubrick) depicted the rush of pleasure in a way that almost mirrors my own.

Booze only hightens this effect and I don't even need more than a couple beers to sharpen my senses.

Mind you, I'm not a very good gamer and when I'm drunk I suck even more but the rush, OH, THE RUSH!

I confess, FPS games are my drug.

Re:Altered State...

[snuf23]

Oddly enough I've found a couple of drinks improves my game. I know, I know go ahead and call bullshit if you like - but virtually every time I've hit top position in quake 3 or battlefield I've been at least a bit drunk.
I attribute this not to it improving my motor skills in anyway but in that it loosens me up and lets me get absorbed in the game. I find it easier to focus in and kick ass.
I also tend not to get frustrated as easily - I tend to get revenge.

study sponsor

[dfn5]

The sponsor of this study was the same group that determined that in general people do not like being stabbed in the eye.

Maybe, but...

[SimoM]

English skills: worse

The effect can also be the opposite for those who are not native speakers of English.

Re:Maybe, but...

[Espectr0]

The effect can also be the opposite for those who are not native speakers of English.

True. I am venezuelan, and i learned english at a local academy, but there you don't get taught slang, l33t, or other colloquial stuff.

Who said GTA can't teach you anything? I learn from those haitians everyday

Tetris!

[NetNinja]

Tetris altered my mind!

When I look at mass produced cookie cutter houses all I want to do is destroy them with my mind!

Re:My Wife often complains

[SlowMovingTarget]

I am SUPER pissed...

Make sure you've got a clean Frisbee handy

Re:Interesting quote

[Zorilla]

This seems to be a similar state to that of having sex, or so I've read. Could anyone confirm that?

No, I believe none of us can confirm that for you. Sorry.

Mom's an enforcer?

[MachDelta]

Anyone else find it odd that a self-proclaimed mother would use the name "enforcer999" online?

Jeez, maybe that little "M0rpH3uS69" punk I fragged the other day was actually the nice old lady down the street!

Re:Mom's an enforcer?

[Dick Faze]

I think Shaft is all-time greatest self-proclaimed mother.

Funding

[Wind_Walker]

How in the hell do people get funding for this crap?

I mean seriously, how do you get funding? I could use some cash right about now.

bar room brawls

[SuperBanana]

Every Sunday I fire up my Quake2 Xatrix server to play with friends that live local. Afterwards we all meet in a local boozer. WELL! The discussions of the game get really heated

...and then someone slams their pint on the table and yells, "ALRIGHT! That's it. You and me, on the net, right now!"

Drinking and Gaming

[drpentode]

I'd love to see someone do a study on drinking and gaming. I've noticed I'm much better and first person shooters when I've had a few. I suck at racing games after drinking, though.

Excerpt from Counter-Strike match

[shigelojoe]

xXx-juggalo-xXx: fuk!!1 enforcer999 iz a sniper bitch!

enforcer999: Don't swear, Jason! And don't call your mother a bitch!

xXx-juggalo-xXx: wtf mom! you play cf?

enforcer999: That's right, kiddo! And *you* are up past your bed time! Turn off that computer right now!

xXx-juggalo-xXx: fuk!!

enforcer999: pwn3d!

MarioWorld, The Anti-Drug

[Mulletproof]

"Hardly surprisingly results so far show that we don't like losing, and that gaming puts you into an altered state. I can see it now.. computer games, the next designer drug."

What does that say about regular sports then? As much as the media and certain senators harp on about videogame violence, altered states and behaviorial programming, real life sports causes more property damage and more lives lost than any video game ever has on a year to year basis, yet the most you'll see on THAT is a 30 second segment on the news or a Real TV clip. Football riots, eggball (football), Hockey... The home team wins or a bad call is made and boom! You instantly have a million in property damage, 15 dead, and 45 injured... And that's just one of several incidents per year. These are people losing and winning.

Why there even needs to be a study is beyond me... Videogames are pretty sedate compared to that.

Re:Mother's Opinion doesnt matter

[memco]

So now the observation of the individual is useless? It doesn't matter how valid an observation is, only who made it, when, and with what goals in mind? Geez, people have a right to an observation, regardless of status or authority don't they?