An In-Depth Psychology of Games

Gamasutra has a lengthy article discussing many aspects of The Psychology of Video Games. The article discusses why we play, why games are made the way they are, and tips for designing for members of our species. From the article: "We are all familiar with the feeling we have when we are completely caught up in a great game. The state where we are completely focused on playing, and all other things become irrelevant. This article is about that feeling - why we get it when we play games, and how we can design games that give us more of it."

Comments

I 3 Maslow's Hierarchy

[bersl2]

Honestly, probably too much.

Dynamic adjustments

[dmaduram]

Most of the points in this article has been made at one time or another in various industry articles or editorials on Gamespot. However, they really *original* point that this article makes is it's final note on the importance of 'dynamic adjustments' to the difficulty of games:

A good example of this is the first time I played Quake 3. I had never played it before and decided to set up a quick death match game with just one AI-bot against me. I chose the intermediate level of difficulty, and the rules where that the first one with twenty frags would win. The game started and the AI-bot started killing me over and over again. I tried to find better weapons and figure out new tactics, but it didn't do much to help me. After a few minutes, the score was 17-0 to the AI-bot, but at that point I was beginning to see some improvements in my skills. A few seconds later I became completely ecstatic as I got my first frag. It was payback time! After that the frags just kept rolling in - I was killing him over and over again, and I felt like the hero of a movie that rose against the evil dictator in the last act. Soon the score had turned to 19-19 and it was very exciting. I finally got the last kill and won the game, which was an incredible climax. It was astonishing how I was able to improve my skills so fast, and turn the tide so that I managed to beat him in the end. What an accomplishment on my behalf!

But as you may have guessed by now, all was not what it seemed. I decided to test the AI system to see if there was any built in functionality to modify their behavior after the player. I let the AI-bot kill me 17 times in a row without fighting back, and that's when I realized that the more times I was killed, the less accurate their firing became. After 19 kills, my once worthy opponent was merely a half-wit that mostly seemed to enjoy standing still and staring into walls. It had not been my skills that had improved in my first game, but instead the AI-bot's skills that had deteriorated. I had just been too caught up in the moment to realize it. However, this experience made me realize what an extremely powerful tool this was. The game would never have been as fun for me without it, and I'm sure that many games would be more fun with it included.

Many, many games hit all the points mentioned in Hejdenberg's article (i.e. imitation, game width, etc.), but fail to be 'fun' solely because of the lack of dynamic adjustments to difficulty.

Perfect case in point: Devil May Cry 3

Re:Dynamic adjustments

[cgenman]

Pretty much everyone who makes games underestimates the difficulty it will cause the player. Ironically, the players themselves frequently do the same, as no person in their right mind would recommend starting a hobby of Quake 3 by playing intermediate. You should start pretty much every game on dirt easy and work your way up. This is especially true in Quake 3 or any tournament style game, where player skill is not ranked in hours played but in months.

Games should have 4 difficulty levels, "Normal," "Hard," "Crushing," and "Insane." At least that way people would start on a difficulty level actually appropriate to them.

And there have been articles on dynamic difficulty adjustment before. The last rediscovery I remember was around the time Naughty Dog created Crash Bandicoot (which featured a similar system), but that was by no means the first. Unfortunately, not all systems degrade elegantly like that. AI is a perfect example of something that will, but if the challenge is based around static geometry or pre-set patterns elegant downgrading is very authoring-intensive.

Old news.

[OglinTatas]

"This article is about that feeling - why we get it when we play games, and how we can design games that give us more of it."

In 1803 Friedrich Sertuerner identified the active ingredient in opium and synthesized morphine. I play video games way too much, and my nephews play even more. Do we really need to make them more addictive?