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Being Scared in Games is Needed
zombieinthebackofyourcar writes "The Escapist has done an entire issue on why we love and need horror games. Jon Schnaars, an expert in psychology and mental health issues, writes about how we need to be scared to generate pleasure from the game. From the article: 'Perhaps the most important change made in the game mechanics of RE4 was fixing the camera behind Leon, providing a tight third-person shot through which the player could experience the action. Through this move, Leon has become every protagonist from every horror film ever made. He is the lone survivor; steadily trudging into the dark when all our instincts tell us it's a bad idea. And as the player, it is actually us proceeding into the dark, receiving (when we're not getting beheaded) our genre pleasure.'"
I used to get genuinely, properly scared playing Doom as a 13 year old on my 486 in the 90s. No game since has done it - why? I think the answer is that we're moving the post all the time and we simply take more and more stimuli to scare ourselves - I'm not sure if the current technology is capable of it any more.
I think if a game is able to scare you, that's just a sign that the game has successfully pulled you in. Rather than being an outside observer to the bame, you become the character. I still remember play Half-Life for the first time, after a long battle with soldiers on the cliff-side, and climbing the ladder into the last tube only to have the crap scared out of me by a sudden, jumping head-crab. That fright is part of the reason I knew Half-Life was a great game...I wasn't playing as Gordon Freeman, I was Gordon Freeman.
It has tense moments in it, but it's certainly more of a thriller than a horror game. If you want to play a disturbing video game, try Fatal Frame 1, Fatal Frame 2 or Resident Evil 4.
And for God's sake turn off the light, otherwise it's like watching The Grudge during the day with the light streaming onto the TV screen.
Summation 2
I disagree also, but for different reasoning. I hate scary things, games, movies, rollercoasters.. anything that scares me I hate and try to stay away from. I dont want it, need it, or care for it, and would be perfectly happy if I was never scared.
And no amount or research by anybody can change that, and I doubt I'm alone.
023AD01("Child", "Evil");
...are increasingly hard to find. Honestly, Ravenholm in HL2 was good, had some good zombie action, but was really the only 'scary' part of the game. HL1 actually had more parts to it that I would consider 'scary,' if only for the general feel of the game being different (survival vs. liberation from oppressors).
Doom 3 got its 'scary' value out of the monster/zombie closets, though a few areas had some good 'n 'scary parts. Remember the imps crawling across the walls, or the shadows that made you think something was around the corner? Unfortunately, the game relied mostly upon the fact that it was a pitch black game, and the gameplay was somewhat lacking. (Don't mod down, its just my opinion.)
The last game that I actually played that had a true 'scare factor' to it throughout the whole game, probably in part due to the survival aspect, would be System Shock 2. Unfortunately, the odds of a sequel, let alone a good sequel, are slim to none.
Honestly, some games do need to have a 'fear' element to them in order to be good. The almost over-used FPS sci-fi genre must have the fear of fighting for your life against whatever badguys are thrown your way.
Different things scare different people. My sister is terrified of zombies, yet I look forward to the day that the dead will walk the earth. I prefer a more psychological type of game (eg. Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of the Earth, though I'm a Cthulhu fan anyways). At any rate, I love FPS's, but fear is a good part, if not necessary, at least in order to get the good ole adrenaline flowing (if the four bottles of Bawls didn't do it already).
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
I remember Inky charging down the corridor after me, his hot ghost/monster breath on my neck. In the distance was the glow of the power pill, promising heavenly salvation. Nearly there. Nearly there. Only have to get past this last, dark side-corridor... Clyde, nooooo!
Hell, the horror of just thinking about it now makes me want to shrivel up and die.
If a game can draw any emotion out of you, then it is doing something right. Games are like stories - if they don't make you think, or love, or hate, or fear, or SOMETHING then they are just dumbing you down by staring at pretty pixels.
When Doom 3 came out, I upgraded my video card, setup my 5.1 sound system, and dimmed the theater lights. My friends would gather round as I played. People would fidget, jump, dodge, and squeal as things jumped out at them. The game was truly emotional for the people playing and watching. Now THAT is entertainment.
I had a similar experience with Shadow of the Colossus and Half-Life 2. Shadow made you hate what you were doing to those beautiful creatures. Half-Life 2 made you feel like you were in 1984 (the book, not the year!).
The biggest problem is getting enoug content without making the game repetitive. Shadow and Doom 3 both had this problem. But overall, making a provocative interactive story is difficult to do, but it is definitely a winning formula.
7th Guest and 11th Hour.
... they all drew me in. I think a big part of the pleasure is seeing how tough you are. You want to keep watching until the next scary part and see if you'll still jump or wince.
I played those for hours on end and kept getting drawn back in by the story and fear and wanting to know what was next.
I grew up a horror-loving kid - watching all the B flicks with my friend in our dark basements. IT, The People Under the Stairs, Wax Museum, House, all the Nightmare's that plagued Elm Street
A game that can draw you in like that is even better. You want to keep playing to test your limits, see if you can handle it. Then you can go brag to your friends about beating "the scariest game ever," and show it to the girls and have them curling up against you. Maybe that's more with movies. But you know what I mean.
I love being scared. I can't get enough of it. I think it's true that people are a little too sensitive and understimulated in general, so maybe a good scream is what some people need.
What?
Let me just come out and state what you're trying to say: The article is full of it.
Horror is not necessary to a video game and more than it's necessary to Chess. A video game is about a goal that you wish to acheive. Generally, obtaining the goal should imply some sort of challenge, otherwise there would be little point.
Now if one dives into the challenge portion of video games, one does realize that these challenges do cause stress. Usually we're talking about a raised heartrate, higher state of alertness, and concentration. But it can also mean fear, angst, and concern. It all depends on the type of game, and the goal that the player wishes to achieve.
If horror games are do it for you, is there any surprise that the player will expect to be scared out of the wits? But where's the fear in Super Mario Bros? Or Tetris? Wing Commander? Honestly, there's none to speak of. In the case of Wing Commander, the fantasy aspect of becoming a star fighter pilot is the overriding aspect that makes the challenge interesting. All these games are interesting without any hint of fear. Humans need to be stressed, but different people have different stress needs. Recognizing that when creating a game can help a designer make it much more accessable to the target audience.
In short, beware of the pop psychologists.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Kids these days. All their fancy electronics. Missed out on the great, imagination-driven, adventures.
Here.
End the FUD
Fear doesn't have to come from zombies. If you are running for a touch down and no one is near you, it's not exciting. If someone is gaining on you and you fear you are going to be tackled before you get to the line, but make it, the pleasure it many times better. More fear means more pleasure, even in sports games.
I remember playing Ultima Underworld "The Stygian Abyss" on my old 486DX with an early Soundblaster back in 1989 or 1990 (whenever it was). Possibly the first ever first-person game it had creepy shadows and scary music. That one was so great because of the atmosphere, it was edge of seat stuff.
Then later Ultima Online was scary because dying actually cost you something. I agree with the article. If a game can scare you then so much the better.
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The article isn't really full of it... because the article doesn't say what the synopsis seems to think it does. I read the article, and it basically is a academic analysis of Resident Evil 4, and why it works as a horror game. No mention anywhere that I saw of every game needing horror, or even that every gamer needs horror games. It's simply an analysis of RE4 as a part of the horror genre, with some information about the genre.
Horror is not necessary to a video game and more than it's necessary to Chess.
Horror as a genre is not needed unless you like that, but fear is.
I could think of a high emotion chess champion game in which you fear loosing in front of thousands of people for example or perhaps a chess game where you have your house or family lives on the line or if you loose that atomic weapons will be unleashed on your nation. Ok... That is a bit extreme. Lets just say you play a game of virtual chess for 1,000,000 of your gold pieces in World of War craft.
Well... Depending on how much you value your virtual gold, you will be sweating it and seriously thinking about each piece you move. Fear is the main reason behind gambling. It makes the game serious and ups the stakes.
Take if like this... Back in the good old days of Ultima Online, I would be dungeon crawling and then a player killer shows up. Now I could run or fight or I could die and loose my things...
Since I know dying will set me back a bit and make me try a frantic run for my gear and loot after I get rezzed, I have to weigh in my options to whether or not running or fighting will be fun.
And if I do run how much of a chance of actually making it out of the dungeon alive?
Of course throughout the years of playing UO there are plenty of times where I have fought and won, ran away, and sometimes died and had my things taken from me.
But the heat of the battle and the knowledge all my loot was on the line was exciting much more so than say fighting an AI monster who I knew I could simply walk away from if I lost too much health.
Also this applies to FPS games... Everyone was used to the Quake system in which you died and then you instantly respawned without much fear of dying.
However, when Counter-Strike came along you actually got scared of dying because not only did you loose the weapons you saved up money for buying, but you had to sit the rest of the round out until one side one.
That is the best formula for playing any game that is for those who want to fill that "gambler's buzz". The player must have some type of risk in where if they loose they will be punished and loose whatever they had previously worked on.
Personally, as comforting as save games and not loosing your items in MMOGs, a player must face some type of punishment for loosing.
There must be some fear of loosing otherwise we will get bored of a game like it had god mode turned on.
But I would also like to point out if that punishment for loosing is too great, then the game gets pretty tedious pretty fast (otherwise known as loosing over 15 hours worth of leveling when you die at level 59 in EQ arrrrgh!!!!)
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
Fear of falling in a pit, getting hit by a fireball, stomped, fried, or otherwise getting killed.
One thing that has turned me off to modern games (as opposed to the old-school ones) is that "dying" has no meaning. With virtually continual savepoints and infinite lives, "dying" usually means nothing more than a 30-second setback nowadays. Therefore, I don't feel any excitement, because it really doesn't matter - completely the opposite to the experience of having one life left as you enter level 8-4.
The main point of the article was that the identificaion of a game or movie as fitting within a particular genre informs the player and explains in-game/movie actions, such as the example of the lone female character insisting on going alone into those dark woods when 2 of her friends have just been murdered by some knife wielding lunatic, or why infantry in RTS games love standing near explosive barrels and enemies in FPS games generally can't shoot for shit.
/. and reinterpreted the whole article as being about horror?
The article takes the horror genre and R.Evil 4 as a good example of ways in which identifying with a particular genre informs and explains actions taken on-screen, and really actually saves the storytellers and the viewer some legwork in understanding the character's compulsion to go it alone. In this way, games tend to benefit from this genrefication and this is the point the article indends to make; games need (or benefit greatly from) belonging to a genre.
What idiot posted this to
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