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Do Gamers Enjoy Dying in First-Person-Shooters?
Ponca City, We Love You writes "Brandon Erickson has an interesting post about an experiment on players' emotional reactions to killing and being killed in a first-person shooters (FPS) with a group of students who played James Bond 007: Nightfire while their facial expressions and physiological activity were tracked and recorded moment-to-moment via electrodes and various other monitoring equipment. The study found that "death of the player's own character...appear[s] to increase some aspects of positive emotion." The authors believe this may result from the temporary "relief from engagement" brought about by character death. "Part of this has to do with the intriguing aesthetic question of precisely how the first-person-shooter represents the player after the moment of death," says Clive Thompson. "This sudden switch in camera angle — from first person to third person — is, in essence, a classic out-of-body experience, of exactly the sort people describe in near-death experiences. And much like real-life near-death experiences, it tends to suffuse me with a curiously zen-like feeling." An abstract of the original article, "The psychophysiology of James Bond: Phasic emotional responses to violent video game events" is available on the web." Obnoxiously this alleged scholarly research is not available for free, so we'll just have to speculate wildly what it says based on the abstract.
You might enjoy dying in normal games, but imagine if http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1803224/'>this spreads to your local LAN game.
liqbase
I've always preferred servers and games (DoD for example) that provided an instant 'blackout' effect on death.
It always annoyed me to spend a great deal of time moving my character into a unique hiding spot, only to have someone suicide rush me after my position was betrayed by the after-death features that pointed directly to my location.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
Perhaps they enjoy the emotional transaction that takes place at time of death? I enjoy making small bets often and challenging other people to tiny competitions for no reason, simply because of the "Awwww, I lost and you won" transaction that takes place. I don't know if other people feel this, but I know that I do. For small things that don't matter, I am not terribly concerned with winning or losing.
When you loose it makes you the underdog, so your final victory will just be that much more glorius when fate smiles on you once again.
Yea not if it's a fucking spy and my medic just got uber. Nothing zen-like tends to follow that.
The experience of violent death, and the experience of eating kimchi is kinda similar, after all.
I recently started playing Battlefield 2 on the PC again. I had forgotten how many truly skilled people there are that play this game. I was always decent at it, but never great. Still, I can hold my own. I tend to stick to clan servers. Even though I am outclassed by most of the folks I play against, it's almost 100% assured that it will be a mature and hard-fought round.
There are some people who are almost inhuman in their ability to aim with a mouse. This is recognizable depending on the situation I am in...if I get copmletely pwned by someone, I love it. I don't like the fact that I was bested, but it's always great fun seeing talented folks work up close.
Living With a Nerd
I don't know about first person shooters but I must say that in WoW I get a certain satisfaction from dying 'in the name of the cause', like causing an alliance wipe in AV on Galv with a last ditch fear or dropping from the cliff onto the GM to keep the flag from getting capped.
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Dying in the commision of my objective isn't so bad.
Spawn killing and Tking piss me off,M'kay?
Urban Terror Rules!
*Repent!Quit Your Job!Slack Off!The World Ends Tomorrow and You May Die!
You commented. Apparently it provokes discussion.
Only when it is an interesting death, or a particularly cool suicide move - sorta like the teleporter "accidents" in classic Quake/QuakeWorld
Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
I recall the glory days of quake world. There was no feeling like camping in the dark and seeing a quad rocket launcher coming in your direction. You just knew it was over the only thing you could do was pay homage to whichever POS it was who sighted you hung on some rune in a dark corner.
Like when someone sticks me with a plasma grenade, and I chase them down and take them with me. That's satisfying.
For example, spawning on a grendade that kills you about 0.5 seconds after you come back usually elicits the following response: "&%#! you mother #@%!$&, that was bull$&#!"
"Life's short and hard, like a body building elf." -- The Bloodhound Gang
I have a much more simple explanation. Players like it because it means that they're not being ignored. Having "friends" that pay attention to you is a huge plus for geeks.
Nothing's better on the battlefield than that moment of relief before your next respawn. Oh wait...
Because there's an interesting study of psychology here, and finding out how the brain works is one of the most important things that we can do this next century. It's an interesting result because death is usually considered bad in these games, so why would gamers enjoy them? Is it to get a respite from the action? Is it because they feel they've achieved something by their death? Is it because that segment of action is done and they feel the fulfillment of everything that happened that life? There are applications beyond gaming and, honestly, even if it didn't, it's pretty damn interesting.
That was easy.
http://www.digra.org:8080/Plone/dl/db/06278.36196.pdf
(It's an earlier version of the work.)
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
I enjoy dying so much that a few times in college, when dying in a Counter-Strike game, I picked up my monitor and threw it. I was smart enough to throw it on my bed, however. My roommate was kind of scared of me.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
The study needs to listen to the endless stream of obscenities on Xbox Live after a Halo 3 death (me included, unfortunately).
The worst part about Quake was when the shambler pisses on you carpet. Ok, that only happened at my site, in the daily updates that were not too unlike my slashdot journals. Today's has a lunatic attempting murder, if you can believe that.
Whoever did this poor excuse for a study needs to fail whatever course he was taking.
-mcgrew
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
I cuss like a sailor when I die in a game... typically followed by accusations everyone else is cheating.
Imagine that German kid from the youtube video (i'd link if I wasn't at work).. and that's basically me.. except I'm a bit older, not quite a pudgy, speak English.. and only rant for about 10 seconds.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
With a crappy game like 007 Nightfire of course I'd be relieved as well if could take a moment and not have to play this crap.
Perhaps this is true of new players, for whom the change of POV and death animation is new and thus entertaining. For someone used to the game, dying means losing, and most people don't play to lose, thus it doesn't make sense that they would find that enjoyable. When I play FPS games, the period after dying is often spent beating on my keyboard until I respawn, not enjoying an animation sequence I've seen plenty of times before.
Better known as 318230.
When I die in COD 4 while defending an objective, or simply beat out by someone more clever/luckier than I am when running the map, it is fine. Especially if the death is in a last ditch effort against a group of players while defending in Headquarters or Domination.
What gets me angry, cursing and fuming, is dieing pointlessly to helicopters, martyrdom and other elements which detract from skillful play. I also dislike dieing after spawning with my back to someone pointing a gun to my head, or dieing from a grenade that landed right where I was spawning.
So I think it really comes down to what kind of "death" it is.
If you don't vote, you don't matter, so don't waste your time telling me your opinion
I'm not sure I can agree as I have few points for comparison, so a little research is in order. Let me get a warn bath going and a straight blade and I'll get back to you in a bit ... #`%${%&`+'${`%& - NO CARRIER.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
Only the emo ones
Remember kids, with great power comes great opportunity to abuse that power
That's Nightfire. Of course, in a better multiplayer FPS, such as GoldenEye or Perfect Dark, you're stuck inside the character with 'blood' streaming down your screen. (Not forgetting the musical cue!)
The Psychophysiology of James Bond : Phasic Emotional Responses to Violent Video Game Events
By: Niklas Ravaja
Center for Knowledge and Innovation Research, Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
Marko Turpeinen
Helsinki Institute for Information Technology, Helsinki University of Technology, Helsinki, Finland
Timo Saari
Center for Knowledge and Innovation Research, Helsinki School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
Sampsa Puttonen
Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland
Liisa Keltikangas-Järvinen
Department of Psychology, University of Helsinki, Finland
Acknowledgement: This study was supported by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation and European Community NEST project 28765: "The Fun of Gaming: Measuring the Human Experience of Media Enjoyment."
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to: Niklas Ravaja, Center for Knowledge and Innovation Research, Helsinki School of Economics, P.O. Box 1210, FIN-00101, Helsinki, Finland Electronic Mail may be sent to: ravaja@hse.fi.
We know very little about phasic emotional responses elicited by violent video game events, although they might mediate the potential harmful effects of violent games (Ravaja, Saari, Salminen, Laarni, & Kallinen, 2006). Several (although not all) authors have concluded that there is a causal relationship between violent video game play and aggressive behavior, cognitions, and affect (for meta-analyses, see Anderson, 2004; Anderson & Bushman, 2001; for an alternative meta-analysis, see Sherry, 2001). Violent games may elicit not only self-reported aggressive affect (i.e., feelings of anger or hostility) but also anxiety (fear; Anderson & Ford, 1986). An apparent limitation of the studies using self-report to measure emotional responses is that they neglect the fact that different game events may elicit different, even opposing, emotional responses (Ravaja, Saari, Salminen, et al., 2006). Prior studies have also shown that exposure to violent video games increases physiological arousal (e.g., Ballard & Weist, 1996; for a meta-analysis, see Anderson & Bushman, 2001). However, these studies have used tonic measures (e.g., 1-min mean physiological values) that give no information on responses elicited by specific, instantaneous game events.
The present study was designed to examine phasic psychophysiological responses indexing emotional valence and arousal elicited by violent events in the first-person shooter video game "James Bond 007: NightFire." Facial electromyographic (EMG) activity over zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii was used to index positive and negative emotions, respectively (e.g., Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993; Ravaja, 2004a), and orbicularis oculi activity was used to index positively valenced high-arousal emotions (Ravaja, Saari, Kallinen, & Laarni, 2006; Witvliet & Vrana, 1995). Electrodermal activity (EDA) was used as an index of arousal (Ravaja, 2004a). Obviously, violent video games (e.g., first-person shooters) involve at least two different types of events that might elicit differential emotional responses: (a) The player (or player's character) wounds or kills an opponent and (b) the opponent wounds or kills the player's character. Given that wounding or killing an opponent represents a victory and a success in the game (and in a real gun fight), these events might elicit positively valenced arousal as indexed by facial EMG activity and EDA (Hypothesis 1a). However, the deeply ingrained moral code says that injuring or killing another human being is wrong, and symbolic aggression enacted by the player may elicit anxiety (see Anderson & Ford, 1986). Therefore, an alternative hypothesis would be that wounding or killing an opponent would elicit negatively valenced arousal (i.e., anxiety) as indexed by increased EDA and corrugator EMG activity and decreased zygomatic and orbicularis oculi activity (Hypothesis 1b).
Individuals scoring high on the Psychotici
It's better than yet another piece about crazy Microsoft marketing schemes and how the year of Linux on the desktop is coming, not to mention the week-long global warming flamefest and... you get the picture.
"Let's face it, it's a good story. Accuracy would kill it."
I hope they didn't spend a huge amount of money on this research. Unless you're the rankest amateur, your character will probably survive until you get into a fairly impossible situation. So basically, you're 100% focussed, concentrating, fingers going crazy on whatever control mechanism you're using. I almost guarantee the last thing you did as that final bad guy popped up and you couldn't get your sights on him in time was pound on the fire button in a futile attempt to do the impossible. Then, all of a sudden, you're done. You take a deep breath, blink a few times, roll your shoulders, relax all those cramped muscles and maybe reach for your beer.
Wouldn't that pretty much account for whatever readings they're getting? Or, to put it a little less elegantly, "I got your 'intriguing aesthetic question' right here".
I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
Have you ever played a FPS where you're on the clearly better team and you just clobber the other guys for several rounds? For me it gets old real fast and I'll go find a more balanced server. If you're dying, you're at least being challenged. Its motivating and sometimes it gives you a particular opponent to gun for.
Says them. Nothing annoys me more than going on a huge killing streak in TF2 and it getting ruined by a stray Crit Rocket/Frontstab/Being bounced to my death.
I also assume they haven't been locked into spawn by a Demoman. I've had it happen to me and I've done it. Annoying when you are on the receiving end and gratifying when on the giving end. Much like many things in life.
Flamebait? Ouch! It seems the mods have eaten kimchi. Does that to my ass on its way out, too ;).
Mexican is worse though.
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Wow, mods are pretty touchy today.
Well I, for one, had a good laugh at this. Parent can has (+1, Funny)?
stop the presses!
Monstar L
When I take out 20 guys before I finally die :)
:p
That way I can use the voice chat to rub it in their faces after the fact
The price is always right if someone else is paying.
It could also be the joy in finally seeing (or causing) James Bond's demise. He's been around so long, had so many movies and games, you just gotta want him to die at least once. ;)
If you run the same test on roller coaster passengers, I suspect that many might show a similar response at the end of the ride. At that point, you might reflect on your total experience. If you had a good time, you might smile desire to go again. If you're disappointed, your face might sag into a "What? That's it?" expression.
When I played Counter-Strike, I'd be very pleased upon my death if I managed to take down more than two opponents per round. Death is just the end of the ride and getting upset by it every time seems rather childish to me.
I can understand the disappointment from a poor death, though. Fsking AWPs. ^_^
I've been playing online since the original Quake days (and modem-to-modem games like Doom before that) and I've probably logged tens of thousands of hours of FPS gaming. Do I enjoy dying? Generally speaking, no. I'm a competitive player who enjoys playing in online leagues. I don't like losing. Dying == losing.
I also believe that when you've played so much (as I have) that you are, in fact, desensitized from the whole kill/death thing. I don't think of it as "killing" the opposing player, but rather as stopping them from achieving their goal for that match/round.
However, there are many instances where dying is enjoyable or outright hilarious, especially when playing casually with friends. Getting blown up and sent rocketing into the air when you fail to defuse a bomb or getting stabbed by a zombie in games like Zombie Mod can be a fun and enjoyable experience.
The former Walt Disney World attraction, "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride," ended with the car breaking through railroad crossing gates and heading down the railroad tracks, apparently directly toward an oncoming train. In reality, all that is there besides the sound effects is a dazzlingly bright headlight, making it almost impossible to see that you are heading toward a doorway in the black-painted room.
As you emerge after your "collision," the final scene in the ride show numerous devils with tridents.
If Walt Disney, always a good judge of such things, thought that kids would enjoy the virtual experience, not merely of dying, but of being consigned to eternal damnation, it does not seems a far stretch to assume that gamers may enjoy it as well.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
are priceless in our current nanny state.
Sure, everyone prefers winning a game over losing, but as Hunter S. Thompson said, "Learn to enjoy losing." The best example of this in recent memory is Team Fortress 2. I haven't enjoyed a multiplayer FPS since the original Quake, mainly for the reason that everyone is better than me and I didn't enjoy consistently placing third-to-last. I'm really not any better in TF2 but the game is so well balanced, so stylish, and fast-paced that I smile or laugh every single time I'm defeated. It's a pleasure that keeps me playing.
A good game is one that acknowledges that the task you're given is too big for just one guy, but that's all you are. Play in the world and try unconventional tactics. If you fail, fail spectacularly. It's less fun to do so in the real world.
@ -- your liver
I think thats the point. Having the opportunity to angrily smash at the keyboard is a release of the tension from the moments before your death. It would be much less fun if you respawned instantly, and were deprived of that release.
Of course I like dying! Thats why I have holes in my drywall next to my computer and fist shaped indentations on my desk!
Of course I keep coming back for more, so you never know...
I've had times where a buddy killed me in an FPS, or made the last turn in a race by the smallest of margins only to beat me. I'd didn't like being beaten, but I appreciated the skill/move/chance they took in trying to kill me.
I have ruined at least one mouse in Q3A because you have to click for respawn only after one second delay
(clicks before are ignored).
... as study shows that people enjoy dying in the real world. The authors believe this may result from the temporary "relief from engagement" brought about by death. It is temporary relief because soon they are born again as a poor child and 4 years later OLPC hands you a laptop with Quake 3 on it.
I also think, respect and appreciation for the skills of the other players. When I get killed, I sometimes am impressed by the shot or the move that my opponent made. There are some pretty impressive gamers out there, and to witness that first hand can produce positive emotions. "Damn, that was impressive."
That is likely also an emotion experienced and undocumented.
I often taunt my opponents with some ancient Bassui...
...as an added bonus, it tends to confuse them long enough to move into position for a second kill.
Your end which is endless is as a snowflake dissolving in pure air.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Maybe the release just comes from being out of the heat of battle; your stress goes down, your adrenaline flow calms, heart rate decreases, you don't have to worry about dying anymore, because now you're dead, and there's nothing you can do about it until you respawn. At least, that's how it feels for me. I can't ever recall feeling anything metaphysical about watching my guys spatter the walls of DM-Rankin after some asshole with a Flak Cannon blows me apart.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
for good sportsmanship :)
I play CS religiously, and I'd have to say, I've never felt "good" about dying... especially early in the round. Perhaps there can be a correlation between players who enjoyed dying and the amount of time till respawn.
I relate CS to golf. Good fun once you get good at it, but incredibly frustrating for those who lack "good golf clubs" and experience.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
There are advantages to being a university student.
Graphs: http://img245.imageshack.us/img245/6251/emo81114fig1adz7.gif
Table: http://img340.imageshack.us/img340/4416/emo81114tbl1aev4.gif
Abstract
The authors examined emotional valence- and arousal-related phasic psychophysiological responses to different violent events in the first-person shooter video game "James Bond 007: NightFire" among 36 young adults. Event-related changes in zygomaticus major, corrugator supercilii, and orbicularis oculi electromyographic (EMG) activity and skin conductance level (SCL) were recorded, and the participants rated their emotions and the trait psychoticism based on the Psychoticism dimension of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire--Revised, Short Form. Wounding and killing the opponent elicited an increase in SCL and a decrease in zygomatic and orbicularis oculi EMG activity. The decrease in zygomatic and orbicularis oculi activity was less pronounced among high Psychoticism scorers compared with low Psychoticism scorers. The wounding and death of the player's own character (James Bond) elicited an increase in SCL and zygomatic and orbicularis oculi EMG activity and a decrease in corrugator activity. Instead of joy resulting from victory and success, wounding and killing the opponent may elicit high-arousal negative affect (anxiety), with high Psychoticism scorers experiencing less anxiety than low Psychoticism scorers. Although counterintuitive, the wounding and death of the player's own character may increase some aspect of positive emotion.
We know very little about phasic emotional responses elicited by violent video game events, although they might mediate the potential harmful effects of violent games (Ravaja, Saari, Salminen, Laarni, & Kallinen, 2006). Several (although not all) authors have concluded that there is a causal relationship between violent video game play and aggressive behavior, cognitions, and affect (for meta-analyses, see Anderson, 2004; Anderson & Bushman, 2001; for an alternative meta-analysis, see Sherry, 2001). Violent games may elicit not only self-reported aggressive affect (i.e., feelings of anger or hostility) but also anxiety (fear; Anderson & Ford, 1986). An apparent limitation of the studies using self-report to measure emotional responses is that they neglect the fact that different game events may elicit different, even opposing, emotional responses (Ravaja, Saari, Salminen, et al., 2006). Prior studies have also shown that exposure to violent video games increases physiological arousal (e.g., Ballard & Weist, 1996; for a meta-analysis, see Anderson & Bushman, 2001). However, these studies have used tonic measures (e.g., 1-min mean physiological values) that give no information on responses elicited by specific, instantaneous game events.
The present study was designed to examine phasic psychophysiological responses indexing emotional valence and arousal elicited by violent events in the first-person shooter video game "James Bond 007: NightFire." Facial electromyographic (EMG) activity over zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii was used to index positive and negative emotions, respectively (e.g., Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993; Ravaja, 2004a), and orbicularis oculi activity was used to index positively valenced high-arousal emotions (Ravaja, Saari, Kallinen, & Laarni, 2006; Witvliet & Vrana, 1995). Electrodermal activity (EDA) was used as an index of arousal (Ravaja, 2004a). Obviously, violent video games (e.g., first-person shooters) involve at least two different types of events that might elicit differential emotional responses: (a) The player (or player's character) wounds or kills an opponent and (b) the opponent wounds or kills the player's character. Given that wounding or killing an opponent represents a victory and a success in the game (and in a real gun f
...which is that the authors are basing their conclusions on the premise that physiological responses are purely indicative of specific emotional states. This is a position people like Ekman take as well, and it's easily falsified. Russell reviewed the literature around 2000 or so and found that, in fact, emotional displays are at least somewhat socially motivated and don't always equate to specific emotions in a one-to-one fashion (especially in speech). To put it more simply, you may smile because you're happy, but you might also smile because you're being sarcastic, because you're covering up frustration, etc. However, this study rests on the assumption that people only smile because they're happy -- period. (In all fairness, they're not exactly talking about smiling here, but the principle is the same.)
So, sure, if you're willing to accept that premise, then this study is great. If not, it's just another in a long line of studies that suggest, but do not convincingly prove, what emotions can be generated by particular events. Really, this study just again points out how insanely difficult it is to get to a "ground truth" of what emotions people experience.
And yes, I've read the article -- I happen to have electronic access to the journal.
The Freelance Wizard
I don't know about this game, but some FPS games that I've played sometimes give a strategic advantage after death. The user is teleported to another room where he can start fresh and rethink his errors.
What really made those feelings of relief was that every time they died, it was one death closer to not having to play 007:Nightfire anymore.
I think you hit the nail on the head. The gameplay geniuses over at Valve touched on this very concept on their commentary track for Portal.
According to the commentary track, they closely watched the reaction of play testers when they died or otherwise failed. If they laughed as they died, they know they did the right thing. If they swore like a drunk sailor, something may need to be tweaked.
It all boiled down to a matter of perceived fairness. In your case, even though you were bested, you had fun because you knew that, fundamentally, you lost fair and square. However, if you discovered that kid with the unbelievable aim was cheating, I'm guessing you'd find that a lot less fun simply because it wasn't fair.
Same thing goes for puzzle games, single-player games, and MMO's. If the game is fair, you can have fun even if you fail. If the game isn't fair (i.e. the player has almost no chance of succeeding or the difficulty is far far too high), then no amount of playing will make it fun.
The
Absolutely. My bestfriend and I had a great day playing paintball against off-duty marines. We went for the day and just joined up with the group, so all of their team and the rest of our team were marines. Needless to say we both died A LOT that day, but every kill we did get; hell every minute we survived out there against them was immensely gratifying.
You could call the emotion "awe."
if its a single player game, hell no...
if its a multi-player game durring a LAN party.. maybe.. cause it would be a good time to re-fill my glass
if its a demolition derby (Flatout) Hell yeah! cuase it is usually pretty damn entertaining to watch the rerun!
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
Thank goodness our nation's smartest are performing such vital work.
Airplane Photos, Airline News, Planespotting Guides
maybe this study would be more accurate if they chose a game that fps players actually ENJOY playing
You've been twitch gaming for a couple of hours, you're running low on caffeine in your bloodstream, your eyes are gritty, your hands are shaky, and your pulse is up...
Getting killed is disappointing. But it might also be the first time in 30 minutes you can unclench your sphincter and take a deep breath, maybe lean back in your chair while the respawn counter ticks down.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
No, I didn't read the article, so I don't know what kind of controls they used or the setting or anything like that. And I don't play FPSers so I may be off base here, but I do know that when I'm playing a game with people in the room, I'll try to take something like death or failure in stride, at least the first few times. If I'm by myself and I fail I'll get very frustrated, but when someone's around I'm more likely to be embarrassed or see the funny side of it. Obviously the test subjects knew researchers (read: authority figures) were watching their faces and taking notes. If my boss watched me get beaten in a game, would I throw a fit, or give him an embarrassed smile? And when I give him that smile, I'm sure he'd think I'm having a great time.
THE PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGY OF JAMES BOND: PHASIC EMOTIONAL RESPONSES TO VIOLENT VIDEO GAME EVENTS
DOI: 10.1037/1528-3542.8.1.114
ISSN: 1528-3542
Accession: 00130470-200802000-00011
Authors: Ravaja, Niklas; Turpeinen, Marko; Saari, Timo; Puttonen, Sampsa; Keltikangas-Jarvinen, Liisa
Publication: Emotion Volume 8, February 2008, p 114-120
Abstract
The authors examined emotional valence- and arousal-related phasic psychophysiological responses to different violent events in the first-person shooter video game "James Bond 007: NightFire" among 36 young adults. Event-related changes in zygomaticus major, corrugator supercilii, and orbicularis oculi electromyographic (EMG) activity and skin conductance level (SCL) were recorded, and the participants rated their emotions and the trait psychoticism based on the Psychoticism dimension of the Eysenck Personality Questionnaire-Revised, Short Form. Wounding and killing the opponent elicited an increase in SCL and a decrease in zygomatic and orbicularis oculi EMG activity. The decrease in zygomatic and orbicularis oculi activity was less pronounced among high Psychoticism scorers compared with low Psychoticism scorers. The wounding and death of the players own character (James Bond) elicited an increase in SCL and zygomatic and orbicularis oculi EMG activity and a decrease in corrugator activity. Instead of joy resulting from victory and success, wounding and killing the opponent may elicit high-arousal negative affect (anxiety), with high Psychoticism scorers experiencing less anxiety than low Psychoticism scorers. Although counterintuitive, the wounding and death of the players own character may increase some aspect of positive emotion.
-----
We know very little about phasic emotional responses elicited by violent video game events, although they might mediate the potential harmful effects of violent games (Ravaja, Saari, Salminen, Laarni, & Kallinen, 2006). Several (although not all) authors have concluded that there is a causal relationship between violent video game play and aggressive behavior, cognitions, and affect (for meta-analyses, see Anderson, 2004; Anderson & Bushman, 2001; for an alternative meta-analysis, see Sherry, 2001). Violent games may elicit not only self-reported aggressive affect (i.e., feelings of anger or hostility) but also anxiety (fear; Anderson & Ford, 1986). An apparent limitation of the studies using self-report to measure emotional responses is that they neglect the fact that different game events may elicit different, even opposing, emotional responses (Ravaja, Saari, Salminen, et al., 2006). Prior studies have also shown that exposure to violent video games increases physiological arousal (e.g., Ballard & Weist, 1996; for a meta-analysis, see Anderson & Bushman, 2001). However, these studies have used tonic measures (e.g., 1-min mean physiological values) that give no information on responses elicited by specific, instantaneous game events.
The present study was designed to examine phasic psychophysiological responses indexing emotional valence and arousal elicited by violent events in the first-person shooter video game "James Bond 007: NightFire." Facial electromyographic (EMG) activity over zygomaticus major and corrugator supercilii was used to index positive and negative emotions, respectively (e.g., Lang, Greenwald, Bradley, & Hamm, 1993; Ravaja, 2004a), and orbicularis oculi activity was used to index positively valenced high-arousal emotions (Ravaja, Saari, Kallinen, & Laarni, 2006; Witvliet & Vrana, 1995). Electrodermal activity (EDA) was used as an index of arousal (Ravaja, 2004a). Obviously, violent video games (e.g., first-person shooters) involve at least two different types of events that might elicit differential emotional responses: (a) The player (or players character) wounds or kills an opponent and (b) the opponent wounds or kills the players character. Given that wounding or killing an opponent represen
This is South Korea's Mohammed.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
because I sure do it a lot....oh wait, no, I just suck.
Death can be funny. This is demonstrated in movies and games all the time. Unfortunately, it is permanent IRL. Some games even capitalize on this by making death the main part of the game. Worms Armageddon, for example. Death was constant and funny.
I used to play the original Quake, and I was so bad it was ridiculous. Custom levels with pits became a constant source of problem. The funniest events where when you got 200 health + 200 armor + regeneration, and you are buffeted about by multiple rockets only to fall to your death in the lava. Those moments had me ROLFMAO because it was just so absurd and unlikely.
Right. I think it also gives a little bit of satisfaction to feel that you're playing against a worthy opponent. Part of the fun of a FPS is the constant feeling of danger. If you never get killed, you don't feel threatened at all, and it's just target practice. Getting killed affirms that the competition is real, and increases your resolve to fight harder or smarter.
I for one do not like dying in FPS games. If I do die I would rather die taking somebody down with me. The FPS game I play is BF2. Being bombed or C4 bombed by jeep or plain C4 in itself really gets me upset. Being killed by the chopper TV rocket or running over mines get me angry but less so. I think LAG just gets me real upset. I can say that I am not always angered by dying in the game. It largely depends on my mood prior to playing. I play the best when I can keep my cool and think clearly and of course have no LAG.
Your health is at 100, your clip is full, and the guy who snuffed you is not too far away. What's there to be negative about dying?
May the source be with you.
Its apparent to me they didn't gauge the emotions those being spawn killed repeatdly.
I classify death reactions in three categories: 1.) Pissed off because I'm too involved in the game to take it light-heartedly 2.) Humorous because I am not taking it seriously and get killed in a humorous way (ie 13 sticky grenades in Halo) 3.) Relief from the above mentioned reason of "relief from engagement" ("Finally, I'm dead. That was intense.")
it seems to me that the psyche knows the difference between phases of a video game and actually facing mortality. I find it hard to believe that "video game death" can in any way be related to real world psychological patterns surrounding death - for one, there are actually no consequences in the video game world, thus no real fear nor moral struggle.
Nightfire? Why?
Thank for asking. First of all, those guys getting killed are *definitely* not Ninjas. The odds of a Ninja getting killed in a FPS are like the odds of a movie based on a popular video game not sucking.
So do these definitely-non-Ninjas enjoy getting killed? Only if they're not getting killed by a Ninja. If you get killed by a Ninja, you don't have *time* to enjoy it.
Next question!
Dying doesn't bring joy to gamers. Never did, never will. No real FPS gamer wants to die. The only reason any sort of "positive" reaction comes when a gamer dies is because they had a good round and felt like death should have come a while before they died. So its positive to think "I should have died a long time ago, but i kept going out of luck/skillZ" If a gamer dies over and over because his opponent gets lucky, any real gamer is not going to be happy.
I don't mind when it happens if I'm out of good ammo. Much easier to die and get all your M16 bullets back than run around with a pistol.
I could list my qualification (starting with Quake) but trust that I am a veteran of FPS games. (In fact, my alias comes from a game of Counterstrike where I was accused of camping, and I responded voice "I'm so terrified, I'm frozen in fear and can't move." and that's what the team called me for the rest of the night." And I absolutely, 100% do NOT enjoy dying in a FPS shooter game. But I do agree that the moment of death is a "release" of sorts. So I can see the confusion.
When I'm playing, a million things are shooting through my head. (Pun intended.) I'm dodging, weaving, doing quick peeks around corners. I'm also thinking of larger strategy. Trying to think where the enemy team is set up, remembering the map danger points, etc. It's fast, furious action with not a moment of relaxation. Every sound, every movement needs to be processed and reacted to. At the moment you die... You no longer have to do that. And of course blood pressure goes down, respiration goes down, and all the signs of Zen might appear. But at the same moment, I'm also likely tossing a controller and shouting 'M*****F*****'. Does that sound like "positive emotion" to you?
I've been playing FPS games for quite awhile. In any competitive activity losing is not the objective. In Playing FPS games I find that random lucky shots from obscure distances or angles early in the match is pretty frustrating and can really take from the enjoyment of the game. In situations where a hard fought battle took place even if you are shot and die it is exciting and fun. In the rare situations where you have a close battle and both players are pulling out every trick in the book being the winner or loser does not really matter to me personally.
Well thats my thoughts on it anyway.
In most BF games, defending a point is useful. I don't mind sometimes spawning into a contentious point just to force the enemy to keep killng me. Eventually, if 2 or three of us are spawning in, we can tie up a larger force trying to take 'our' point. Meanwhile, ther est of the team is holding enough to drive their tickets down. I get massive deaths, but hey, the team wins.
Sometimes, though, spawn camping is just spawn camping. I'll entertain one now and then just to see if they are sharp, while the rest of their team gazes in awe at the kills they are piling up. When I'm tired, I'll have one of my buddies go nail them.
And yes, sniper is my favorite role. Snipers are sort of the h@xrs of the battlefield. Silent, unexpected death, paralyzing a much larger force, and clogging pinch points. Not to mention that in some games, snipers avoid the FPS penalty for having a lame rig. Now if only they would upgrade to the M82A1 to the M107, or the M82A1A, and let it shoot through brick, stop jeeps, and kill through a standard Humvee. It does in real lif... oh, nevermind.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Seriously, did any tax dollars pay for this study?
I would guess the ones that teabag the corpse wouldn't leave him, yes.
Who are these people that write this philosophical crap about gaming? Every so often on /. they have these bloody articles
'what are the social implications of the start button?' or 'what is the meaning of jumping in games?'
To save the idiots who're working on this paper some time I'll refer them to this.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=R7ublMEYWx0
I have nothing compelling to say
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
Place an armed "researcher" behind each players head. If the player dies in the game, they die irl. Then, measure those responses and see how they take it.
No.
This has been another edition of Simple Answers to Simple Questions.
_____________
Okay, some more detail:
My game is QuakeWorld deathmatch/free-for-all, with occasional forays into Nexuiz. I used to also play TeamFortess Classic before Valve held a Flag Day and willfully broke all the clients. (No, I will not install Steam. But that's another flame.)
Perhaps I have some deep-seated pathology, but it doesn't take very many frags against me before I become absolutely livid. I become utterly convinced that the server/the other players/the Universe is out to get me. I mean, how many times can one realistically expect to approach a corner, only to have a grenade sail in from out of view, bounce off a floor and a wall... And score a direct hit? Not merely splash damage -- a direct hit? Honestly? One time in a hundred? One time in ten? Every other time?
Just how probable is it that a player can hit you with the lightning gun and keep it perfectly trained on you no matter how you're moving until you die? That a player can do that to everyone else on the map?
What are the chances that another player can take two direct rocket strikes, a nearby splash, and still survive to kill you? Especially when you yourself picked up the only red armor on the map less than 30 seconds ago?
And before you know-it-alls start shouting 'n00b', I've been playing the $*#@^&%!! game for well over ten years now, so I can hardly be called a n00b. I also have a respectable gaming rig with decent input peripherals. I can't blame my equipment, and I can't blame lack of experience, so there's no justification for me still sucking at the game. So either I suck for absolutely no good reason at all... or something else is going on.
"Relaxed?" "Relief from engagement?" I wish I knew how these people did it -- it's an experience unknown to me.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
The data collected from my broken keyboard says differently.
otherwise the kill or death wasn't good enough
In Soviet Halo, the game kills you (socially anyway)
... it's just cool to be able to fly through walls and stuff.
Yup, sometimes you get killed in a way that just makes you go "damn... that was a classy kill". Skilfully shot pipe bombs can be almost an art-form. Other times is the damn bastard spy with his knife in your back (or even more annoying, your face) or the damn bastard sniper or a lucky crit rocket, or the pyro who *just* managed to set you on fire when you were ever so slightly too far from the nearest medpack. Those times you just want to find and brutally murder/rape that person/their character.
Usually, right before you die, your concentration is very high and if your a skilled gamer you can likely see you are losing whatever fight you are participating in. Then when you die you relax. After all there is no need to be tense once the fight has ended. It's the same as how a polygraph machine works. You anticipate the bad thing (dying in the case of a game, lying to a dangerous question in the case of a lie detector) by tensing up then you relax once it's over.
Lie detectors show the increase in tension and sudden relaxation... the test taker then marks that point to identify that is the moment where you answered a question. Later he goes back and based mostly on his opinion and some loose training he decides whether or not the build in tension and sudden relaxation is indicative of a lie.
They have done the same thing here but have draw conclusions WAY too far from what the evidence shows.
Dying in a FPS, particularly one like COD or Ghost Recon or Halo, when dying means you have to go back about 20-30 minutes and do it ALL OVER AGAIN, is insanely maddening.
The thing is, in an online multiplay, when you die, you wait a couple seconds, then come right back to the same action. You don't have to do anything over again. It gives you a chance to rest, refocus, and jump back in fresh.
But in a solo play, it's the worst thing ever. Worse than losing your electricity, frankly.
Terrorists can attack freedom, but only Congress can destroy it.
"This may result from the temporary relief from playing James Bond 007: Nightfire brought about by character death." Fix'd
I wonder how a ghost mode would work out? When you die you turn into a ghost and get to haunt the other players or turn into some sort of undead that requires decapating to "kill". Then again there is always using the reincarnation approach and turning into all bunch of mythical creatures until your next turn as a human.
-- Now switching off crazy imagination mode. --
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
as well as promoting homicide, rape, and pedophilia, it is now proven scientific fact they promote a positive feeling about suicide!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
From Everquest days, when you were fighting like crazy, and it was touch and go whether the Mob went down first . . .
Dying was like the opening scene in Terminator where they arrive in the present day, naked, kneeling and the first thing you did was look round to see your team respawning around you having all met the same fate.
The release of the tension followed by the inevitable thoughts about how to retrieve the corpses was all part of the game.
IMHO
... is the best part of playing FPS games.
And I'm not talking about motherboards, video cards and PSUs from too much overclocking either!
Isn't this what we normally do around here? Except we usually don't RTFA(bstract).
Atlas Shrugged : Thematic Story
I've played FPS shooters for years. The whole gambit from the original Doom to unreal and quake and B1942 and the MMO versions as well.
The smile when I die isn't some metaphysical though process about dieing and relief or even the relief from the action.
It's because when I die it's usually because I have been wailing on the opponents for a while and racking up score and kills. When I finally go down, my reaction is the mental equilivent of sitting back and appreciating a job well done. Enjoying my success that led to N dead opponents and them eventually ganging up on me as a group of 5 and killing me. It's satisfying to know I did well. I suspect that's the joy they are detecting and in an attempt to put more meaning into it than there really is, they went in teh wrong direction.
I use nickname Bill Gates in Call of Duty UO (yes, some people still play that game). Death per se is not enjoyable, but other players reaction to having killed me often is.
...I'd like to die, too. That game sucks!
How about the reason people may have had "positive" reactions is because sometimes in an FPS you get killed in really funny ways? Like accidentally 'nading yourself because you threw a grenade through an open door and you hit the wall instead and it comes right back at you? Or you try to sneak up and knife someone but you miss and then snipe you from point-blank range? Games are a fun competition, and sometimes you lose that competition in really funny ways, and so sometimes you're "dead" but smiling. There's no stupid "zen" moment, no out-of-body experience. Researchers need to stop putting their own dumb biases into their interpretations of things. If they simply played FPS games, they'd know exactly why sometimes you die and yet you're laughing.
I like it when video game death is more final, such as in some original NES games where you only had one life, or in some newer games like Replicore from http://cyborgarm.com/.
I guess this explains vore...
Actually I think it's less of a question of "enjoying death" as it is a momentary relief from the stress of staying alive in-game. For the few seconds between your respawns, you don't have to worry about treading carefully and being shot just before you reach the high-powered weapon that can turn the game around. The tension of regular play ends, the body relaxes, and the physioligical response is very similar to light mood elevation.
The worst part is, I can figure that out in 30 seconds of thinking about, and this dumbass writes a whole paper and still gets it wrong.
People interested in the analysis of the physiological response of players might find the 2006 paper from my lab interesting: http://seal.tst.adfa.edu.au/~vesl/publications/SimTecT06heartRate.pdf We looked at the heart-rate of 1PS players. In general we found that average heart-rate changed very little; though there were individual differences - with a couple of players showing a small drop in heart-rate, and only one showing a significant increase. This came as a bit of a surprise - particularly in light of other data we collected which showed that players were immersed/engaged.
To stimulate creativity, one must develop the childlike inclination for play ⦠- Albert Einstein
I enjoy a good, skillful kill (or an incredibly lucky one) -- even if I'm at the receiving end of it. I don't have so much invested in the game that I can't cheer for a real-life buddy that just cooked my carcass.
Relief from engagement? If they are new to the game, and they get any kills at all before dieing, there's probably a sense of accomplishment. If you kill at least a couple people for every time you die, it feels like you are kicking ass.
This goes for someone that knows the game pretty well too. Deaths are a gauge of success. The more you do before you die, the better you are doing and the happier you feel when you do eventually die. I favor CTF and VCTF in UT2K4 and if I get a couple caps without dieing, when I do finally die, I don't get angry, I'm happy to see how much ass I kicked before they were able to take me down.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
After this camper gets shot in the head, I like to watch the angry guy who I fragged like 4 times shoot up my dead body in rage and stand statue while he types something obscene.
I then usually quip, "Not dead yet! Go back and shot me some more!" You should both go to the quartermaster's office and requisition a life.
...you are. Take hardcore diablo II, after you've been significantly leveled up; granted, it is still just a game, however, 'dying' results in a massive loss of time and energy for the individual involved. The same can be said of old platformers where you only got one life and had to start over back at the beginning when you died.
[insert witty comment here]
It could be something as simple as the fact that, as one plays a first-person shooter, the tension ratchets up significantly. Particularly the longer you 'last' without dying, there is a performance anxiety.
So finally when you do die and the tension is resolved, it really is quite a relief.
-Styopa
The only positive feeling I get when I die in any game, be it Team Fortress 2, Unreal Tournament, Half Life, STALKER, Max Payne, or Halo, is the one I get when I imagine the other guy swearing at the computer when I spawn again and finally clean him out of that camping spot or off our capture point.
As for being freely accessible, the research wasn't funded by NIH, so its rules requiring publicly-funded-by-US-taxpayers research to be released under Open Access doesn't apply. The paper states that "This study was supported by the Finnish Funding Agency for Technology and Innovation and European Community NEST project 28765: "The Fun of Gaming: Measuring the Human Experience of Media Enjoyment.""
Fortunately, the trend these days seems to be more toward open access in the past, so have patience, young Padawan...
I can get to the article, because I work at a university. This link may or may not work for you:
FirstSearch: Full Text
i am a soviet space shuttle
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7714643693602998196
People don't like dying in team-elimination games almost ever. With the exception of "great deaths" (i.e. you both use all your clips and pull out knives to finish each other off...or an awesome grenade death at just the right time), its aggravating to spend the next 30 seconds - 2 minutes watching the "defensive" members of your team (and occasionally the really skilled players, if your team is just dominating) screw around and wait to die/kill as you think about what gun you want to use next round. It usually gives you just enough time to get pissed off, and not enough time to get anything accomplished (especially since playing cstrike now-a-days in full screen usually prevents alt-tabbing to another window, lest you want to risk sound loss and texture screw-ups).
Counter-Strike doesn't kill. Waiting for your team to finish the fuck up does.
Ginga no Rekshiya Mata Each page.
"That which doesn't kill me makes me stronger.
That which does kill me I'll deal with when I respawn."
This used to be my tagline back when I was playing Day of Defeat (nowadays, I'm playing BZFlag).
The study found that "death of the player's own character...appear[s] to increase some aspects of positive emotion."
I can vouch for that; I always get the urge to get just that little bit better to dodge the bullet, to make the first hit.
"Good news, everyone!"
I like how you threw in that you're an IT Director, "who cares"?
I used to not mind so much for 10-15 years, but now I'm absolutely sick of it.
It seems like a miserable, pointless, inevitable end. No matter how well you do, sooner or later a dozen guys are going to shoot at you at once and you go down, or some guy you can't even see is hundreds of yards away and gets you in an inattentive moment, or any variation of the factors. If it's single player, you get to go back to your last save point and retry and retry and retry and retry the spot you died, failing in slightly different ways until you finally clear it - so you can go die somewhere else.
I don't know... I used to love the genre, and I won't attack it or the gamers who play it - it's just another game type. But personally after seeing so much of it it just strikes me as a kind of perverse VR meat grinder. Kill kill kill kill kill kill die respawn kill kill kill kill die respawn repeat. I'm so burned out on that basic gameplay mechanic that I don't get pleasure from dying in game OR killing the other guys.
There's a movement in modern psychology that states all human actions are the results of humans attempting to avoid death. If the player dies but avoids death, is the player not in some way cheating death? And if this is the case, is not the player acting this out?
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
Heh, I usually think Aw shit then, but that's just me :)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
but then you lost me somewhere after alliance wipe and before cliff.
I'm still playing Doom. I've played em' all and I'm back to single player Doom, I've got over 1000 wads and 6 or 7 full 32 level efforts, Momento Morti being among the best. The H2H competition mudfest stuff is almost mind blowing.
I's pretty well always the same. Ultra Violent skill and mad craziness. I usually bite it with a mad crowd all around me dying and killing. A lot of Doom is getting the monsters to kill each other. One recent one had 6 cybers and a crowd of barons and when you die it's usually very funny.
Throw it up on the big Sony at 1280x720 and nothing touches Doom for pure fun. Thanks John.
people who start to 'feel' too much during a game should consider giving up. It's just a GAME. There is enough to depress people in the NEWS on TV and in the 'papers. Go and play a nice game or read a book.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
I cannot believe that this thread does not yet contain a link to this video (that I can see):
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8198147178670424207
"And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_World#Popular_culture
Heh. This is the basis of a family joke -- back when the Nintendo 64 was the latest and greatest gaming machine, my brother got Goldeneye. After just a little while, it became clear to me that I would never actually win a game. Accordingly, I adopted a new strategy -- the next time I got a grenade, I rushed in to throw it at point-blank range. My brother was alarmed. "What -- What are you doing?!" he cried! "I'm not gonna stay alive," I replied. "So instead, I'm going for a very good dead."
"You don't have to leave yet do ya? You didn't stick a chainsaw up my ass yet! My head's still on my torso! I'm glad you fuckers can handle your high!"
All caps scream reccomended, but
Dude. You can't watch that video unless you watch it in HD. Just ain't right.
http://xboxmovies.teamxbox.com/xbox-360-hires/3820/Gears-of-War-Teaser-Trailer-HD/
Yes if you got fragged by me.
No if you are me.
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
I get super-p*ssed off.
http://thepiratebay.org/tor/4047523/
I wonder what response someone dieing in an MMORPG like Lineage or something where there is a XP cost or Dieing to a raid boss in World of Warcraft where there is a repair cost.
FPS deaths are a joke because of the lack of a death penalty.
After reading through the paper, I find the methods suspect. EMG of facial muscles are not always a reliable predictor of emotional response. They say they also perform skin conductivity tests, lets hope that the participants don't sweat a lot. I know that during most FPSs (Call of Duty 4 anyone?) people have a tendency to sweat more due to increased adrenaline and nervous system response. Also, I may have missed it, but I do not think they were playing against each other, just the AI. And, the participants were told they would get an extra movie ticket for being in the top 3, extra motivation to succeed, definitely can skew a study.
You get hit by lightning often? :)
"This message was brought to you by Sarcasm and Troll Feeders United (or STFU, for you un-hip people)."
I have a rich imagination ;)
This is the sig that says NI (again)
Players were actually relieved to be able to stop playing...
"... although they might mediate the potential harmful effects of violent games ... Several ... authors have concluded that there is a causal relationship between violent video game play and aggressive behavior, cognitions, and affect ... Violent games may elicit not only self-reported aggressive affect (i.e., feelings of anger or hostility) but also anxiety"
I wonder how much of these effects would be evident if, say, sport (e.g. football or ice hockey) were studied in the same way. Or even any other games, like chess (many people can get angry from just about any type of game). Are so-called "violent" video games really "violent" in any sense other than being a simulation of what would in reality be violence? There is nothing violent about using a mouse/keyboard while looking at a screen. "Dying" in a video game is no more like "dying" than time-out on a bench in sport, should that be called "dying" too and studied as if it was something drastic? Surely running on a field where you physically bash into and tackle other people is far more of a "violent game" than any computer game. It seems to me that people are irrationally scared of computer games and anything 'computer-y' or even technological, if you ask me as an emerging 'tech society' we'd be better off doing studies to uncover the reasons for these irrational fears, than wasting money on silly studies of all the "harm" computer games are causing (seemingly not, since millions of people play them now and there hasn't exactly been a sudden spike in violent crime - in fact, the rise of computer games has generally coincided with a steady drop in violent crime).
"Obnoxiously this alleged scholarly research is not available for free, so we'll just have to speculate wildly what it says based on the abstract." And how is this different from what slashdot does for articles that [i]are[/i] available for free?
It isn't that we enjoy dying or enjoy not dying. It is the competition, if it was impossible to die then there is no fun. Without dying there is no win condition. You can mask 'dying' by saying you are merely injured or so other mechanic like clones in planetside but it really still is dying, the end result is the same. It wouldn't work too well in a multiplayer enviroment but in a single player game monitor a player using 'god mode' and never dying but doing plenty of killing and with the same game a player playing as normal. The majority of the test subjects would likely enjoy dying more than the ones who are not. There might be the initial burst of excitment for a player in god mode but it wouldn't last.
In other words, gamers relax during lull in fighting.