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.

Comments

I prefer instant blackout

[IndustrialComplex]

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.

Re:I prefer instant blackout

[orielbean]

Camper. Real snipers are trained to take the shot then move immediately to another position to avoid being detected.

Re:I prefer instant blackout

[IndustrialComplex]

Camper. Real snipers are trained to take the shot then move immediately to another position to avoid being detected.

I typically do, but 'Real snipers' aren't faced with an opponent who can resurrect themselves within 30 seconds and reach your old position in another 15.

My preference has less to do with playing the game as a sniper (my least favorite role actually) and more to do with playing the game as a commander and being able to hide my team's movements from the opposing team. Unfortunately that isn' really possible against an organized team unless you are at a LAN party and strictly enforce rules regarding 'speaking with the dead'.

Re:I prefer instant blackout

[Anonymous Coward]

My understanding has been that they move after taking a shot, not because they seek to avoid being detected but because they seek to avoid being -located-. Taking a shot in and of itself will usually give away the presence of a sniper.

Re:I prefer instant blackout

[IndustrialComplex]

For me, death in a game is a chance to get a brief pause in the action, and reflect on my experience for that spawn period. I can joke with friends, curse, and plan what to do in my next 'life'.

In fact, I would say that death can be considered part of the game.

Re:I prefer instant blackout

[orielbean]

I can definitely sympathize with that! I think it would be fun to have just a C&C position, with no presence on the BF (like a spectator), and you could order the UAV scans, air strikes, helicopters, etc as your team earned different abilities. Also included would be the ability to listen in on enemy chatter and relate that info to your team. That way, both sides would keep the chatter low or use codephrases, etc to be more efficient. To be more real-world-based, you might add in the C&C as a position on the map, like the flag, that could be disabled, blinded, hindered, destroyed, etc in order to hamper the enemy.

Re:I prefer instant blackout

[SatanicPuppy]

I'm with you...If I get killed by something lame over and over, it's just frustrating. On the other hand, if you're charging along and turn a corner right into a rocket spray fired by someone who didn't even know you were coming, it's entertaining.

I don't know...I can take pleasure in someone else's skill/luck, same as I can take pleasure in my own skill/luck. I can take pleasure in my own hilariously improbable death, or my own stupidity. Rocket bounce a sniper off his high camping perch, and have him nail you while falling through the air a second before he dies SPLAT on the ground...I don't know, it's entertaining.

Re:I prefer instant blackout

[meringuoid]

I prefer to be a suicide bomber. I love playing urbanTerror as you can bumrush a room with a grenade in hand. if they kill you when you enter the room they die as you drop the grenade and it bounces over, if you make it to them they die.

Suicide bombing can be a brilliant tactic, at least in fantasy worlds where death is survivable and you get to respawn immediately afterwards; a bit unrealistic unless you can imagine some fool convinced that that's the case in reality, so not one for those of us who like a simulation more than a fragfest. I remember a Quake map that had a big ol' moat around a central keep. A lot of warren-like tunnels dropped people into that moat, so there were generally quite a few in there. So, the plan: First, find the electric gun. Second, jump in the water. Third, ZZZZZAP!

Sure, I take a penalty for killing myself, but I took a half-dozen guys with me. Oh, how it pissed them off.

Re:I prefer instant blackout

[caramelcarrot]

I also recommend NS, though it's probably a bit dead these days - it's given me some of the deepest, most intense and most tactical FPS/RTS experiences. Proper team play, not just helping a team mate because you'll get extra points, I'm eagerly awaiting NS2.

Re:I prefer instant blackout

[symbolic]

I agree with you - I used to play America's Army quite a bit, and even though I thought it was generally a fun game, one of my favorite maps was always inhabited by morons whose sense of skill came from nothing more than spamming grenades in a certain spot.

If I die because of an opponent's skill, it's fun to be able to sit back and admire the effort. If I die because some idiot thinks good gamesmanship is a matter of finding the shortest and easiest path to a kill, the fun stops and annoyance sets in.

Only when interesting...

[i.r.id10t]

Only when it is an interesting death, or a particularly cool suicide move - sorta like the teleporter "accidents" in classic Quake/QuakeWorld

tail end of a quake quad rocket

[Brigadier]

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.

A different analysis

[digitalderbs]

The study found that "death of the player's own character...appear[s] to increase some aspects of positive emotion
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.

Re:A different analysis

[gsslay]

It sounds to me that the researchers here got way too involved with gameplay "dying", simply because it's called "dying". Would they be attempting draw the same conclusions if it was called "5 minute time-out", which is what it has more in common with real life?

"Dying" in an online game is nothing like dying. You are not faced with any finality. It is not the ultimate sacrifice and not the grim reaper that comes to us all, without option. It's just part of your participation in the game, a small set-back, a respite from the action.

So any comparison with the zen of after-life experience is the biggest load of hooey you're likely to encounter this week.

Re:A different analysis

[Mr. Sanity]

I agree with this sentiment. Really, in most FPS games, you need to divorce yourself from the thought of "dying." Very often, it is to your (and your team's) advantage to perform tactical self-sacrifice. Scout and a Soldier about to cap Point A? Hop onto the platform to pause the cap. Sure they're shooting at you. But if you can take one or both with you, great! If not, at least you paused the cap long enough for teammates to show up and stop the cap. Besides, if you "die", you have a few seconds of watching the action and seeing hotspots on the map before coming back good as new. Hell, sometimes dying in combat is more convenient that hunting down a medic or waiting for a med pack to spawn when on your last point of health.

Depends Call OF Duty 4 Example

[Buzz_Litebeer]

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.

Dying means you're being challenged

[MooseMuffin]

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.

Re:Dying means you're being challenged

[aitikin]

I was seriously just about to post something similar to this. Dying means that there's still a reason to play. It's like when you played Super Mario and couldn't get past that blasted level. You died time and time again, but finally found a way through.

I know when I die in multiplayer games, my face kinda lights up like, "Aw, shit! How'd he get me!?" It's just kinda the nature of the beast, isn't it?

End of the Ride

[Gunslinger47]

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. ^_^

Team Fortress 2 is a perfect example

[spyrochaete]

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

Oh, there's just one problem here...

[FreelanceWizard]

...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.

Re:Oh, there's just one problem here...

[Thugthrasher]

I'm not able to read the article at the current moment, so I'm not really commenting on this particular experiment because I don't really know what physiological responses they were measuring. I don't think, in some cases, it's as easily falsified as you make it seem, though. Although it may be impossible to tie physiological responses to emotional states 100%, it is possible to do it with a reasonable degree of certainty. Just because you can fake smiling does NOT mean you can fake brain activity or heart rate changes or any of the more automatic responses to various emotions.

A matter of "fair"

[ShinmaWa]

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.

Re:You wouldn't enjoy it against this guy

[Tiber]

Hitler.

Re:You wouldn't enjoy it against this guy

[19thNervousBreakdown]

I know who!

http://youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0

Re:007 Nightfire

[realthing02]

interestingly enough, this is what I was thinking. Why not pick a game that, you know, more people play? I didn't read TFA but i'd like to see more/better games. maybe Call of Duty, Halo, etc, because they employ the similar disassociation upon death that the summary mentions.