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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.
Yea not if it's a fucking spy and my medic just got uber. Nothing zen-like tends to follow that.
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
Camper. Real snipers are trained to take the shot then move immediately to another position to avoid being detected.
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.
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
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.
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'.
Out of modpoints but really liked a post? 1BDkF6TtmmeZ3yqXbz9yhdYVqRYnwFoXDj
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!
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
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.
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.
Halo 3's camera system is phenomenal. It gives my victims a good view to watch me teabag them.
I always find it hilarious if I am resurrected in the middle of a firefight in Battlefield 2. Just last night, the following happend to me:
There is a MEC manning the machine gunner position right next to the train wreck on Karkand. I manage to move around and get behind him, so I rush up on him and slice him with the knife. 1 kill. I then run around the other side of the concrete barrier and slice up a sniper who had been laying next to him on the other side of the fence (and somehow didn't see me.) 2 kills. I whip out my assault rifle and pop another MEC running down the bridge straight in the face with two three-shot bursts. 3 kills. Load up the grenade launcher attachment on the rifle, and take out a group of two MEC running next to each other across the bridge. 4 and 5 kills. By this time, four of my squad-mates have joined me in trying to cap the point...and I get sniped. Exhilarated, I sit back for a second...5 kills in a time span of ~30 seconds...I'm quite pleased with myself.
A medic revives me, only to have me instantly die from a grenade. Well crap, it happens. I spawn literally in the middle of a firefight near the large concrete ramp, in that little town square...end up getting teamkilled (i forgave the guy because his grenade got 2 MECs as well). I get rezzed, and get sniped. The same medic comes back and rezzes me. I take one step forward, and blow up a claymore. I respawn right next to the tracks this time, and before I can even move I get killed by an artillary strike.
I never took more than a step after respawning before I got taken out again. This went on for a total of 7 times. I had to disconnect from the game, I couldn't stop laughing:-)
Spawn camping bothers me...these kinds of things humour me.
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