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The Red Team Wins

Voltageaav writes "Recent studies indicate that in both First Person Shooters and even athletic competitions, wearing red gives you an advantage. It's speculated that this distracts the other team slightly due to the psychological aspect of people turning red when angry." Of course the Blue Team loses — as evidence I submit the history of the Detroit Lions.

44 of 299 comments (clear)

  1. I disagree. by TomRK1089 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The Boston Red Sox.

    1. Re:I disagree. by menace3society · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Yeah, the only case I can think of where the guy wearing red always wins in bullfighting, and that's kind of rigged.

      As an aside, people also turn red when they are embarrassed or drunk, so wouldn't the psychological effect cancel itself out?

    2. Re:I disagree. by owlnation · · Score: 2, Interesting

      And in fact, the Phillies wear a color that's more or less red.

      The Phillies are officially the losing-est team of any sport, anywhere. More than 10,000 loses.

      Back to the lab folks, I think "D" isn't quite "Q.E." yet.

    3. Re:I disagree. by The+Dobber · · Score: 2, Funny

      The Red Shirted ensigns might disagree with this.

    4. Re:I disagree. by eumaeus · · Score: 3, Informative

      Latin nit-pick: quod = that which erat = was demonstrandum = a-to-be-demonstrated-thing The construction is the "passive periphrastic".

  2. TF2 Stats say... by LastToKnow · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Especially if you're playing on Goldrush (last graph is wins per team per map

    1. Re:TF2 Stats say... by DanWS6 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      That has more to do with the design of the map since each team switches color when going from offense to defense.

    2. Re:TF2 Stats say... by Das+Modell · · Score: 3, Informative

      Goldrush is an asymmetric map where the blue team attacks and the red team defends.

    3. Re:TF2 Stats say... by 777a · · Score: 5, Interesting

      The fine article is a little light on details, only mentioning Unreal Tournament, but in Team Fortress 2 there is a good reason red win more (bottom chart in parents link).

      In any of the Attack / Defend maps blue plays the attackers, and red plays the defenders.

      To keep things fair the attackers respawn a lot quicker than the defenders (since the attacker has to respawn and run halfway across the map, while the defender usually respawns only a short walk from the final defence point).

      Since waiting 10 to 20 seconds to respawn is pretty boring a lot of servers reduce the respawn rate, this gives a major advantage to the defenders (red).

      So why do red have a slight advantage in other TF2 maps? After someone has played TF2 many hours, they'll realise that they generally win more as red, they may not analyse why they win more, but the end result is players with a lot of TF2 experience tend to join the red team without really thinking about it.

      Personally I think Tribes 2 did it right, the enemy always is red.

    4. Re:TF2 Stats say... by LastToKnow · · Score: 3, Informative

      This is true, and of course the asmmetric maps are a bad place to look for color disparity, I just meant to be funny. However Well, Granary, and Badlands are symmetric maps, and all three of those have red winning slightly more often than blue.

  3. Red team, but not... by kryogen1x · · Score: 5, Funny
  4. Eve Online by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I'm in a corp in Eve Online, a heavy player v player orientated spaceship game.

    With Eve, a hostile ship that is attacking you is displayed on screen, and also on the overview as a flashing red bar - the flashing red showing that the enemy ship has you targeted and is activating modules upon you with hostile intent.

    One of the first things we do with newcomers to our corp/Eve is tell them to change the overview colour of a hostile ship from a flashing red to a solid green.

    The change has had noticable effect. Before people would see the red and get an adrenaline boost, often resulting in them freezing for long enough to lose the battle. When seeing a solid green stating a metaphorical 'go go go!' as opposed to a red screaming 'Danger!' the newcomers perform better and freeze less often.

  5. I thought wearing red gets you killed by Werrismys · · Score: 4, Funny

    Too much TOS.

    --
    'Once scientists, even the dim-witted social scientists, get muzzled, the Western Civilization is finished.' - oldhack
    1. Re:I thought wearing red gets you killed by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Ninjas wore red. More so than the typical black outfit you see today. It wasn't a bright shiny red though, but rather a dark brownish kind.

      Thing is, that red is the lowest frequency color which gives it some special properties in low light.
      The brown red mentioned above looks almost blacker than black in the night, and the outlines blur.
      The eye is simply not very responsive to it.

      I don't think this is why red wins in FPS shooters though, but who knows.

      The eye has other problems with *blue* though.

  6. Re:Wearing red? Really? by Daimanta · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Blue is a better camoflage colour in UT. They have numbers on this I believe. Blue has a slight advantage over Red.

    --
    Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
  7. WAAGH! by vertinox · · Score: 5, Informative

    "Da red wunz go fasta!"

    --
    "I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
    -Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
    1. Re:WAAGH! by warlorddagaz · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "WAAGH! (Score:4, Informative)"

      QED

    2. Re:WAAGH! by db32 · · Score: 2, Funny

      Damned greenskins...

      --
      The only change I can believe in is what I find in my couch cushions.
  8. I'm black..... by Chineseyes · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's speculated that this distracts the other team slightly due to the psychological aspect of people turning red when angry."

    I'm black, I can't turn red you insensitive clod.

    --
    I think the invisible hand of the market has its middle finger extended

    --A wise old fart named SC0RN
    1. Re:I'm black..... by NoPantsJim · · Score: 4, Funny

      black guy with...as your username implies...chinese eyes?

      Weird.

    2. Re:I'm black..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

      You smoke what I got, you'll get chinese eyes, too.

    3. Re:I'm black..... by tonycarboni · · Score: 5, Funny

      A guy making fun of the black guy with Chinese eyes.... has no pants?!

    4. Re:I'm black..... by NoPantsJim · · Score: 2, Informative

      I have pants, I just refuse to wear them. ever.

    5. Re:I'm black..... by iella · · Score: 2, Funny

      Oh my goodness, Sam Cassell posts on /.

  9. Please wear red... by Lonewolf666 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    ...if you are my opponent in Day Of Defeat (I'll keep the camo) ;-)

    --
    C - the footgun of programming languages
  10. Selection bias by overshoot · · Score: 5, Funny

    The results would have been the other way around if they hadn't stacked the deck by removing Star Trek crewmen from consideration.

    --
    Lacking <sarcasm> tags, /. substitutes moderation as "Troll."
  11. The results don't mean anything! by CunningPike · · Score: 2, Informative
    For a fixed number of games, there's always a bit of uncertainty about what the true probability of red winning is. The more games analysed the less this uncertainty will be.


    So, to look at what this study actually tells us, we can use some simple statistics to determine what range of probabilities we're 99.999% sure the true probability of red winning lies within. (This is example #3: "The coin is tossed...").


    And the answer is, given 1,347 trials (games) with a 55% red-wins outcome, the true value lies somewhere between 49% and 61% (inclusive).
    So we're 99.999% sure that the results have not ruled out the null hypothesis: that wearing red has no effect at all.


    There may be a real effect here, but more work is needed! Until then, Occam's razor selects the simpler explanation: there's no effect.

    --
    | What, you were expecting
    -O_O- +---- something witty?
  12. Does Red Cost You More? by cayenne8 · · Score: 5, Informative
    "Yeah, the only case I can think of where the guy wearing red always wins in bullfighting, and that's kind of rigged.

    As an aside, people also turn red when they are embarrassed or drunk, so wouldn't the psychological effect cancel itself out?"

    Funny...I remember when I bought a red Corvette...that everyone told me not to get red, because it would make your insurance higher. I'd heard that all my life.

    I called State Farm and asked them if color mattered as to my insurance rate. Nope.

    What matters is your driving record, your sex, the price of the car (repairs), and it seems these days strangely enough...your credit rating?!?!

    --
    Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    1. Re:Does Red Cost You More? by strabes · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I think the idea is that red cars get in more accidents or something. It's either the personality of people who buy red cars or that red distracts other drivers and subconsciously causes them to hit red cars. I tend to think it's the latter because I've owned a red car (that I bought used for a great deal - color wasn't important to me) for close to four years now and I don't regularly have to swerve to avoid getting hit by people who are distracted by my fire engine red car.

      --
      Its = possessive. It's = "it is"
    2. Re:Does Red Cost You More? by WhatAmIDoingHere · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Red is more of a 'HEY POLICE OFFICER, CHECK MY SPEED' color. And you'll end up getting more tickets. And since it's a flashy red car, the officer will be less likely to make it into a warning. So, yes, your insurance rate will be higher.

      --
      Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
    3. Re:Does Red Cost You More? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What matters is your driving record, your sex, the price of the car (repairs), and it seems these days strangely enough...your credit rating?!?! Yeah, turns out the actuaries discovered a close correlation between bad credit (poor decision-making skills) and bad driving (poor decision-making skills). That, and people with bad credit skip out on their bills more often.
    4. Re:Does Red Cost You More? by Tawnos · · Score: 4, Informative

      Grey is actually the car to get the most speeding tickets. Red isn't anything special. White gets fewer.

      Source: http://www.snopes.com/autos/law/redcars.asp

    5. Re:Does Red Cost You More? by DavidD_CA · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I have heard from more than one patrol officer that they will likely see a speeding red car more often than a speeding car of any other color.

      So while your insurance company won't fault you for getting red, your chances of getting a ticket increases. And, with more tickets, your insurance rate goes up.

      There might be statistics out there to back me up, or not.

      --
      -David
    6. Re:Does Red Cost You More? by cayenne8 · · Score: 3, Funny
      "Unless you don't speed."

      Yeah....like that is gonna happen in a red corvette.

      :-)

      --
      Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
    7. Re:Does Red Cost You More? by rrhal · · Score: 3, Informative

      ... But my insurance company doesn't even ask what color my car is. It's coded into your VIN.
      --
      All generalizations are false, including this one. Mark Twain
    8. Re:Does Red Cost You More? by darth+dickinson · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Pisses you off? Then slow down.

  13. Re:That explains a lot in Detroit anyway. by silver6 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Also the Montreal Canadians who have the biggest Stanley Cup dynasty of all time wear red too, although they haven't done so good lately.

  14. Reminds me... by Some1too · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I can't remember there where and when but there is someone out there pushing to have emergency exits signs and lights changed from red color to a green color for this very same reason. When we see a red traffic light we stop. In North America (and I assume several other continents) stop signs are also red. In an emergency the few seconds of hesitation possibly generated by a red light instead of a green light might cost lives. It was an interesting subject matter and seems to make sense. Wonder if we'll even see green exit signs in our near future?

    1. Re:Reminds me... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

      In Sweden all exit and emergency signs have a green background with white text.

  15. Re:Being angry helps? by sznupi · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Also, wearing red doesn't help Polish representation much - in major sporting events they typically win only in third game, the one that's solely for "honor" ;P

    --
    One that hath name thou can not otter
  16. a test of the theory by Gearoid_Murphy · · Score: 4, Interesting

    They should try switching the perceived colours of multiplayer teams and observe the result. For example, some games always show the enemy as red and friendlies as blue. Reversing this might have a noticeable effect on the game play and consequently lead the way to isolating the effect of team colour on our behaviour.

    --
    prepare the survey weasels.
  17. Camouflage by Hadlock · · Score: 2, Informative

    I think it has more to do with the fact that the general color palette is reddish orange, and one team wears reddish orange, while the other wears blueish black. This is a pretty good study on how well camouflage actually works. They do make it a little easier to see the snipahs than in real life (TF2 snipahs wear a black vest and black pants) vs. real life snipers who are usually wearing a blanket covered in shrubbery. But overall it looks like camouflage grants you a 5% increase in Win.

    --
    moox. for a new generation.
  18. Colorblindness by mellow106 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Approximately 7% of males are red-green colorblind, and so have a slightly impaired ability to distiguish a red figure from a green or brown terrain. This might have something to do with it.