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Study Finds Gamers Prefer Control, Competence Over Violence
Science News reports on a new study which found that the violence in video games was not a significant contributing factor to players' enjoyment. Instead, the feelings of control and competence the games engendered were closely linked to how fun the players found it. Quoting:
"... the researchers extensively modified a popular first-person shooter video game called Half-Life 2 to have less gore. Half the people in a group of 36 male and 65 female college students were instructed to dispatch adversaries as the original game intended, 'in a thoroughly bloody manner,' says Ryan. The other half was instructed to tag enemies with a marker. 'Instead of exploding in blood and dismemberment, they floated gently into the air and went back to base,' Ryan describes. An extensive survey of the two groups showed that the exclusion of violence didn't diminish players' enjoyment of the game."
"They may not be in it for the blood. They're in it for the fun."
Unfortunately, violence is the ultimate form of control.
An extensive survey of the two groups showed that the exclusion of violence didn't diminish players' enjoyment of the game.
I hope they did more then just ask them how much they enjoyed themselves. People can be unreliable when asked such questions, for any number of reasons, such as not wanting to appear like bloodthirsty savages when questioned by authority figures.
I always mod up spelling trolls.
Researchers have also have discovered that Laura Croft's breast size does not significantly change the appeal of the character, Animal Crossing is just as fun as GTA, and female night elves are rarely created in WoW.
Before everybody starts tagging this story "correlationisnotcausation," let me just point out that this was a randomized experiment.
Carry on.
City of Heroes and City of Villains make extensive use of PhysX to impliment ragdoll physics for humanoid characters. When you, as a super-powered character knock the tar out of an enemy, they can go flying across the room or high into the air.
With some skill, it's possible to use knockback as the ultimate crowd control device. You keep your enemies knocked down or penned into a corner where they can't hurt you.
In my opinion, this is far more entertaining and far more visually stimulating than any other method of defeating your enemies.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Bullshit!
I'm sorry, I didn't know what came over me. I just blurted it out! I won't do it again -- I swear.
FTA:
While I'm cheering and hoping that this study is eventually confirmed with more data, there's still a subset of people that is impressed by violence and blood. They're the ones who keep gore sites in business.
Colonel: And that dim sum fighting in the warehouse yesterday?
Topper: I just do that for the extra money. And to satisfy my male cravings to kill and win.
The English word fart is one of the oldest words in the English vocabulary.
Air is what people breathe! Pain hurts! Ice is cold!
Seriously. What a waste of a study - I recognize the value of it, but they're really not trying very hard, huh?
...but in combat situations in Half-Life 2, Fallout 3, or Metal Gear Solid 4......it is.
The mood of Half-Life 2 is a doom and gloom apocalyptic atmosphere where soldiers and aliens are enslaving mankind. In Fallout 3 the world is a desert of death and nuclear radiation, violence, chaos, it's part of the atmosphere, part of the immersion. In Metal Gear Solid 4 you are dropped off in the middle of a bloody war between private soldiers for hire and nationalists guerrillas, violence, gunfire, explosions, nanobots and killbots (with preset kill limits), are part of the world that is the turmoil enveloped earth.
If was playing any of those games and there was no violence, no blood, no swearing, no aggression of any kind, I would probably not even play the games in the first place. They are rated M, they are adult games, made by adults for adults. No need to strip them down and make them for children.
Are they honestly trying to say that something like Grand Theft Auto would be fun without in game crime, violence, or swearing? Maybe it would be...but that's not the point of GTA. It aims to be violent to create an atmosphere of crime. Just like crime movies and TV shows, Training Day, The Sopranos, also portray violence. It's realistic within the context of portraying criminal behavior with a reasonable creative license.
Why not conduct a study to say that all R-Rated movies are unnecessary? Or that violent TV shows should be toned down to exclude violence? Surely Saving Private Ryan (Rated R for graphic violence) and Band of Brothers (rated TV-MA for the same) could have been just as effective as cinema with a complete lack of violence and cursing. Is violence necessary in those movies? No. It is necessary to make the movies compelling and also historically accurate? Yes.
"A common belief held by many gamers and many in the video game industry -- that violence is what makes a game fun -- is strongly contradicted by these studies," comments Craig Anderson, a psychologist who directs the Center for the Study of Violence at Iowa State University in Ames.
What empirical data is he possibly referring to? I have yet to see the survey where significance testing was passed that conclusively shows that 'many' gamers think violence is solely what makes games fun.
This is just another barely scientific study where the researcher wants to get water cooler points with his colleagues and say "hey I got published about video-game violence!" and while in the short term this research might turn a few heads, another book like Grand Theft Childhood will put this study in the negative in the history books.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Theft_Childhood
So, then, you're 13 years old and in the video game shop in the mall with your buds... gee, let's see, which game do I want to buy here, think the guys would be impressed by some flag-football where the most dexterous player wins, or chainsaw arena football.... hmmmm.... tough one, right?
From the summary, it sounds like the only difference between the two versions was the presence/absence of gore when someone died. I personally wouldn't miss that from FPSs; as the title says, the fun is in beating your enemies and winning the game, not seeing animated blood.
I don't see how they could make a FPS without violence, anyway, given that the nature of the game.
Are they honestly trying to say that something like Grand Theft Auto would be fun without in game crime, violence, or swearing? Maybe it would be...but that's not the point of GTA. It aims to be violent to create an atmosphere of crime. Just like crime movies and TV shows, Training Day, The Sopranos, also portray violence. It's realistic within the context of portraying criminal behavior with a reasonable creative license.
I think it would just be a different type of fun. Take a look at the The Simpsons Hit & Run game. It uses the same engine as GTA 3 and you more or less do the same thing: do quests, get into cars and drive around, talk to people, etc. However, you can't kill anyone, there's no swearing, etc. And yet, it's still a fun game.
I think you missed the point. It's that the violence, on it's own is not an attractor.
Let me give you an example. In Fallout 3, there's a perk called something like "Bloody Mess", where when you kill someone, they explode in bloody gore. I was told not to get it, that it was annoying, but I tried it anyway. Not too long after, I used a console command to remove it and replace it with something else.
Why? Because it was annoying and jarring. It didn't fit the atmosphere of the game. I even grabbed a mod that made dismemberment and exploding body parts less frequent and more tied to the weapon used. A single bullet, in general, will not dismember someone. The bloody violence was not adding to the game, and detracting from it.
That said, if you go too far the other way, it is equally jarring. After shooting someone with a sniper rifle, it shouldn't be like "tag" and force the super mutant to walk to the penalty box.
Also, one of the best games ever, Portal, has no bloody violence or killing of others at all, and the game was an absolute blast.
My studies showed that my tetris addiction was directly linked to the violence of the game, I'm now going to have to go back and look over that paper, see where I went wrong.
Blazing Spiders
The gore from shooting a victim works into a story plot line much better than having the victim float back to base.
Well perhaps an extreme game involving harpoon guns with cords attached to large helium balloons.
Hmmm... perhaps I should talk to someone at EA
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This is a rehash of an item about this, what, a week ago?
I stopped playing first-person shooters at Quake II. I had enjoyed previous FPS games quite a lot, and I gave Quake II a good try, but the bloody chunks with the flies buzzing around them were the limit for me. Similarly, I didn't like that in Age of Empires II committing war crimes - killing enemy peasants to take out productive capacity - was the best way to win. Nor that an apparent flaw with uprisings in CivIII meant that the best way to take over cities was a bit of ethnic cleansing by way of starvation. I still played those games, but it bugged me. I never traded slaves in Elite.
This is why I liked Tony Hawk and Jet Set Radio so much. They are about being cool instead killing things.
I won't make grand claims about the effects on anyone else, but I know I don't want my 3-year old son playing violent games. I am kind of pissed off that many games I might otherwise enjoy are effectively wrecked by violence. Who knows who else is put off by violence? The people like me who are put off don't play, so they don't figure into many statistics.
(control)
duh
However, I've always been intrigued by the freedom of GTA. I personally have little desire to engage in the plot - but the intricacy of play is appealing. Though I agree, that makes those games, mightn't it be possible to make a game where such freedom is allowed (even to kill) but the direction or tone was not so obviously violent?
I would really like to play GTA, but I honestly am turned off by the missions I must willfully accept. I have great fun with the feeling of control - the ability to get in cars, travel around a huge map, and explore.
The control and competence is what makes that game appealing to me, not the gore or plot. And I think that is what is interesting - that a game can be fundamentally appealing for something outside of it's plot, theme or story.
It's always been about control, control over their own little playground where they can be the bully instead of some asshole being the bully. If you ever listen to any gamer, the first thing they talk about when it comes to a game is handling. They spend more time complaining about how the fucker on the screen can't fucking jump, shoot, or doing any god damn mother fucking thing. They second thing they focus on is if it looks good. Basically, not if the graphics are awesome but whether everything is where it should be. Everything has to be in its specific place, if not it will not make any sense. Third complaint, storyline. If I'm going to spend all fucking day doing repetitive tasks I want some sense of reward. If not, I am wasting my fucking time. What does this all add up to... Control. How fucking complicated was that. Did you take years of law school just to make yourself feel better about yourself or did you do it so you can bully on people like it was all just a game?
You know the people that do complain about the bullshit violence in the games are the real violent people in this world. They build laws to oppress those that either don't care or don't have no sense about them outside of their own little world. They fuck with people because in their mind they think they are doing the world a fucking service and really all they are doing is a form of internal masturbation that when found out, everyone turns on them. I'm all about establishment but geez, you motherfuckers really need to reevaluate your priorities. Fuck you for your incompetence and wasting taxpayers dollars on something so obvious it hurts. Assholes... Had to add that in.
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=09/01/16/2225215
When I play Half-Life2, in the places where you can set undead with head crabs on fire, I definitely try to do that. But then I do feel wrong when they stagger around on fire, moaning.
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
I can't speak for anyone else but I play video games so I can shoot people in the nutsack.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
I believe that Portal is one of the best things to happen to the gaming industry. I really, really hope Valve continues the series and expands it.
I just wanna shoot people who think video games make me violent.
FTFA:
In a different study of avid gamers, a group of 39 males who were, on average, 19.5 years old and played video games for 7.5 hours a week were asked to play the game The House of the Dead III with a low violence or high violence setting. [...] As before, violence did not affect playersâ(TM) enjoyment of the games.
Even if we're talking about males-only, and the fairly young variety, violence seems to not matter.
Chipping in with my own anecdote: my (by far) most violent wii game, Mortal Kombat Armageddon, is the one I find the least fun. The one with no violence at all, Guitar Hero III, is the one I find the most fun. The second-most violent is probably Twilight Princess, almost-tied with GH3 for fun. So there's no clear relationship. By the way, I'm male and 25.5 years old on average ;-)
Yes, most people prefer control to violence, but if I'm playing Call of Duty when I'm in a war, I don't want people to just "faint" get transported back to base, etc. People die in wars, people bleed in wars, heck, people even swear in wars. I don't want to hit someone with a grenade and them just to be transported somewhere. On the other hand, I'm not sure if I would like it if whenever Mario stomps on an enemy for blood to be gushing out of it because it doesn't fit the mood.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
prefer rows of eliminated blocks in Tetris to explode into blood and gore and fire.
I think there is something like "enough" of the naughty stuff, and it applies both to gore and the Lara Croft example in GP's post. Beyond that, more just means less believable and it gets old fast.
Personally, one of my favorite games is Day Of Defeat with moderate "blood effects". I find that removing them completely would detract from the game, but excessive gore would not improve it. The same goes for breast size of female MMORPG characters, I like those but don't push the settings for boob size to the maximum.
C - the footgun of programming languages
They surveyed 101 people and expect to draw a useful conclusion from that? In my high school probability class we did surveys with more people than that. Besides the flawed sample, choosing more women than men in a hobby hugely dominated by males. The sample size is smaller than my recently removed left testicle.
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And which one of the games has sold orders of magnitude more than the other? You did all the hard work of proving your own point wrong.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
You did all the hard work of proving your point, and when you look at the sales numbers you see that you actually proved the opposite. I'm sure Simpson's was fun, but it's more than apparent that GTA is MORE fun. Why, that's another matter, but we can all agree violence does not make games any less fun, at least by society's standards.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
Naah, Portal just had a sadistic computer trying to get you to kill yourself. Still, it's a threat of violence, even passive violence.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
So they did a study of gamers...and had twice as many female participants as male? While I agree most studies lowball the percentage of female gamers out there, there is no way there are twice as many as male gamers. It's also safe to say that the two sexes would potentially have very different responses to a survey like this, as well.
I never finished the first GTA 3--I did play through a few of the missions, but not that many. I spent loads of time screwing around in it, though.
Vice City I finished. Easily my favorite GTA. Great story, great atmosphere and the missions were usually fun.
San Andreas had promise but I eventually quit because I got sick of the "defend your turf" crap. That stuff wasn't fun, and it took up way too much time. However, it is probably the most fun one to just put in codes and go crazy in. My favorite is putting in the code to give the pedestrians weapons, then the one to make them attack each other randomly. What do I do during the resulting chaos? Why, do Taxi missions while dodging rockets, of course :)
What is this, game design 101 class? This was already figured out in like 1970.
It's pretty clear that they're not trying to say Half Life 2 would be as good without violence. They're measuring the appreciation of the basic gameplay mechanics with and without gore.
In fact, Ryan came in with a bias that violent kids played violent video games for the violence, and this study challenged his belief . It did what you wanted it to do, not what you believe it did.
The study was also co-authored by a researcher from video game industry research think tank Immersyve.
Reckless extrapolators look bad on both sides of an argument. Please don't act like the kind of person that you don't like.
Sales numbers don't prove fun. You might as well be arguing that Brittney Spears is a great singer because she sells so many albums.
GTA sold the amount it did on name alone.
FYI it is definitely not the "GTA3 engine".
It seems like the aggression was still there in the "tag them" version, as you were still trying to get them before they got you. It's the same aggression and adrenaline rush as playing football or tag; real war just has a different set of consequences. Furthermore, it's unlikely that the aggression felt by most gamers is the same level as that felt by real soldiers.
And, honestly, you must have missed out on a whole generation of games. Have you never played Megaman? Legend of Zelda? Both had lots of violence, and I would certainly feel aggression while trying, but there was no blood, swearing, or even a hint of tits, even in the most modern of versions. (Well, Megaman Zero had some blood that was removed for some versions, and honestly it didn't diminish the game at all.)
I'm not saying that we should throw out M-Rated games and enjoy the next Grand Theft Balloon, but you can certainly have an aggressive and fun game without swearing and buckets of blood. Jet Force Gemini (does green blood count?), the aforementioned Zelda and Megaman, Street Fighter, and more. Even Half Life 2 didn't have much blood or swearing, from what I recall.
Yeah, because The Simpsons has no worldwide brand strength whatsoever... ;)
'Thats they exact same thing a banana wrench monkey.'
Half-Life 2 is hardly violent. There is a bit of blood and people dieing and that's it. There is no such thing as "Exploding in dismemberment" in that franchise. So they took a low violence game and made it even less violent. Big deal.
One time, a friend and I tried to actually be helpful in a World of Warcraft battleground (Arathi Basin) without doing a single point of direct damage to anyone on the opposing team, with a level 31 Undead Warlock and a level 32 Undead Priest. Lowest level toons for the ranked Battleground(think "cannon-fodder").
Short of fearing everyone repeatedly(just pissed everyone off, and the first guy with a trinket would kill us) or simply kiting them around to waste their time, we only found ONE method of actually killing someone without doing direct damage.
I'd park my succubus right next to the flag at the lumbermill, have her go invisible and then just stand there. Then I'd go and hide behind this rock real far away, but close enough to see the flag. The Priest would do the same, but closer in.
I'd wait for some unsuspecting soul to walk up, start to take the flag, then seduce them with the succubus(WTF!?........), then have my buddy the Priest come out of hiding, race up to them, cast mind control, then run the poor slob right off the towering cliff next to the flag. I could usually run up to the edge of the cliff just in time to see them hit, far below.
It wasn't us that killed them, it was the landing!
But seriously, MOST games are based on doing damage to something. This study just says that MOST game developers are simply ignoring a possible playerbase-- the ones that don't really care about doing damage to something.
Think Portal.
It wasn't advertised nearly as much as GTA was.
Exactly, the study is about the effect of blood and gore, not violence
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FUCK
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THIS IS WORSE THAN SOMETHING BUT I DON'T REMEMBER YET WHAT IT WAS
Mustard is made from mustard seeds and is more properly called "prepared mustard". It's hard to know when to stop, though.
(so see if I don't)
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GTA was a NEW name. The Simpson's was a very well established brand before becoming a game. Try again. And I'm not arguing that the GTA was BETTER than the Simpson's. But the vast majority of people think that it was more fun, and that's all that matters. Just like the vast majority of people think that Britney Spears is a better singer than Christina Aguilera. It may not be true from a critic's perspective, but the general public has chosen. You're arguing from a critics perspective, not from a social perspective. According to your values, Simpson's was as much if not more fun than GTA. The problem is that your values cannot be projected on society as a whole, and society as a whole, rightly or wrongly, think that GTA is more fun than Simpson's.
BTW, most gaming magazines thought that S:H&R was a good game, but that's not what the public thought.
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Half the people in a group of 36 male and 65 female college students were instructed... An extensive survey of the two groups showed that the exclusion of violence didn't diminish players' enjoyment of the game
Yeah, OK. But only because they had so many women in the mix. Put some 12 year old boys in there and the map will be covered in blood.
People who are outside of the gaming social faction get hooked on this stigma. Violence in games isn't violence. The point of gore in a game rarely has anything to do with violence. Blood splatter in games has a purpose, and it's not to attract the vampire demographic.
Here's an overly simplified run-down for the unaware:
- Games are structured activities with achievable goals.
- Goals in games come with rewards (simple psychology).
- The better the reward system, the more rewarding/entertaining the game.
- Rewards come in many forms, audible and visual are among the most prevalent in audio-visual products such as video games.
- An example of a visual reward is a firework. It's a visually appealing que signifying success.
- Games also often have themes. This imbues the game with 'Mimesis', the fun of role playing and make believe.
- Themes often involve living things because we(humans) find relevant topics more interesting, and living things (including humans) more relevant. Also, living things imply intelligence. Implied intelligence in opponents increases the sense of competition, or 'Agon'.
- When the theme dictates that you should defeat a living thing, and the reward system dictates that you should que success with a visual explosion, common sense leads to blood splatter.
Note: how some themes will use a more science fiction based approach, applying artificial intelligence to robots, and using combustion explosions or sparks as rewards.
The prosperity of violence in games is not, for the most part, due to gratuity, but solid evolutionary success. The game industry is heavily driven by an evolutionary process. Game producers cling to what has worked in previous propogations, while intermittently making random variations to successful formulas.
--So, thank you again scientists for attempting to give empirical evidence for something that was clearly logical.
Sir, I accuse you of Missing The Point.
The study wasn't about the presence of violence, but the act of violence commited by the player. In other words, "Is violent gameplay more or less fun than non-violent gameplay?" And the answer: players are indifferent, which is consistent with my limited experience.
Or, look at it another way: which is more fun, Portal, or Half-Life 2?
For those dismissing what amounts to a declaration of taste - Geof doesn't like violence in games - on the basis that such violence is "realistic" or historically accurate, please keep your position in mind next time you debate video games.
If you personally prefer historical accuracy, fine. De gustibus non est disputandum.
Otherwise, you appear to be arguing that historical accuracy is better because it is educational. Really? Instructional value should be a central concern in game design? Do tell.
You are also making it rather difficult to defend many features of games because players should distinguish fantasy from reality. Instead, you are saying the games should be less fantastic and more realistic.
Seriously. Some of you seem awfully touchy. Do you feel guilty about something? Do you think I'm suggesting your preferences are somehow inferior? Figure out what you're arguing with, then figure out whether that's really what I said.
Remember postal? big hit. Remember Postal 2? Anyone? Anyyone? Once Postal hit and took the "OMG BLOOD AND GORE" away, the next game in the series sucked. Hardcore. Since then nobody has really cared about the stupid blood and gore games.
"The same goes for breast size of female MMORPG characters, I like those but don't push the settings for boob size to the maximum."
But of course. We want our characters to be able to stand upright, right?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
Well, I'm sure that'll be news to EA, who has been making more money with their sports games than with any other genre. In fact, nowadays the average game doesn't even break even, and EA effectively subsidizes the duds out of their sports games income.
I'm sure it'll also be news to all the console manufacturers who've been courting EA for those games. Or to Sega who thought that they _need_ their own sports games to survive without EA sports, back in the Dreamcast days when they got in a pissing contest with EA.
So yes, "some flag-football where the most dexterous player wins", and in fact is often little more than a re-release of last year's game in higher resolution and the list of players updated, routinely outsells games mindless blood and guts.
I'm sure it'll also be news to Sony, where the Gran Turismo series and Final Fantasy helped sell more Playstations than all gory games combined.
It seems to me that:
1. Taking an arbitrary 13 year old male segment is a non-sequitur anyway, in an age where the average gamer age is in the 30's. There are more female gamers over 20 than male gamers under 18, and the numbers look even more bleak if you restrict yourself to 13 years olds. So what's really the point? That you can pick an irrelevant minority for your example?
2. Even there, don't underestimate a culture where masculinity and aggression are basically channelled into "my sports team beat your team, sucker". You could maybe make your point about some other dexterity game. But football? In half the world it's the modern gladiators and _the_ way to channel us-vs-them willy-waving. People learn early that being a mindless football drone is actually _expected_ if you're male. And aspiring to be a football superstar is actually one of the very acceptable and popular puberty aspirations for males. In this culture it's not a case of "some fag-football", but rather the opposite: people might wonder if you're gay if you _don't_ like football.
So, yes, if that 13 years old wants to not look gay to his peers, picking "some flag-football where the most dexterous player wins" is actually one of the easy ways to do so.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Taking in account their old games, the Simpsons had a TERRIBLE reputation among video game players.
Circumcision is child abuse.
the crossbow, I'll be alright. That thing is fr'kn awesome! But only 10 bolts? Cmon!!
Seagoon: Shut up Eccles!
Eccles: Shut up Eccles!
Certainly not as a game.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mKnl0CvfeLs
It is interesting to note that the original Fallout games both had Bloody Mess as a "trait" (similar to perks except they could only be selected at character creation and you get to choose up to 3 out of maybe a dozen choices). It differed from Fallout 3 in that it was purely the cosmetic effect, not the extra damage that Fallout 3's perk allowed. However, a lot of work was put into making the original Bloody Mess more... if not realistic, then at least sensical, than Fallout 3's, and it included many unique effects (unique to injury types, that is). This trait is/was easily the most popular trait in the games. When asked about it, however, few people say that they select it for the added violence, while many will say that it's interesting because of the creativity involved, seeing all of the different ways the devs made it work.
Remember, open source is free as in speech, not free as in bear.
Unlike sex, I'm sure violence has is at least doable. I played sextris for a bit but the game was ultimately unplayable. Not because using nude people tetris pieces was somehow demeaning or unseemly but because of the overly prudish interpretation of what kind of couplings would get rid of the piece. -- Those are fine sex positions for lesbian fetishists, dumbass game!
I should go code up a violent tetris. One you take out a row it should turn into blood and flow out with realistic fluid dynamics. Getting a tetris would drench the board.
It is no longer uncommon to be uncommon.
This really just seems to be just bad science to me. For starters, just asking people what they like more as they did in the 2,500 person study is no way to determine anything like this. Next, the sample size is entirely too small on the game play tests for them to mean anything. Finally, why on earth are they using a sample group that is disproportionately female in a study about game violence when it is males that a)generally spend far more time playing games and b) are generally more attracted to violence?
Now just as a disclaimer, I'm not promoting any viewpoint in regards to video game violence. I just think the studies in question here are bullshit (at least as they are described in the article).
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My favorite is putting in the code to give the pedestrians weapons, then the one to make them attack each other randomly. What do I do during the resulting chaos? Why, do Taxi missions while dodging rockets, of course :)
And here I thought I was the only one!
Anyone who hasn't actually played one could doubt it easily, even they've watched someone else playing a lot. While I agree that FPS tend to be about control etc., there are also times when they tend to be about violence, like when you're getting your ass kicked online by people who've been playing for years, and it becomes a matter of killing everything you see just to stay alive long enough to say you were part of the group.
Yeah, but it would not be a fun game WITHOUT the Simpsons theme.
Now if someone could create GTA with Simpsons in it.... that would just be awesome. I wanna smack hoes Homer style.
Hit&Run is not targeted at the same audiences, so it's kind of hard to compare the too, but I agree that the lack of a compelling story is its main problem, not the lack of violence.
Besides, Hit&Run is a lot less educative: remember, when cars hit people they die, they don't float around in the ground in a funny way :P
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"people in a group of 36 male and 65 female college students"
in america a representative group must have twice the amount of woman players ??
get me a ticket NOW....
In related news people in a group of 36 female and 65 male college students found out that fashion shows can forget about art and put all models naked.
Nerf Arena Blast I think wasn't given full credit for what it was: A FPS, multiplayer, without the gore. No exploding heads, no messy stains for the in-game janitorial staff, but still plenty fun.
Imagine a game that had all the violence of GTA but none of the story/gameplay. That is, you load the game, and a dialog says "press X to kill prostitute" and over and over and displays the results in 1080p glory.
Now imagine a sandbox/exploratory game with no violence.
Which would you play?
The thing about a game like MSG4 or Halflife is that while violent, most people are playing for the gameplay and/or the plot. The plot requires violence to seem "real". But most people aren't playing for the violence but for plot.
The cake is a pie
While I could see the enjoyment remaining the same when engaging in CTF or DM multiplayer gameplay, I prefer realism and a good storyline in my single player games. My enjoyment of HL2 would be greatly diminished if, after all they put me through, my revenge on Combine soldiers simply caused them to float away unharmed.
I mean, come on, you're saying that *65* women actually played a first person shooter? :)
Those Christian versions of Wolfenstein already proved this!
It was awesome fun running around throwing bibles at enemies (Muslims) and feeding farm animals instead of shooting Nazis!
If I was playing HL:2 without the ability to see the corpses, I'd be pissed. Not because the enemies would be dead, but because I use them as markers to show where I've been in the game - there is no map, but dead bodies at least exclude that area for further investigation!
Well according to how fast this bloody Half-Life film just broke the YouTube World record for Top Rated video of all time in 2 days and 750000 views, I think that test might be skewed. But who knows maybe it would've got more hits if they used a gravity gun in the video instead! And can someone other than me slashdot this video please??
I find one major problem with this: Half-Life has never and will never be primarily about dispatching enemies 'in a thoroughly bloody manner'. So even though this study seems to be defending games, it is really just perpetrating their age-old stereotypes.
While I love those games as much as the next guy (I am particularly enjoying Fallout 3 at the moment), I've found that similar experiences without the blood are just as much fun.
Oni was a fighting/shooting game in a future, grim, urban environment. Later stages of the game were just about post-apocalyptic. And yet, it didn't have blood, and it was an remains one of my favorite game experiences.
I certainly get a rise out of the bloody gib-explosions in Fallout 3, but I'm not as convinced as you that I wouldn't enjoy the game if they were absent. I think there's an initial shock value to the gore that's fun, but beyond that I'm more interested in playing the game. And the gore isn't necessary to it.
(On the other hand, I don't think the gore is harmful, either.)
I stole this sig from someone cleverer than me.
And while like you I believe in being an informed parent there are simply too many games released at once for me to keep up with everything released and about to be released to retail.
Well, generally speaking you or your kids will narrow it down with what's in the store. My point is that those details are generally obvious by what's on the box; in greater detail as a matter of fact. For example, Doom's healthkits and stimpacks could be considered 'drugs', Heck, X-Com medikits were rather explicit. Would this be the same as a game like Fallout where you perhaps have to deal with the dangers of addiction?
Still, most of this stuff is, like I said, on the box.
I don't read AC A human right