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."

Comments

Re:Violent games stopped me from playing

[Shadow of Eternity]

You're an idiot. Not because you dislike violence, but because you're ignoring the reality that killing off civilians really IS the most effective way to stop someone's production capacity and in the eras that AoE2 takes place in (and even AoE3) they actually DID do that. And because if it bothers you that much in age of freaking empires then you're having some serious issues telling the difference between fantasy and reality and I suggest you don't watch your 3 year old son play with his friends just in case you ever forget that cops and robbers isn't REALLY about stealing and murdering people.

If you don't want to kill people don't play violent games, but don't insult everyone else's intelligence by claiming that the violence is "wrecking" the game.