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:Violence isn't necessary to have fun in games..

[the_humeister]

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.

Re:Surveying is not the best method

[nedlohs]

Since there's no reason for either group to know what the other group was doing I can't see how that would matter.