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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.
...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?
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.
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
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.
Portal has violence, it's just all happening to you instead of your enemies.
I see your informative link, and raise you a pithy comment.
prefer rows of eliminated blocks in Tetris to explode into blood and gore and fire.
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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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.
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.