I’d like this to just be short and sweet. I want to tell you all about all the upcoming updates to our youtube series’ that I’m trying to implement as fast as possible. I’ve managed to fix about 99% of all the setbacks and issues I’ve previously told you about, but there are still a few hiccups in the developmental process that need to be ironed out. Hopefully I’ll figure those out soon so nothing will be hampered anymore. However, now on to the good news!
Mini Games w/ Robert
The OMGPOP series is in full swing. I’ve recently purchased a brand new screen recording program that will fix ALL of the problems I’ve had with producing this series. So, after episode 4 that will come out next Sunday, all further OMGPOP videos will be perfect. This is probably my favorite series in terms of ease of production.
Let’s Play!
This series I’ve just recently had issues with. The first one I uploaded (which is a stand-alone video) went up well, but did not upload in 1080p. I had another series set and ready to be edited and uploaded, however something was wrong with the file and I had to delete it. As of writing this, I do not have anything recorded or ready to be edited for this Wednesday, so this series is on hold until I can find the time to record. I don’t foresee future problems.
Games With My Dad
I finally managed to get this series done and uploaded last week. I’m trying my hardest to have the next episode up for tomorrow. The problems with this production are many. I won’t get into full boring detail, but I had issues with the exporting of the video, so sadly, for the remainder of the Mafia II episodes, there will be a 2 second game audio lag. There isn’t really any way for me to fix this. Once the Mafia II episodes are complete, this series should be fine. However, despite this, I’m still happy I finally got this online. This is probably my favorite series content-wise.
Splitscreen
This series is marred with issues. The first issue is that its near impossible to get people to come over and record some footage. Whether they’re working, I’m working or at school, or they’re just being lazy, we just can’t record footage. I do have footage from one session that is ready to edit, but I just haven’t had time to sit there and do so. I’m trying my best, I swear.
Other Non-Titled Series
Sometimes there will just be random videos I upload that have no series name, or anything of that sort. I uploaded pretty much 99% of the Sony PS4 press conference live stream, and although the aspect ratio isn’t the best (although the quality is fantastic) and although other game news media were HANDED copies of the footage, I’m still proud of the amount of time and work I put into making this videos. I literally uploaded them all less than 30 minutes after the conference ended. They will remain up for that fact alone (unless I’m forced to remove them). Can’t win every battle, I suppose.
So that’s pretty much it folks. That’s all the updates I got for you. I’m working my hardest to try and have all these videos edited and uploaded on time. It will get better, I assure you. I’m working on buying another microphone for series’ that involve more than myself in one room. The production value will be getting better in this respect as well. If you want to know when the videos are released, check out our weekly release schedule. Thanks for reading!
(There are important elements to an MMO that current games studios are just ignoring. Will they ignore them forever?)
Is there such a thing as a perfect MMO? Aren’t people and gamers different themselves and don’t we all have different tastes? How can one game appeal to all of us? How can the MMO make a comeback especially after having so many failures these past couple years and having the successful ones slowly crumble?
Wishful thinking
So yes it may just be wishful thinking but after having played a number of MMOs I think there are features that would appeal to a mass audience that are simply being neglected right now. You see some of these features in games here and there but never all in one place.
Finally after much frustration I want to go through the main elements of an MMO that should come together to create a great gaming experience.
Land
Why are they playing this MMO? What is at the heart and the soul of an MMO? It’s persistence. Persistence is what makes MMOs stand out differently than any other game. An MMO is there to persist or continue living on, long after you log off. Things happen while you’re away and the game keeps your character ready whenever you want to come back to it.
Persistence is why having land is so important. Virtual land, the ability to battle for it, and the ability to have a map that shows who owns what and praises the guilds that own it, is at the heart of why people want to play and MMO.
After creating such a powerful character, you should use the character to some tangible end. Sure monsters and quests are fun and dandy but the end game has always been and will always be PVP. A way a game can address this so that non-PVPers are happy is they can have land where PVP is impossible and players not wanting to PVP can simply live there. Other players can venture forth and claim land for themselves. Having done so, they must defend it, or lose it.
Land, it’s the most valuable resource in our modern world yet it’s simply absent in most MMOS. There is high potential for land as a means to make money for the game and for the players to enjoy. Imagine building nice homes, collecting taxes, and coming home to a nice and warm cottage by the ocean; prime real estate other players would die for.
Games like Second Life show that people will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for virtual land. The demand is there. MMO makers NEED to fulfill this demand and create persistent maps that can be conquered and controlled. Powerful Diplomacy actions need to be present as well to emulate the real world, and alliance systems need to be put in place.
Land that you fight for and control needs to be in nearly every MMO. What guild doesn’t want their own guild hall taken after a successful war?
Economy
Every item should be up for sale at whatever a player wants to sell it for. Items should deteriorate and be repairable so as to stop items from being horded and incentivize players to keep getting the items they need to progress forward.
Scamming should be monitored by the Game and there should be a zero tolerance policy for such acts. The Economy needs to be fairly regulated so that scammers don’t take hold of it and ruin the game experience for others.
But beyond that it should be totally free and if a person doesn’t research the price of their item and sells it for too little, they should have no one to complain to but themselves.
A rich and diverse economy is what should be at the heart of every MMO as well, so that these virtual items can be properly traded and people who need them can get them by trading, currency, or working. This way a players time can become currency.
Exploration
New land should always be added to the map. This new land would cause tension and give the game a fresh taste as people venture out and try to claim it for their own. This new land should be both in easy to obtain areas and hard to obtain areas, this way the whole player base gets excited; not just the top players.
The best land should be inaccessible except by permission. This way players that may want to see a beautiful town or city may only be able to do so if they are part of a certain guild, have explicit permission, or view that land on a test server. This would make that land even more valuable and exploration even more fun.
People should be both rewarded and punished for exploration. Those that are the strongest or the smartest can created groups where the costs are lowered and the benefits are easier to obtain.
Story
The story should be immersive. Currently the player base takes little part in the lore of the game. Imagine that the Devs of the game make an event where a person of special interest is placed in a heavily guarded fort. They create the backstory of the game, create a beautiful world, narrative, and mythos, and then the PLAYERS drive the story forward with in game events.
A camera records this fortress and whoever successfully saves the person of interest becomes part of the games lore forever. The game is shaped by you, your guild, and your choices. In this way, you feel more immersed in the game, and your time seems better used as now you’ve been placed in the annals of history.
These events don’t have to be very often but even once a month or once every three months would be huge and they could be open to anyone in game willing to take up the challenge, helping to push the narrative of the game forward. Why can’t games have a narrative that keeps going, keeps being written? Currently wrestling does this by hiring Hollywood writers to create ongoing plots. Why not have the same writers create interactive plots in MMOs?
Creativity
Building and creativity is what made Minecraft, Sims, and other games so popular. MMOs don’t have to allow you to destroy the terrain, but they should allow you to make a house into a home, with various items, and various ways of crafting them.
In this way, you can make unique beds, customize the colors, or shrink their size as they see fit. See games like Sims 2 and Sims 3 to get an idea of the customization I’m talking about. This game should also allow you to craft weapons and items that aren’t spawned or gotten by destroying monsters.
Crafting would also label the crafter on the item and thereby raise recognition of the best creators in the land. Since items would degrade as well, crafting could be a job of its own, that one would need to train to fully perfect.
Creativity and the ability to express one’s self needs to be part of the MMO in some way.
No Developer or GM interference
If you work for the game, you can’t benefit from it in any way. Every game that has their Developers or Game masters openly playing it, and profiting from it, has lead to corruption. Every single game.
If you have a GM account, you only use it from 9-5 to fix issues in the game. When you get home, if you play the game, you play on another account.
The Devs and the creators play on separate accounts. The Business NEVER EVER conflicts with personal gaming lives. This leads to corruption, tyranny, and unbalanced characters because greed is a part of the human condition and humans should not constantly bombard themselves with greed.
Take yourself out of the equation, never mix the business with pleasure, and enjoy your game on a personal account. There are so many horror stories games could have avoided and so many tyrannical GM’s and Devs that simply would not exist if this ONE rule were followed.
Final Thoughts
So imagine your house in this game, imagine being rich beyond your wildest dreams, crafting the best weapons in the land, and leader of the most powerful and prestigious guild on the server.
That would be a sense of real accomplishment, to use your power for good or evil as you choose, and to enter the history and lore of the game by taking part in in-game events.
Land would be up for the taking, and you would always need to be vigilant to guard your home, hiring security when needed. As new land came in, your home may be exposed to new people, which would require you to build new trust with them or build new alliances. Possibly it may lead to wars.
An ever diverse game, with a strong economy, strong player base, and true immersion is the goal of every MMO. It’s time for MMOs to implement these changes, make their games more immersive/interactive, and give us the game we’ve always wanted.
(When you enter the virtual world you want as much of the real you as you can to take part. Asymmetrical gameplay is a way of playing to your strengths and taking advantage of your enemy’s weaknesses.)
Everyone has their own way they love to fight or compete. Asymmetrical Gameplay takes advantage of that. People that love weapons or magical powers that give them faster attack will gladly play that way even if it means having to play with less health.
Game designers often take advantage of this fact and allow complex arrangements of play to take place each giving one player a distinct advantage and weakness over the others. Although one player may be able to quickly kill the other, his speed may be directly affected. People that love to play those slow tanks, will still gladly do so and slowly trug along, knowing if they can get their hands on the opponent, they will easily make up their lost time and mow through the enemy lines.
Asymmetrical gameplay gives everyone what they want. The players can play with a distinct advantage over others while the opponents can try to take advantage of that players inherent weaknesses. In this way, games like League of Legends, Left 4 Dead, and more recently, Primal Carnage, have thrived.
Asymmetry vs Power Creep
Asymmetrical Gameplay solves the ageless problem of Gaming which is power creep. In games that are multiplayer and are constantly played like W.O.W and Starcraft, the developers are always updating the game with new content and are always having to tweak some mechanism, weapon, or object to balance the game.
This is very tedious and sometimes by trying to balance the game you could make a new character the new king and make it very hard to beat that latest character. So how would a developer solve the issue of making characters too powerful over time or accidentally ruining balanced play?
The best way to do that is unbalance the play from the beginning. Allow a number of different weaknesses for each character, and give each character a unique upper hand over the rest. The chaos this seemingly creates causes a very interesting type of harmony.
Although each player is significantly better than the rest, they all each have different weaknesses, and different teams and tactics will be formed to take advantage of these weaknesses. Maybe if a fast character never has enough of a chance to get to the enemy, ranged units can be combined which can pin the enemy down, and then the fast units can go after their pinned foes and easily pick them off.
To defend the other side can try to rally behind 1 tank and break through the ranks of the ranged units trying to then fight 1 on 1 and break up the wall of ranged weapons.
None of this is possible without Asymmetry. Assuming every person was generically good, generically fast, and with generic weapons, you all die around the same period, and it becomes a game about teamwork, rather than tactics using your strengths against their weaknesses.
This explains the Call of Duty crowd, where most anyone has a good enough gun to kill most anyone, at a significant range. This forces people to use Teamwork and tactics based on that teamwork. Although even these games have their level of Asymmetry it’s nowhere near an FPS game like Planetside which gives much stronger advantages to one side over the other.
We’re all Unique
The other benefit to being able to play Asymmetrically is that we’re all unique. Why try to fit us all into one type of game play style if we like playing differently? There is a friend I will never forget that was the greatest Tank driver I’ve ever seen. He was amazing at helping me get good shots off and trying to avoid the enemy, getting us the best chance at winning the base ahead of us.
He didn’t kill anyone and he didn’t care. He would drive and drive for hours just so a better shooter than him could do the extra damage necessary to succeed and push forward. Games that allow players to really take advantage of their hidden potential are games with staying power and games that won’t easily be forgotten.
Some people really love to fly, and even if they can’t do much damage in the air, the reconnaissance they provide along with the transport can really save the day for their team.
A task I hate myself but that’s essential in every RPG is the healer. I hate being a healer, I can’t stand doing it, but every team dies without one. Every so often I meet a person who is an amazing healer and can really turn the tide in battle.
Symmetrical, boring, generic gameplay would never allow these people to succeed. It’s this uneven type of fighting where each wields powerful influence, that allows these dynamics to kick in and a lot of fun to be had.
I’ve already mentioned a bunch of asymmetrical games above but if you get stuck I’m sure there are a bunch more out there you have yet to find. Find your play type, love the role you play, and kick butt doing it.
If anything, asymmetrical gameplay may be the way of the future.
[Editor's Note: The views and opinions supported in this article do not represent or express the views of Immersed Gaming, it's members,or its affiliates. The views in this article are that of the author alone.]
(Sometimes Game Developers think they’re making games for rats rather than Humans. We’re quite a bit more pickier and are a little more complex.)
It’s very hard to pinpoint all the reasons a game is good. Sometimes what makes it good for one person has no effect on another. It seems like the best way of figuring out how to make a good game is to look at the ways of ruining a game and then analyze how game designers can avoid such mistakes. This list could probably include more than 20 points but,to make it easier to digest it’s simply best to go over the top five. These are the worst ways a developer can ruin their game:
Number 5
Too many Glitches
Sometimes gamers want to beat games or actually get past the first level. Pretty original idea right? But seriously, why do game publishers have to apply so much pressure on game developers that they end up shipping games half complete? You can’t expect gamers to enjoy a game that isn’t smooth, crashes their console, kills them randomly, or stops them from completing the game because of a glitch.
All developers have to do is sit down and debug their software, but sometimes the allure of money is simply too much especially when you’re weeks away from completion and exhausted from the months or years of work you’ve done. Simply put, Game Developers, don’t release unfinished games. Here are some funny videos with some of gaming history’s best glitches.
Number 4
Bad Camera / Creates bad Camera angles
This issue is very reminiscent of the 1990′s where developers had issues understanding how a proper camera should work and as a result, ended up failing miserably until they figured it out. While understandable back then, a long time has passed, and having bad camera issues today is completely unacceptable for any modern Game Developer.
Some games, especially platforming games, require a precise camera angle so that the player doesn’t fall to their death or encounter an enemy too suddenly. Given that, you can see how a bad camera can totally ruin a game.
Number 3
Artificial Difficulty = Lack of Checkpoints or Saves, Cheap Deaths, Lack of Items / Actual Difficulty
Some games, in order to make themselves appear to be more difficult, implement game elements that frustrate the player. Games need to meet a happy medium where they balance the desire of a gamer to be challenged and feel accomplished versus being frustrated and upset.
Sometimes the cause of the frustration is due to a Game Developers’ need to create something I call Artificial difficulty. Artificial difficulty is created in a number of ways. The first is making it extremely hard for a person to save or creating limited checkpoints. A checkpoint is simply a place in the game where the player is allowed to retry. Some games save automatically and constantly but if you die they make you restart the whole level. The beginning of the level then is the start of the checkpoint.
If you spent half an hour to get to where you were, you now spend that half hour again. I understand making players play a portion of what they did, as a punishment, but there is a red line game developers should not cross. At a certain point the game isn’t fun and you’ve created an artificial way of increasing the game time of a game by forcing replays. This best example of this is shown through playing games like Dark Souls or Demon Souls. The game saves frantically but you find yourself replaying whole levels simply because you died, something that can occur because of no fault of your own.
Another way to create artificial difficulty is limiting items essential for survival or not giving the player weapons that would be required to beat a certain boss.
On another note entirely a game being too difficult in general is also a red flag. Games like Superman on the N64 don’t give you any room to succeed except perfection. You redo levels a thousand times because you were half a second away from reaching the finishing line. Games that don’t give any mercy and leave no room at all for flexibility really take away from the enjoyment of playing. How can you expect perfection from a gamer and expect that same person to replay a level until they do it the way you want in a very short period of time?
Artificial difficulty and extreme real difficulty are two easy ways to tank your game and scare gamers away in the future.
Number 2
Sloppy Controls/ Game Mechanics
If your game is an FPS, the aiming and shooting should be precise. If it’s a sports game then it should correctly allow you to control your player and represent the game. If you can’t even dribble the ball correctly in a Basketball game and constantly struggle with controls, you’re not going to enjoy the game.
Whatever the game is aiming to do and however it asks you to interact with the player, it needs to be solid. Game Designers need to allow a smooth interaction between the player, their controller, and the game.
Too much lag due to inputs, confusing button setups, or bad controls can easily destroy any game. A game is a game after all and if the player can’t interact well within it, the game won’t be enjoyable. Make sure the game mechanics are solid.
Number 1
ABad Story
This isn’t just some story you slightly regret or a game that had an ending you didn’t expect. Having a bad story means you never feel immersed in the game, you don’t ever get committed to the characters, and everything gets confusing when the plot is getting told.
This is why a lot of current day Final Fantasy’s are suffering. Convoluted plots and complexity take the place of simplicity and a cast of characters you know and enjoy. The need to create drama prevents immersion.
A bunch of games get released with good stories, but games like Red Dead Redemption, Fallout, Kingdom Hearts, or Mass Effect become great because they slowly weave a small tale, introducing gamers to a grand new world, and allow them the freedom to move around it and experience it properly without being jolted by random plot lines and introductions of random side characters that mean nothing in the end.
There are a lot of games with great controls, great graphics, and millions of dollars poured into them. Why don’t they become instant franchises? The bane of each and every one of these games is that their story is simply not compelling enough. What makes a great game, at the end of the day, is the narrative. The story, the characters, the world, the believability of it all, the immersion, and the experiences make a record breaking franchise.
And with that, this narrative comes to a close, hopefully giving game developers some hints on how not to shoot their games, and themselves, in the foot.
[Editor's Note: The views and opinions supported in this article do not represent or express the views of Immersed Gaming, it's members,or its affiliates. The views in this article are that of the author alone.]
(Being in a university setting, with a major in the sciences definitely affects your outlook on life. In this article I take that unique outlook on life and analyze gaming and productivity.)
Time and time again we ask ourselves if we’re wasting our time by playing games. There are literally millions of websites, tweets, blogs, and personal stories of people complaining that games waste their lives. There are also people cheering and writing about how they have ditched games forever and have become more productive as a result. They feel as if they’ve won their life back.
I’d agree that doing anything excessively wastes life, and like wise, gaming in an uncontrollable manner is definitely a waste of time. Think about the person that spends countless hours reading fiction and non fiction, never interacting with the community or friends, and always holed up in their room. Is that person any different then an obsessed gamer? What about the athlete that trains night and day to win the Olympics, sacrificing their friends and social life, just for glory. Is that person any different from an obsessed gamer? Obsession is obsession regardless of the action.
The question here we have to ask ourselves is can a person play games as a hobby or a favorite past time and not waste time. Can they gain some tangible benefit that we can see translated in the real world. Are there any inherent mechanisms of gaming that are found to actualize humans, make us better, and work as an exercise machine for our brain, emotions, morality, or heart?
I’m here to put on my scholarly cap, use the thousands of dollars of scholarly articles I have access to(Thanks to my University), and investigate whether there is or isn’t any productivity in gaming. Do gamers truly waste time doing their favorite hobby or are there positive experiences or lessons that can translate to the real world and can make us better people?
Gameification
Example 1
Before we can even look into whether games are a good use of time or not we have to at least establish their ability to influence us. We have to show that games are powerful in some way or another, to be used in positive or negative manners. If we find that games are not powerful and have little affect on us, (kind of like how grass won’t affect how quickly we’ll finish an essay), then we can end the argument here and say gamers are weak, don’t affect us, and make us unproductive.
Most gamers probably won’t fear this threat as they know first hand how powerful games are and how insanely focused they can make people. Even the White House and President Obama are working on ways of harnessing the power of games for good. They look at games like Just Dance as positive examples of exercise using a game mechanic. They want to use that game mechanic to do many things, besides making us exercise more.
Gamefication is a term used by many describing how a person harnesses a games power by incorporating in some way tasks they want done to reinforce actions or messages they want expressed. That’s a slightly technical definition I’ve included so the easiest way to describe it is “making games to do things you want done that is positive in some way.”
A great example of this was when a team of gamers came together and used a program to solve a problem scientists had trouble solving for years.
“‘I worked for two years to make these enzymes better and I couldn’t do
it,” says Justin Siegel, a post-doctoral researcher working in
biophysics in Baker’s group. “Foldit players were able to make a large
jump in structural space and I still don’t fully understand how they did
it.’”
Their work inspired a scientific article in one of the two most powerful scientific journals available; Nature(The other being Science). The full citation of the article is listed here for your benefit:
Cooper, S. , Khatib, F. , Treuille, A. , Barbero, J. , Lee, J. , et al.
(2010). Predicting protein structures with a multiplayer online game. Nature, 466(7307), 756-760.
Foldit, the program they used, allows players to work with proteins and analyze their specific shapes. These molecules are on the brink of science and no one knows how they fold properly; except maybe gamers. It’s quite interesting when you harness the focusing power of gaming, the creativity it brings, the crowd and social aspect, and the puzzle solving all into one small arena for the benefit of science. Clearly gaming flexes its muscles and shows its true power and potential. Example 2
Games can inspire and teach in ways that are getting educators excited. Rather than lecture and hope the material is learned by the student, now educators are opening their eyes to interactive gaming as a means to a positive end.
A roller coaster themed game is helping inspired teenagers to enter into S.T.E.M disciplines. Each acronym expresses an area of expertise. The S stands for Science, the T for Technology, the E for Engineering, and the M for Mathematics. Without these majors and centers of learning, we literally have no internet, no society, and no hope for the future.
Gamefication of our schools and learning seems to be an important step in getting young people to find their strengths in areas they originally thought they were horrible at. This was one of the more popular topics discussed at the Gamefication conference. The theme could be explained as “School is currently a bad game, lets make it better”.
Social media seemed a fad for a while. Everyone said people would stop discussing it and that it was just something kids did to kill time. Now every corporation puts social media at the heart of its international presence. Likewise, Gameficiation can be a tool every discipline starts using to further their goals, either to enrich their students, inspire their workers, or simply work towards a better future.
I wasn’t kidding about the inspire workers comment. In the above linked article from PCWorld, companies find they increase productivity by giving their workers gaming breaks:
“Burbage firmly believes that gaming helps the staff. The most obvious reason: “People need a break. Studies show that if you just sit at your desk all day, productivity goes down and down.” He says that gaming also teaches how to think strategically, several moves ahead, and of course it helps with team building, “And hey, it’s fun,” adds Burbage. “After I go play Halo, I come back and I’m happy and in a good mood.”
Though he can’t attribute the phenomenon entirely to gaming, Burbage says that the company’s culture has helped keep employee turnover at a minuscule 4 percent per year.
That leaves us with just one question: Which department produces the best gamers? Thibodeaux says that his sales department is big into shooters (draw your own conclusions on that one), but all sources seem to agree on one piece of advice: No matter what game you’re playing, never go up against the IT department.”
Definitions
In a scholarly article titled: “The Gaming of Policy and the Politics of Gaming: A Review” author Mayer explains some of the basics of gaming and gives us an insight into how it became so powerful:
(Cited as: Mayer, I. (2009). The gaming of policy and the politics of gaming: A review. Simulation & Gaming, 40(6), 825-862.)
“Looking back at 40 years of Simulation & Gaming and other sources, it is indisputable that games have proven to be wonderful instruments for experimentation and learning and that gaming has been particularly useful to public policy making and public planning.
Regular readers of Simulation & Gaming know that simulation games can be defined as experi(m)ent(i)al, rule-based, interactive environments, where players learn by taking actions and by experiencing their effects through feedback mechanisms that are deliberately built into and around the game.
Gaming is based on the assumption that the individual and social learning that emerges in the game can be transferred to the world outside the game. This transfer is largely negotiated and not immediate, thereby making a simulation game low in external risks
and giving the players a sense of safety, which is a prerequisite for experimentation and creativity (see also Abt, 1970; Shubik, 1975a, 1975b; Duke, 1974; Duke & Geurts, 2004; Geurts, Duke, & Vermeulen, 2007; Geurts, Joldersma, & Roelofs, 1998; Mayer, 2008; Mayer, Bekebrede, Bilsen, & Zhou, 2009; Mayer & Veeneman, 2002; for the negotiated effects of games, see also Juul, 2005).”
Games allow experimentation, interactivity, a friendly environment for creativity because of the lack of consequences to your real self, and they offer feedback mechanisms to give you answers on the fly to all of your decisions.
The Philosophy of Productivity
Another question we want to ask ourselves is if Gaming is a low productive activity, then what should we be doing instead? What higher productive activities are so lofty, that we waste our time in our digital worlds?
Jane McGonigal gives her insights in the following videos:
Jane makes a good point asking what it is we’re trying to produce. Are we trying to produce more emails, more paperwork, read more, write more? Can gaming be a way of producing more positive emotions, stronger social interactions, making us more confident, and overall making a better real us?
Jane tackles a really important issue in her second video which is the one of addiction. Games seem to be so addicting or fun because they are so good at gratifying our deepest needs. She mentions seeing the results of our actions immediately as an example, or the ability to play a hero. The social aspect is also very appealing because humans are social beings. One reason why we hate prison is because it stops us from freely interacting with other humans in the world. Jane also mentions the ability to quickly see ourselves progress and get stronger. This makes us feel more satisfied with ourselves and more accomplished. She classifies it as a sense of “Mastery”.
Not all video games are perfect
This last part is a cautionary tale to explain that not every video game you play is going to benefit you. One of the most hotly contested issues in gaming, that requires its own article, is the question of whether video games desensitize you to violence or make you more violent in general.
We’ve learned that video games are powerful mechanics that can help us learn better, make a better world, and make us more creative. But we also need to remember that video games can have negative influences on us as well.
Doing my research when it came to violence, I found a large preponderance of the data supported the fact that video games do indeed desensitize humans to real world violence. Some of the most telling studies of this effect were:
1. Nicholas L. Carnagey, Craig A. Anderson, Brad J. Bushman
The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence ☆
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 43, Issue 3, May 2007, Pages 489–496
“The present experiment demonstrates that violent video game exposure can
cause desensitization to real-life violence. In this experiment,
violent game players were less physiologically aroused by real-life
violence than were nonviolent game players. It appears that individuals
who play violent video games habituate or “get used to” all the violence
and eventually become physiologically numb to it.”
2. Christopher R. Engelhardt, Bruce D. Bartholow, Geoffrey T. Kerr, Brad J. Bushman
This is your brain on violent video games: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following violent video game exposure
Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Volume 47, Issue 5, September 2011, Pages 1033–1036
”The fact that video game
exposure did not affect the P3 amplitudes of high-exposure participants
is interesting, and suggests a number of possibilities. First, it could
be that these individuals are already so desensitized that an acute
exposure to violent media was insufficient to bring about further
changes in their neural responses to violence (i.e., a floor effect).
Second, it could be that some unmeasured factor causes both an affinity
for violent media and a reduced P3 response to violent imagery in
violent gamers. In either case, the fact that playing a violent video
game increased aggression for both low- and high-exposure participants,
but the P3 response to violence was reduced for high-exposure
participants regardless of the game they played, suggests that
additional mechanisms not measured here are important to consider.
Future research should continue to investigate mediators of media
violence effects on aggressive behavior, especially among individuals
who are habitually exposed to violent media.
In summary, the present research is the first to demonstrate that acute
desensitization to violence can account for the causal effect of violent
video game exposure on aggression. In short, these data indicate that a
brain on media violence provides one important pathway for increased
aggression.”
3. Douglas A Gentile, Paul J Lynch, Jennifer Ruh Linder, David A Walsh
The effects of violent video game habits on adolescent hostility, aggressive behaviors, and school performance
Journal of Adolescence, Volume 27, Issue 1, February 2004, Pages 5–22
“It was hypothesized that exposure to video game violence would be positively related to aggressive behaviors,
such as arguments with teachers and physical fights. This hypothesis
was confirmed. Students who play more violent video games are more
likely to have been involved in physical fights and get into arguments
with teachers more frequently. The relation between violent video game
exposure and physical fights is stronger than that between violent game
exposure and arguments with teachers. There are several possible reasons
for this, including (1) arguing is less aggressive than fighting, (2)
the target of arguing is an authority figure, rather than peers, and (3)
there is very little arguing modelled in violent video games whereas
there is a great deal of physical aggression modelled in violent games.
That youth who are more hostile also play more violent video games raises
questions of causality. Are young adolescents more hostile and
aggressive because they expose themselves to media violence, or do
previously hostile adolescents prefer violent media? Due to the
correlational nature of this study, we cannot answer this question
directly. Some studies have suggested that there is a bidirectional
relationship (see Donnerstein, Slaby, and Eron (1994)
for a review). GAM predicts a bidirectional effect, in which
personological variables such as hostility affect media habits, which in
turn reinforce and can modify the personological variables. Huesmann
and colleagues (Lefkowitz, Eron, Walder, & Huesmann, 1972)
have shown in long-term longitudinal studies that early media violence
consumption habits predict later aggressive behaviors, but that early
aggressive behaviors do not predict later media violence consumption
habits. In the present research, video game violence exposure was a
significant predictor of physical fights, even when sex, trait
hostility, and weekly amount of video game play were statistically
controlled. Clearly, hostility is not the whole story. If it were, then
we would expect that children with the lowest hostility scores would not
get into physical fights regardless of their video game habits.
Following this logic, we would also expect that children with the
highest hostility scores would get into physical fights regardless of
their video game habits. Yet, low-hostile students who have the highest exposure to violent video games are more likely to have been involved in fights than high-hostile students who have the lowest exposure to violent video games (38% compared to 28%, respectively).”
4. Fraser, A. , Padilla-Walker, L. , Coyne, S. , Nelson, L. , &
Stockdale, L. (2012).
Associations between violent video gaming,
empathic concern, and prosocial behavior toward strangers, friends, and
family members.Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 41(5), 636-649.
“As mentioned, violent video gaming has been linked to lower empathic concern and prosocial behavior separately (Anderson et
al. 2010), but these studies have not taken into account the relationship between
empathic concern and prosocial behavior. Thus, the
current findings extend existing research by
suggesting that violent video gaming is not only linked to prosocial
behavior
and lower levels of empathic concern, but also linked
to prosocial behavior through lower levels of empathic concern. Theoretically, this provides support for the GAM (Bushman and Anderson 2009),
showing that during emerging adulthood in particular, the arousal
brought on by media violence may gradually influence
the internal state or personality of the player, which
is then associated with decreases in helping behavior. Again, we would
note that associations were not particularly strong,
nevertheless they were statistically significant. It is also important
to note that the cross-sectional nature of the current
study precludes causal inferences; but given past experimental research
suggesting causal relationships between violent video
gaming and reductions in both empathic concern and prosocial behavior,
future research should continue to examine empathic
concern as a mediator between violent video gaming and prosocial
behavior.”
“Despite the limitations mentioned, this study highlights the
associations between violent video gaming and prosocial outcomes
during emerging adulthood. Our findings add to the
extant research by further exploring the associations between violent
video
gaming and prosocial behavior, specifically by
highlighting one mechanism (decreased empathic concern) through which
this
process might function. Emerging adulthood is a highly
exploratory time, when identities are formulated and relationships
are redefined (Arnett 2004).
Although it seems that many emerging adults greatly enjoy playing
violent video games, playing may be associated with negative
consequences not only on strangers but also within
close relationships. Thus, the current study adds to a growing body of
research suggesting that the target of the prosocial
behavior is important to consider, and highlights violent video gaming
as one potential socialization influence that might
impact prosocial behavior differentially as a function of the target.
“
As an academic I looked at the preponderance of evidence and even spent extra time looking for articles to support the opposite side that violent video games do not desensitize us. The fact remains though that there is little literature that supports that.
Games aren’t perfect and they have their downsides too. If you were to watch a person in real life being murdered slowly, a thousand times, it would affect you negatively.
It’s only common sense that exposure to violence, especially at a young age when we’re more impressionable, seems to desensitize us. Gamers should keep this in mind and realize not all games or all experiences are good for us.
Final Thoughts
We’ve found games to be powerful, thought provoking, creative, and essential in some ways to our future. We’ve also tempered our hope with a bit of reality showing that there are darker sides to gaming as there are with anything.
But to say that all gaming is unproductive and to ignore the boundless opportunities gaming offers to the world; ignoring all the positive results that have come about, is reckless.
That type of negativity is defeatist. Nothing in this world is perfect. Even if gaming may have its worries with addiction and violence, it also shares those same imperfections as other hobbies. There are no perfect choices out there or perfect hobbies.
Even gardening, a seemingly mundane task, if taking to an extreme, has a negative impact on a person. Improper gardening is what lead us to the drug war, where plants became a way to make money, create a black market, and ruin the lives of millions of individuals.
But do we tell people to stop gardening? No. Of course not. Without gardening there wouldn’t be life. Similarly, gaming has its benefits and pitfalls and the objective of an unbiased human should be to take the benefits and avoid the pitfalls.
Like everything else in life, gaming can have wondrous beauty, amazing creativity, and lead to worlds never imagined. We need to cultivate the best part of gaming while limiting the darker sides.
But to say that all gaming is unproductive flies in the face of the facts. Gaming nurtures our souls. As long as we feed it positive energy, it will work to uplift us. It, like electricity, social media, and the internet, can uplift us in ways we never imagined, if we only grasp its hand.
