Article 1
The Art of Psychology
“A still more glorious dawn awaits, not a sunrise, but a galaxy rise…” – Carl Sagan
When you think of a video game, you’re perception of life will decide how you regard it.
If you do not play many or any games at all, you may assume they are for children or that adults who play them are wasting their time and lives on them.
If you play games a lot, you may examine them to see if their worth playing, taking the time to look at videos and trying it out before really diving into the depths of the game.
But there is something here that both approaches often miss. Due to the fact that video games are created by humans, they are inherently filled with subtle psychological influences on humans. Not quite sublminal messaging, but often also not quite intended.
In every tiny thing that exists in video games, there is a human being who created it. This human being has used computers to impose their will and ideas into a program to create the scenario you are faced with, a world that will have it’s own consequences and resolutions as you experience it. It is important to realize that every little thing we experience changes us, and we will never be who we were just a few minutes before. Video games have the ability to impact us immensely this way.
The first and most prominent thing that effects us is the visuals and sound– what we see and hear, the artistic side of video games. This is largely the bigger part of what we experience and take in, because video games lack the sense of taste or smell, and touch is limited to the controller we are using and whether it has a rumble feature! It may seem very arbitrary to many people nowadays who do not play games on a regular basis, but these things can be huge for us, and can make our imaginations flourish just like a great book can.
At it’s core, video games take on only a few basic goals:
1: To tell a story.
2: To present a unique, new method of problem solving
3: Social interactions
First, let’s discuss this first part: the story. Visuals and audio are the most important for telling a story by far. You see the characters, but not only that, you see how they move, and then you hear how they talk to their friends or enemies. In some games, the entire focus is just the story, putting much of the interaction on the back burner just to tell the story.
In others, the story is minimalized, set aside so that the technical aspect of the game can be improved upon to the point where people can play the game for a long time and still enjoy it. This is almost exclusively to multiplayer games, where the story is simply there to either provide a simple incentive for the conflict or to explain who the characters the players are controlling are.
In still other games, these elements are balanced out. A good story will have all the writings of an excellent play, the artistry of a master sculptor, and the communication of a professional singer. In many cases, especially in modern games, this is literally the case. On more than a few occasions, professional authors will write stories for games. The Metal Gear series is renowned for this, as is Splinter Cell’s series. Likewise, the visual aspect has become so developed that entire professions of art have been created, from two dimensional and three dimensional animators, to concept artists, matte artists, technical artist, etc. And the audio is crafted with professional voice actors, and songs are written solely for the game, both as background music, promotional music, and a certain kind of mood music. “Still Alive”, two songs by the same name, are perfect examples of this. One was created for Portal, written by Johnathon Coulton and sung by the only voice actress in the game, and the other was written for the game Mirror’s Edge, sung by Swedish pop star Lisa Miskovsky.
Yet many people who do not play games disregard them as simple childish playthings. This could not be further from the truth.
There exists games created for all sorts of people. There are games for children, to entertain, educate, or challenge. There also exists games for teenagers, to stimulate them intellectually with deep storylines, or challenge themselves to become better than someone else; it should be noted this has become an important part of many teenagers lives, mainly by revealing how they react to failure. And finally, there exists games for adults, with complex, abstract ideas, dramatic stories, and a challenging level of technical skill.
As for the second part, problem solving, this is a rather vague area to cover. Back in the day, games had very simple problems, usually either defeat all enemies on the screen or get to the end of a simple stage. But it’s become so much more complex over the years, and some games have literally hundreds of challenges to overcome to complete the game. However, the unifying issue here is that the game has a conflict, and the player must resolve this conflict within the games conditions.
This conflict can be anything. It could be as simple as ‘burning the rope‘, to defeating a skilled human opponent in a fight. But what’s important is how the player approaches, thinks, and overcomes the problem. These all add up to an experience for the player, creating a unique memory and establishing a sensation of pride, joy, and most of all, excitement in the player for overcoming a challenge. The more difficult the challenge, the more rewarding the victory over it.
Finally, social interactions. This is the most difficult aspect of psychology in gaming to cover. Psychologists study and research social interactions constantly, but almost never do they examine how people interact online. When they do, it’s almost always a very arbitrary thing, such as “Did you know 20 million people email each other every day?!” It’s not important. It is excess information, and only serves to confuse the real heart of the issue: Is online interaction any worse or better than physical interaction? Indeed, is it even any different?
I hope this serves as a good introduction to this concept. Psychology and Gaming are an incredibly big part of my life, and I’ve been studying both since I figured out pushing buttons on the Atari’s joystick made stuff happen on the screen in front of me when I wasn’t even a year old yet. I hope to make this and all future articles as readable by people who play games and people who do not, as I think these concepts are more important than people give them credit for.
In coming articles, I will focus on one genre of game or aspect of psychology and try to shed more light on different issues and concepts. If there are any questions, suggestions for topics, or comments, please feel free to contact me and I’ll be happy to do what I can.
I’m looking at the endowment effect of used video games. Maybe you could help me.
I’ll admit right from the get go, I’m atrocious when it comes to the endowment effect. I hoarde everything, and games and game systems are among my most prized possessions, interestingly enough. But the endowment effect is a very interesting phenomenon, and it’s probably most linked with our childhood phase of claiming everything as belonging to us. When it comes down to it, just saying something is yours makes it more important to us– and thus more valuable, as the majority of our culture is based around finances and financial status (i.e. a rich man is more attractive than a poor man because he can provide for his family).
At the same time, I’m interested in how other cultures would view the endowment effect. In American society, it’s very normal to think of something as being more valuable or important, or having ‘sentimental’ value, as we’re a very materialistic-based society. But how would, say, a buddhist monk show endowment effect? I would imagine that he would place much more value on his relationships with others rather than materials, but then again, I don’t know any buddhist monks!