Obviously they didn't survey anyone who played Fallout 3 who selected the "Bloody Mess" perk while levelling up. In VATS mode that perk combined with a shotgun to the face always puts a smile on my face and leaves me feeling satisfied.

I think having things in the game world react to your action is necessary though. For instance I played Left 4 Dead and when you shoot those enemies they simply drop and it doesn't seem like you are actually shooting "meat"; it feels more like you're shooting cardboard cutout zombies. However as Neil Rego used above in Fallout 3 when I shoot something in the head I know it is going to react the way it should with a "bloody mess". So while violence may not directly contribute to enjoyment, lack of reaction to your action can definitely contribute to lesser enjoyment.

As another example take Ninja Gaiden 1 and 2. Limbs flying and blood splatters everywhere didn't directly contribute to my enjoyment because it was "cool", "bloody", or "gory". It did however contribute to my enjoyment because I was seeing a definite reaction as a result of my actions.

B N,

in L4D if you shoot a zombies in the head, it will generally explode. They also react to where they are hit. Most of the time, if you don't kill them in one shot, they'll simply shift in reaction to that shot, then run towards you. I play the PC version with my friends on expert, maybe that makes a difference?

I'm into to gore, BUT only the cheese found in movies like Grind House from Quentin Tarantino, or Army of Darkness. It has to be campy.

I personally like game like RE4 Wii or Dead Space, where as shooting someone in the leg makes a difference.

The study basically concluded the obvious. Violence by itself appeals to a very small and shallow consumer base contrary to what most marketing teams seem to believe.

Violence has another uses though, and this is way more complex to analyze. Some violent games do so to add psychological pressure on players (Resident Evil), other do so to add realistic feedback to players (as the aforementioned Fallout 3 and Ninja Gaiden examples), others do so for clear aesthetic purposes (God of War). All these uses of violence even though limits the possible consumers of the game, add something to the experience. Senseless violence, don't.

About the Left 4 Dead example. Well, I don't think L4D aims to be realistic, so it don't really (and shouldn't) use realistic and gorey gunshot wounds even if the enemies are zombies. L4D is a next gen co-op arcade-style shoot 'em up, those that back in the day had enemies that exploded the same with every kind of attack thrown at them... Adding realism to the wounds of enemies and players, plus generous blood decals and other superfluous details would bring perfomance hits and lag to this fast paced and 3d model crowded game.

Chris,

Yea I played the Xbox 360 version of L4D and I wasn't impressed at all. I was using the shotgun at the time so I didn't try out all the other weapons, but it certainly seemed like I was just shooting cardboard cutouts with the shotgun. It was on expert and there were lots of zombies on the screen so possibly it is a technical thing where the xbox is concerned.

Regarding L4D: I know they had to cut a variety of details out for the xbox 360 version, one in particular if I rememebr right is that zombies despawn after dying instead of piling up. There are also a few regional edits, I know that Germany required a LOT of violence to be cut down and the aesthetic and psychological effects of the violent actions were removed. It actually has some pretty damn realistic reactions, as far as I am concerned, at least in an uncut PC version like mine.


As to this story, well, i think the thing most people seem to be missing is that if you're not a casual gamer or a kid, you just want more serious and more adult oriented games. You want games like Conker's Bad Fur Day, L4D, RE, Quake, Age of Conan, you want to play games catered to you that can give you a good rush. The fact that most of these more serious games include a fair amount of violence really doesn't matter much, but it can add a lot to them. If all we wanted was violent, there're scores of violent E rated games we could play. Just because it's cartoony doesn't make it less violent. But, I'm sure we all know why we avoid the kid and family games, because we want something more real, more involving, more immersive, more adult.

I'm one of those people who took the bloody mess perk, but I have to say I regretted it. It's actually kind of disrupting to the experience - when you shoot someone in the head with a rifle you don't expect their arms and legs to explode. After a while the explosive gore just becomes irritating.

I'm trying to think of games I enjoyed that didn't involve much violence...Guitar Hero, Super Mario, Metal Gear Solid.

It may be a age thing(in that I started gaming in the 80's), but as a developer I do take into account what a young child(and let's not kid ourselves that young kids wont play our games - whatever the age rating) will be exposed to.

I grew up happily destroying blocky pixels - and could easily disassociate real life from my actions. I just don't think many(any?) current AAA devs/publishers spend enough time with their games asking the question "would I be happy if my child spent the next 10 years of their lives playing games like this?". I'm not of the 'ban all violence' groups, I believe in the freedom of expression, but i think as an industry it will become vital to become more responsible if we are to avoid sensationalism leading to imposed legislation; which to me seems to be where we are heading currently. We should be smart and do everything we can to avoid that happening.

He obviously didnt study many violent prone gamers. I am a very violent person and avid gamer. As with what the first poster said, in FO3 blowing a humans head totally off at the neck makes me physically smile. If mushrooms and ladybugs flew out instead of blood, I would be pissed. So fuck off you hippie! lol

As proof of this study, look no further than the Mortal Kombat series.

When it first hit the arcades, it caught everyone's attention with its realism -- digitizing real actors -- and its violent content, but it was a combination of the two that drew quarters (and ire) from people. Other arcade games released shortly after tried to focus entirely on the violent aspect of the game (e.g. Time Killers), but they failed because they were simply not as challenging to play as MK.

In its subsequent sequels, Midway saw that they could not prolong the franchise without adding more features, like characters, finishing moves, backstory, etc. In other words, it was not the gruesomeness of the fatalities that drew fans, it was the finishing move itself.

Good thing to learn, since it goes 180° against what our dear governments (for some of us here) do their best to shovel down our throats, trying to turn us into a generation of frustrated people who shall treat violence casually, but faint to the mere sight of a nipple, which is of course highly ridiculous.

That said, I'm a fan of the God of War series for their very specific divine violence.

Has anyone found an in-depth description of the PENS model? Without it, it's a little hard to form an opinion on Immersyve's findings.

However, without the above insight, I still want to add this:

Gore might not motivate most players, but I can't help thinking about Herzberg's two-factor theory. Even though it's developed to better understand job satisfaction, I often apply the principles to other areas as well. The Idea is, that the presence of some factors motivates people whereas the lack of other factors demotivates people.

I feel that gore could very well fall in the latter category for a lot of players playing certain game types.

The study is wrong. While violence is not the component of a game that makes it good (the conflict-resolution satisfaction that the study found could be figured out by anyone with common sense), it is something that drives the narrative, and that is something that most modern games have.

Games themselves do not need violence, look at chess, go, cards, or even monopoly... these games will be played for decades to come and are very satisfying games that pit the player against other players, or sometimes even the game itself.

What modern videogames add to a gameplay mechanic is a narritive - charachters, a story, reasons for the setting or game world; etc. What makes a good narrative goes back to the Shakesperian model of comedy/tradgedy - with every story falling into one broad category. Death/loss is a key component to any tradgedy. It is taught in film school that if you want to have a compelling narrative, you must have the tension of either death or sex. Each scene has to have the possibility of someone being killed or someone having a romantic encounter. These elements drive the STORY - something missing from the study.

My sentiments echo pretty much with what B N initially posted: "while violence may not directly contribute to enjoyment, lack of reaction to your action can definitely contribute to lesser enjoyment."

Also, props for the hippie picture for the article. Made my day.

Accusations of tree-hugging notwithstanding, there are some very thoughtful comments and good issues raised here about our research, and we wanted to take a moment to respond.

First, despite the fact that some portrayals of the work in the press are slotting it in with the usual "hot potato" issue of the effects of violence and video games, that wasn't the fundamental question we were asking. We all know that violent games are very popular, and in our broader program of research that looks systematically at how games satisfy specific needs in players we also know that violent games are very need satisfying - which in turn is one reason they are so highly valued. But we're interested in parsing why that is the case with research and data rather than just opinion so that we can build a more empowering set of knowledge for both developers and social scientists. Is it really the blood, gore, and violent themes, or is it something more fundamental? What part of my core audience would I turn off if I turned some of the blood down? Would I appeal to a new market? We think some good research rather than “best-guess” and common sense alone might be helpful on these fronts.

That said, we don't think these studies are by any means the final word on anything, and in fact, some of the issues raised in this forum are among the best criticisms we've heard so far on this research. We want to carry such critiques forward into our next round of study, but we'll take a minute to confirm why we think this set of studies is a good start.

The research included six different studies, some of which were survey-based, but others were controlled lab experiments with both novice and avid gamers so that we could be precise in looking at the issue. The surveys were done with active games in multiple genres, so we were tapping into the real gamer community. The experiments were direct observation, and perhaps more definitive. The problem that we have had with some previous research on this issue is that two different games are often used for the "violent vs. non-violent" comparison which is clearly problematic because much more than just the level of violence would be different - the entire experience of gameplay would be different.

In one of the experiments in particular in our study, we created identical level maps and gameplay elements using HL2 mods, and only changed the level of blood/gore and the violent conceit of the "story" that gave context for gameplay. In this experiment, there was no difference in the level of enjoyment of gameplay, even in those gamers who indicate they value game violence and were part of what many violent game developers might consider their core demographic. So the finding is not that you can make fun games that aren't violent (we all know you can), but that even in those who have a propensity to violent games, the gore and violent themes per se aren’t increasing enjoyment in that core audience. That is a far less obvious finding, and one that addresses questions about game violence we hear more and more frequently in our conversations with developers in a climate where entire countries have shown they are willing to close off markets because of violent content.

We know some devs already hold beliefs consistent with our findings, and hence might not be too surprised by them. But like so many of the long-standing debates about what player’s value (such as the relative value of violence, story, graphics, etc to game enjoyment), what is common sense to some is challenged by others. The debates often continue partially because these things are rarely objectively defined and measured which allows us to take a clearer look and confirm ideas with data. Our goal is to actually measure the degree to which things like “challenge” and “freedom”, “violence” and “immersion,” are experienced objectively in a game because that measurement creates a more detailed topography of the player experience that can predict value for players and can be used by developers as another piece of recon intelligence as they design and make the day-to-day trade-offs every project entails. It’s a way of more objectively seeing whether or not the design vision and intent is being realized, and knowing more precisely why or why not from the player’s perspective.

As gamers ourselves we have personally experienced the satisfactions that come from violent gameplay. As motivational researchers though, we were (and are) very interested in really knowing why violence appeals, which drove this first round of research. Having data-based knowledge about what design elements (such as violence) really add value, and further understanding why they add value, we hope will empower and not restrict innovation. In this case we hope the research offers some validation and creative freedom to those who are wondering about the value of violent design elements, even when targeting an audience of violent game players.

As for the comments here we agree that giving a visceral sense of impact and a realistic impression of a body drop is more satisfying than feeling like you're shooting a paper cut-out. Our research suggests that it's the competence satisfaction that makes these kinds of experiences enjoyable, and that the blood isn't contributing much to that - but the research doesn't speak to those elements that are contributing - such as perhaps the physics, the particular sound effects etc. that give that feeling of effectiveness. So we've got some more work to do on those fronts to better identify options for maximizing satisfactions without necessarily feeling constrained to violent graphics. It was also the case that the studies (though not the press releases) showed that more violent titles often were associated with greater immersion (or “presence”), though not necessarily game enjoyment. The enjoyment was much more a function of other features in game play. So many of your comments spoke to this, and we hope you can read the actual studies in all their gory details, which tell a lot more than press releases can!

Anyway - thanks for the comments and feedback and feel free to contact us directly with more questions or rants about this stuff. A primary goal of this work is to bring as much practical precision as possible to gamer psychology so it’s useful in day to day development work and decision making, and nothing advances that better than hearing from everyone in the trenches.

In the meantime, anybody that wants to call us a hippie please send your gamertag so we find you and frag you…