So why do you think you choose to play the games you do? NO! WRONG ANSWER! Well, actually, you’re probably mostly right about that, but an upcoming article in Psychological Science suggests that your choice of games and your motivation to keep playing them may have something to do with how well they allow you to experience something deeper and more personal.
In the article, Andrew Przybylski (who sent me an advance copy so I could read it myself) and his co-authors hypothesize that we’re motivated to play video games to the extent that they allow us to sample our “ideal self characteristics,” especially when there’s a large gap between our ideal selves and who we actually think we are. This could help explain why people are attracted to games in a way that’s unique to the medium.
Przybylski and his colleagues tested this theory in a couple of experiments in which they had gamers self-report their personality (using a standard “Big 5” personality measure) in three contexts:
1. As they think they are IRL
2. As the type of person would like to ideally be IRL
3. As the type of person they felt like while playing a certain game
They found that we apparently enjoy games most when they let us feel like an idealized version of ourselves (i.e., #2 and #3 above are similar), and that effect is greatest when there’s a big discrepancy with our ideal self and our perceived self (i.e., #1 and #2 are dissimilar).
So if I fantasize about being a loquacious, extroverted type of person, I feel better about myself when I’m able to play a game that lets me do that even though in reality I get tongue-tied in public. Or if I strive to be a more conscientious master of details and micromanagement, I might prefer a real-time strategy game over a first person shooter.
You may think this is a bit obvious, but I think some of the implications are profound for game designers, especially those working on role-playing games. We’re all probably familiar with the binary “Do you murder the puppy or do you help the puppy?” morality choices in some such games.
Many of my favorite games in this genre include choices or developments that were much more complicated than that. Taking Przybylski’s research to heart, effective choices in these games are going to be the ones that allow let players adopt a much wider spectrum of personality, desires, values, and judgments.
I won’t share any spoilers, but those of you who have made it to the end of Deus Ex: Human Revolution will be familiar with a good example of this. It provides choices that allow you to have Adam –and through him yourself– weigh the importance of freedom, progress, purity, justice, honesty, and the like.
Similarly, many paths in Dragon Age 2 ask you to create a persona that reflects varying emphasis on loyalty, dogmatism, anarchy, and justice. And while there’s something to be said about “playing the dark side” in these games for fun, one could hypothesize that that kind of thrill comes most strongly from playing something equally complicated, just in the opposite direction from your ideal self.
But there’s more. I haven’t played Bioware’s new Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG yet, but from what I’ve heard there are some improvements to that game suggested by the above research. In keeping with the Star Wars tradition, the game lets you play on either end of the “light side” or “dark side” morality spectrum. But as is common with such systems, meeting certain thresholds of good or evil are required to use certain equipment and abilities. You get light or dark points by role-playing certain actions, so most players are on the lookout for ways to boost their standing.
The problem with this is that it may not only over simplify the role-playing in the game, but dangling a carrot from such choices the game may actively discourage players from exploring more subtle choices and consequences that let them feel more like their idealized self and thus motivate them to continue playing.
So, game writers take note. When you’re dreaming up your game’s stable of complex supporting characters, don’t leave the player character out of the action.
We all love trying on different hats in the way that only video games allow, but some of us have very oddly shaped heads.
[Jamie Madigan examines the overlap of psychology and video games at PsychologyOfGames.com. He can be reached at jamie@psychologyofgames.com.]
REFERENCES
Przybylski, A., Weinstein, N., Kou, M., Lynch, M. & Ryan, R. (in press). The Ideal Self At Play: The Appeal of Video Games That Let You Be All You Can Be. Manuscript in Preparation Psychological Science.
So, it's like that androgynous girl that you aren't sure is a girl until you check the goods. But then realize she isn't a girl, but once was a girl at some point.
"They found that we apparently enjoy games most when they let us feel like an idealized version of ourselves" This seems narrow.
How does gameplay enter into this theory? I enjoy Tetris. Do I want to be composed of exactly four units? Do I long for the simplicity of only two functions - rotating left or right?
I would play anything with solid gameplay. What is good gameplay? How do you define it? There is more depth to those answers... roleplay is only a piece of the thing.
It's probably more that as games try to encapsulate a fantasy people are more likely to enjoy it if the game relates to who they idealize themselves to be. Sounds a lot like what movies and books do although games have the possibility of probing deeper into a persons view of a subject.
There are a lot of games that try to appeal to something other than a persons fantasies of themselves and that is also something that other mediums can't do.
So, for example, a historical fantasy game about your family's ancestors might be well received. Especially, if the story(s) offer choices reflecting a range of personality. Hmm, I should go try and make that... :-) [7grandsteps.com]
Err, so they ask the gamer to self-report themselves? How's that credible?
I don't play games that ask me morality choices. I think those games are stupid and are way too serious. Guess which answer I pick? The worst answer. Kill puppy. Destroy neighbors house. Be as evil as possible. Would I want/wish to do that in real life? Hell no.
I just picked up Alice Madness. Does that mean I am deranged? No, I just want to see what kind of twist they did to the Wonderland.
This article reminds me of an analyst who looks and the sales of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3 and assume it's a great game.
Player psychology must include as well: the degree of consciousness of the player, his level of mastery, his reasons to play the game, what does he know will happen if he makes X choices and so many other factors.
These articles are always tricky because people naturally tend to ask, "Is this true for me?"
The disconnect is that these studies see clusters of a few motivations because a lot of people are included, but an individual person's interests have a much wider range of possible variation. In other words, the smaller the group size, the less you can expect that group to demonstrate the characteristics of the full aggregate population of which the group is a subset -- individual variation in possible behaviors is always greater than possible group behaviors. (This is why stereotyping frequently fails. Individual people are not just smaller versions of whatever groups to which they may belong.)
So sure, someone reading the Przybylski et al. manuscript might accurately feel that the identified group attributes don't fit them. But that in itself doesn't invalidate the model. "Hey, that doesn't fit me!" is just one more data point -- not meaningless, but not determinative. Only assessing the sample size and validity of the information collected can tell you if a personality or behavioral/motivation model captures enough reality to be useful in explaining and predicting human behavior in the aggregate.
There is also the problem of oversimplification. There is a big difference between saying that 'one reason people prefer a particular game experience is because of the ideal/reality self perception disconnect' than saying 'people play games that cater to their idealized self image.'
From what I've seen, deconstructing gameplay and gamers in an effort to increase sales for future products always gives the following result: 'what sold well yesterday will sell tomorrow', and kills innovation and risk. Hence every
AAA game has to satisfy the same list of bulletpoints as every other
AAA game.
It would be nice if, like in film, there were some auteurs with the clout to impose their visions on a game and some game companies willing to invest in games for prestige as well as profit. I'm guessing post-1961 Kubrick never went to a committee meeting where he was told to add a wisecracking 8 year-old sidekick and and a love interest to his upcoming movie because that's the kind of thing that tests well.
Bart - you're bang-on here. People don't like the idea that they can be categorized or classified, and they always consider themselves exception cases.
People of Earth: you are not a rare and precious snowflake. Ask any insurance actuary.
Empowerment helps to compensate for the "disability" imposed on the player's avatar due to inarticulate controls. If Goldeneye 007 did not allow you to briefly lean out from cover to perform a precision headshot with its floating reticle you would not feel like Bond. Similarly, Master Chief's cybernetically enhanced jumps allow him to counter grenades and the splash damage from rockets - being able to withstand high falls gives the player the joys of a Mario style platformer. If the 360 version of Left4Dead did not support a rapid about face via a button push the gamepad user would be placed at a serious disadvantage compared to the PC's keyboard and mouse control scheme.
Balance can be achieved simply by throwing more enemies at the (superhuman) player. It would actually be a mistake to attempt to create an avatar with the same humdrum aptitude, stamina and vulnerability as the player not for psychological reasons, but simply because we lack sufficiently subtle, responsive and accurate interfaces capable of capturing our ordinary (non Hollywood stuntman) behaviour in muted domestic dramas - so even if we were keen to give up on being Nathan Drake with some future evolved form of Kinect and be a part of a consensual soap opera (i.e. a Virtual Reality "EastEnders"), an idea first proposed in Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451", we'd need far more affordable facial motion capture than exists today.
Do people want to play in a way which caters to their idealized self image, or do they want their actions to be consistent with the character they've created?
I can think of very few games where the main character can be said to be an idealized version of myself. But I can think of many games where I've become frustrated by the fact that the game doesn't allow my character to act in a way which I believe to be consistent with their past actions.
Games such as Deus Ex:HR are a good example of this: the boss battles could only be completed by killing the bosses: people who were playing in a "pacifist" manner, or who preferred to use more subtle approaches (e.g. sneaking past them) were understandably upset by this. And at the other end of the scale, Batman: Arkham City is so brutal and violent that it makes Batman's "no killing" rule seem impossibly ludicrous.
Overall, I'd argue that consistency, not "idealized self image" is the most important factor in making game characterisations attractive...
This sort of assumes that when we play a game we are playing as ourselves in the first place. In my personal experience and from general observations it's less about the player specifically being represented in the game as the player projecting into a personality (like you'd do when watching a movie). It's more of an empathetic and indirect relationship.
If I play a 'really evil person' it doesn't mean that I'd ideally want to be a 'really evil person' or that the character in the game is a credible reflection of my ideal self; the character is distinct from myself and I indirectly associate with what the character does. I think the better answer would be that the 'really evil character' is a more interesting character to experience. In many games it's much closer to experiencing the character and empathizing with the character than 'being' the character.
RPGs usually try to let you establish your character, an avatar as representative of yourself, but these games generally lack the context, credibility, and fluency that would allow you to really personally identify as the character. In most games you can't be anyone other than an 'idealized heroic/villain type' anyway, and they provide little room for middle ground.
I think the fact that people enjoy playing these characters has less to do with who they would ideally like to be than it has to do with which character is interesting to play as. Add stronger context, credibility, and fluency to the player's individual actions and maybe that would change for me, but as of now my relation to my characters is closer to my view of the characters I watch in movies, distinct from myself but empathized with.
i always felt that whats at the heart of every good game is that it is a contracted model that has a meaningful relation to the world. games are always learning experiences. so... what i always felt about games is included in what these guys tried to prove.
i would like to research: how vague can game models be for us to accept them as meaningful pasttime?
example: facebook as a social game. you got: friends, likes + maybe wall posts vector reflecting your "success" or learning experience. still, i would argue parts of facebook, especially the social space it creates through interface and gameplay makes some people stop or refuse "playing" it.
I understand this is a popular line of thought for many gamers, but I really do not relate to games in this way. I look at game characters the same way I look at characters in any other medium. I also think that platonic attraction is inherent part of the human experience---we like characters and people who we can relate to.
But I think taking the leap from empathizing with strong characters, to needing to play as a character who represents something to literally want to become is a personal problem---and its a chicken and egg issue in this industry right now, where developers and marketers construct experiences around that notion, and find the demographic who wants that.
I think many of the above commenters misunderstand or mischaracterize the article and the mentioned-research. From what I can read, it seems this is exclusively a correlational study between enjoyment of a game and Big 5 personality traits (O.C.E.A.N.).
This means that:
1) Liking games more in which the character(s) embody desired personality traits is not assumed to be the only reason for liking games. Gameplay, theme, style, social factors, and numerous other aspects can just as easily increase or decrease enjoyment without contradicting the study.
2) Liking to play an "evil" character, a series of blocks in Tetris, or what-have-you, does not mean, according to the research, that a person wants to be "evil" or a series of blocks. Rather, it would be better explained that, perhaps, if a player enjoys evil characters far more than good characters, they might simply respond to the evil characters' assertive traits, or spontaneous traits, or otherwise. In other words, there might be a link between the "evil" characters of various IPs in terms of personality traits that some players might idealize.
3) This, or any other, correlation is not assumed to be true for any single individual, situation, or object(game).
Further, I would say that these results don't seem obvious at all, as I think the industry usually either ignores personality traits in relation to game satisfaction (players want to be a superhuman, not a human with enlightened personal growth) or assumes that players want to play themselves. This study, on the other hand, says that a player is more likely to enjoy a game with characters based not on their own traits but on traits they admire/idealize, like a shy person who wants to be extraverted, or an anxious person that wants to be positive.
This seems to hold up for me. I vastly prefer a game where I can play something approximating an ideal for myself. (Dungeons and Dragons rules at this.) It's even to the point where I will ignore a game's obvious flaws in order to indulge in that particular kind of satisfying play experience.
I agree with this. There are games that are just weak or has barely tolerable gameplay such as MMOs, action rpgs, virtual life sims, etc. But still manage to retain some fans. This is due to the game's strong character customization system.
I guess some people just enjoying playing with themselves. :D
The last line seems to contain another context...if you know what I mean.
But yeah, people do seem to play games that seems to fit under the 3 categories mentioned. Lots of time the silent and shy person will enjoy the chaotic and crude GTA, or the social magnet may go for something without socialising.
I myself, tends to play games that fit my likes, travelling and exploring for example. Which is why I have games with big worlds like Skyrim, Deus Ex (The original) and Oblivion.
Despite being socialiable in real life, I also prefer a solo RPG than a game like Gears of War or Rock Band.
While people do go for games that may contradict their behaivour in reality, some do use games to enhance their real life experience.
Mayhaps, this will be a new thing to study on as we develop upon player experience...
For anyone interested in this topic I would recommend books (any) by Robert Cialdini. He explains why do we make certain choices, what influence our behaviour and many more interesting things.
I wouldn`t say it is only (or mainly) about what do we want to be in real life. I remember playing AD&D with my friends when we were younger and we all (well all but one guy who had always played ranger and named himself Legolas based on the book, lol) tried and played different characters, be it a good warrior, bad wizzard, always drunk alchemist or dumb ogre fighter...
But as I am thinking there might be a difference between old table games and nowadays pc games. We all know there are tons of female characters in MMOs played by men while we never ever played females in AD&D games. Guess things have changed... :)
I think the number of men playing female avatars in MMOs is probably more due to perceived gender bias than anything. Female characters (apparently) get preferential treatment in MMOs; I think that's a more likely cause then men finding a female avatar more in line with their ideal.
Also, there's been a fair amount of gender-swapping at the tabletop games I've been to, so results may vary I suppose.
How does gameplay enter into this theory? I enjoy Tetris. Do I want to be composed of exactly four units? Do I long for the simplicity of only two functions - rotating left or right?
I would play anything with solid gameplay. What is good gameplay? How do you define it? There is more depth to those answers... roleplay is only a piece of the thing.
There are a lot of games that try to appeal to something other than a persons fantasies of themselves and that is also something that other mediums can't do.
Maybe this "real life sucks" approach is only useful to some extend.
I don't play games that ask me morality choices. I think those games are stupid and are way too serious. Guess which answer I pick? The worst answer. Kill puppy. Destroy neighbors house. Be as evil as possible. Would I want/wish to do that in real life? Hell no.
I just picked up Alice Madness. Does that mean I am deranged? No, I just want to see what kind of twist they did to the Wonderland.
Player psychology must include as well: the degree of consciousness of the player, his level of mastery, his reasons to play the game, what does he know will happen if he makes X choices and so many other factors.
So I have lots of cute games
The disconnect is that these studies see clusters of a few motivations because a lot of people are included, but an individual person's interests have a much wider range of possible variation. In other words, the smaller the group size, the less you can expect that group to demonstrate the characteristics of the full aggregate population of which the group is a subset -- individual variation in possible behaviors is always greater than possible group behaviors. (This is why stereotyping frequently fails. Individual people are not just smaller versions of whatever groups to which they may belong.)
So sure, someone reading the Przybylski et al. manuscript might accurately feel that the identified group attributes don't fit them. But that in itself doesn't invalidate the model. "Hey, that doesn't fit me!" is just one more data point -- not meaningless, but not determinative. Only assessing the sample size and validity of the information collected can tell you if a personality or behavioral/motivation model captures enough reality to be useful in explaining and predicting human behavior in the aggregate.
From what I've seen, deconstructing gameplay and gamers in an effort to increase sales for future products always gives the following result: 'what sold well yesterday will sell tomorrow', and kills innovation and risk. Hence every
AAA game has to satisfy the same list of bulletpoints as every other
AAA game.
It would be nice if, like in film, there were some auteurs with the clout to impose their visions on a game and some game companies willing to invest in games for prestige as well as profit. I'm guessing post-1961 Kubrick never went to a committee meeting where he was told to add a wisecracking 8 year-old sidekick and and a love interest to his upcoming movie because that's the kind of thing that tests well.
People of Earth: you are not a rare and precious snowflake. Ask any insurance actuary.
Balance can be achieved simply by throwing more enemies at the (superhuman) player. It would actually be a mistake to attempt to create an avatar with the same humdrum aptitude, stamina and vulnerability as the player not for psychological reasons, but simply because we lack sufficiently subtle, responsive and accurate interfaces capable of capturing our ordinary (non Hollywood stuntman) behaviour in muted domestic dramas - so even if we were keen to give up on being Nathan Drake with some future evolved form of Kinect and be a part of a consensual soap opera (i.e. a Virtual Reality "EastEnders"), an idea first proposed in Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451", we'd need far more affordable facial motion capture than exists today.
I can think of very few games where the main character can be said to be an idealized version of myself. But I can think of many games where I've become frustrated by the fact that the game doesn't allow my character to act in a way which I believe to be consistent with their past actions.
Games such as Deus Ex:HR are a good example of this: the boss battles could only be completed by killing the bosses: people who were playing in a "pacifist" manner, or who preferred to use more subtle approaches (e.g. sneaking past them) were understandably upset by this. And at the other end of the scale, Batman: Arkham City is so brutal and violent that it makes Batman's "no killing" rule seem impossibly ludicrous.
Overall, I'd argue that consistency, not "idealized self image" is the most important factor in making game characterisations attractive...
If I play a 'really evil person' it doesn't mean that I'd ideally want to be a 'really evil person' or that the character in the game is a credible reflection of my ideal self; the character is distinct from myself and I indirectly associate with what the character does. I think the better answer would be that the 'really evil character' is a more interesting character to experience. In many games it's much closer to experiencing the character and empathizing with the character than 'being' the character.
RPGs usually try to let you establish your character, an avatar as representative of yourself, but these games generally lack the context, credibility, and fluency that would allow you to really personally identify as the character. In most games you can't be anyone other than an 'idealized heroic/villain type' anyway, and they provide little room for middle ground.
I think the fact that people enjoy playing these characters has less to do with who they would ideally like to be than it has to do with which character is interesting to play as. Add stronger context, credibility, and fluency to the player's individual actions and maybe that would change for me, but as of now my relation to my characters is closer to my view of the characters I watch in movies, distinct from myself but empathized with.
i would like to research: how vague can game models be for us to accept them as meaningful pasttime?
example: facebook as a social game. you got: friends, likes + maybe wall posts vector reflecting your "success" or learning experience. still, i would argue parts of facebook, especially the social space it creates through interface and gameplay makes some people stop or refuse "playing" it.
But I think taking the leap from empathizing with strong characters, to needing to play as a character who represents something to literally want to become is a personal problem---and its a chicken and egg issue in this industry right now, where developers and marketers construct experiences around that notion, and find the demographic who wants that.
This means that:
1) Liking games more in which the character(s) embody desired personality traits is not assumed to be the only reason for liking games. Gameplay, theme, style, social factors, and numerous other aspects can just as easily increase or decrease enjoyment without contradicting the study.
2) Liking to play an "evil" character, a series of blocks in Tetris, or what-have-you, does not mean, according to the research, that a person wants to be "evil" or a series of blocks. Rather, it would be better explained that, perhaps, if a player enjoys evil characters far more than good characters, they might simply respond to the evil characters' assertive traits, or spontaneous traits, or otherwise. In other words, there might be a link between the "evil" characters of various IPs in terms of personality traits that some players might idealize.
3) This, or any other, correlation is not assumed to be true for any single individual, situation, or object(game).
Further, I would say that these results don't seem obvious at all, as I think the industry usually either ignores personality traits in relation to game satisfaction (players want to be a superhuman, not a human with enlightened personal growth) or assumes that players want to play themselves. This study, on the other hand, says that a player is more likely to enjoy a game with characters based not on their own traits but on traits they admire/idealize, like a shy person who wants to be extraverted, or an anxious person that wants to be positive.
I guess some people just enjoying playing with themselves. :D
But yeah, people do seem to play games that seems to fit under the 3 categories mentioned. Lots of time the silent and shy person will enjoy the chaotic and crude GTA, or the social magnet may go for something without socialising.
I myself, tends to play games that fit my likes, travelling and exploring for example. Which is why I have games with big worlds like Skyrim, Deus Ex (The original) and Oblivion.
Despite being socialiable in real life, I also prefer a solo RPG than a game like Gears of War or Rock Band.
While people do go for games that may contradict their behaivour in reality, some do use games to enhance their real life experience.
Mayhaps, this will be a new thing to study on as we develop upon player experience...
I wouldn`t say it is only (or mainly) about what do we want to be in real life. I remember playing AD&D with my friends when we were younger and we all (well all but one guy who had always played ranger and named himself Legolas based on the book, lol) tried and played different characters, be it a good warrior, bad wizzard, always drunk alchemist or dumb ogre fighter...
But as I am thinking there might be a difference between old table games and nowadays pc games. We all know there are tons of female characters in MMOs played by men while we never ever played females in AD&D games. Guess things have changed... :)
Also, there's been a fair amount of gender-swapping at the tabletop games I've been to, so results may vary I suppose.
"Pick one of these four buttons to watch a different series of random pictures while Adam rants faux philosophy at you!"