Apparently we like dying more than we like killing, isn’t that an interesting idea? If you want to have fun, don’t go around killing people, let them kill you.
I’m not talking about real life, that would just be silly, but according to a study from ‘Emotion’ when you’re playing a game you prefer dying. some nice people were playing James Bond Nightfire, remember that game?, and Super Monkey Ball 2. OK, so not exactly new games, but the principle is still the same.
Whilst playing monitors were used to check emotional arousal through electrodes in the skin, and specific emotions using facial monitors. The killing/maiming/general pwning of another player apparently showed the player to become anxious, or angry, dying however made them very happy.
The same however isn’t true of Super Monkey Ball. The link would appear to be that should you kill someone you are immediately back on the guard for the next threat that could come your way, or the next kill, Super Monkey Ball just gives you a pat on the back and sends you into a new maze.
So if you win in a first person shooter, you don’t actually like it that much. Oh well, big deal, it’s still a bit of fun going along isn’t it? But, as the article I linked to points out,this may well be something that many gamers have been waiting for. Something to set us free from the constant implication that we are all psychopathic killers who any day now could walk into school/college/university/work and kill lots of people.
Of all the recent school shootings in America pretty much all of them have been blamed on the fact that the shooter played video games. They played them, they enjoyed them, and they used them as training for what they were about to do. However if killing people in a game gives us bad emotions that we really don’t like that much, why would gamers want to go out and do it in real life?
So maybe the fact that people play games doesn’t make them killers, isn’t that surprising? However I doubt that our friends over at Fox News, or indeed the beloved Jack Thompson will see this study and change tactics. but hey, maybe someone will actually think that not all gamers are cold blooded killers. Well, we can hope can’t we?
MTFBWY
Filed under: Gaming
