Gamers Drawn to Challenge Not Violence, Says Research

[Padfoot13]

i think the correct title is INTELLIGENT gamers drawn to challenge. notice that these were undergraduates at the university of rochester. i think the tests might have been a bit different if it took place at valencia community college.

 

[the_tramp]

Violence alone never makes a game fun I'm afraid.

Condemned and Manhunt beg to differ.

Well I have to counter-differ. I'll give you an example of what happened the other day. I'd bought Manhunt 2 for the Wii and had got a bit into the game. I had then realised that it was 10pm and I hadn't eaten dinner so I offered the controls to a housemate whilst I ate dinner.

This housemate, whilst playing violent games had never seen the point in the Manhunt series (I'd tried to show him the original but he wasn't interested) but this game kept him hooked for about an hour before he tried to go to bed. He hadn't progressed any distance through the game, he was still at the exact same checkpoint but despite him fighting (and evidently dying) for an hour he still felt that the *challenge* was *fun*.

I'm not sure whether the lovely folks here recognise myself by I tend to be quite outspoken to the stupidity of the censorship of violent videogames. I only pray that the BBFC/whatever listen to this piece of research and change their views accordingly.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

For me it varies. I of course loved Portal in all its puzzle-solving goodness, and the ability to blow up those little turrets would have been absolutely out-of-place in the game (although I had no qualms about feeding the little boogers to the Aperture Science Material Emancipation Grid). On the other side of the coin, the House of the Dead series, which was pictured with this article, feels bizarrely artificial when my obviously-overpowered weaponry fails to blow apart frail-limbed zombies or genetic horrors. It's really all a matter of context.

Summary: Nonviolent challenge can be very entertaining (witness my Kirby's Avalanche addiction) but having me play in a scenario where violence is expected but does not occur may backfire.

 

[blindey]

Another deep article brought to you by the analytical think tank at No, Shit, and Sherlock!

Oh come on people, hindsight bias is notorious in this thread (the tendency to believe that results could've easy to predict when in fact they couldn't). -.- You couldn't say conclusively that those results would have been there unless you I dunno...did a study to prove it! Scientific method.

 

[dcheppy]

i think the correct title is INTELLIGENT gamers drawn to challenge. notice that these were undergraduates at the university of rochester. i think the tests might have been a bit different if it took place at valencia community college.

Hey I live in Rochester and know quite a few gamers from UofR. I met them when I was president of the gaming club at the local community college and we were a motley bunch of scum and villainy but we had damn good tastes in games.

Anyways F*** this sentiment young people have about the inferiority of junior colleges and the people in them. I'm at a highly respected four year institution now and the people here are equally as stupid as the people at community college, plus you meet a hell of lot more interesting and unique personalities at community college, and the education you get there is just as good as the 100 and 200 level classes you get at a four year institution.

Anyways this study is useless, because 90 percent of people, if asked why hey like something isn't going to say, "mostly because it's violent" It makes them sound brutish, so even if it were the truth it doesn't matter.

 

[hebdomad]

I think they might have to remove some other 'non-violent' big sellers...

The sims...
Kids movie games (yes sadly they sell, no matter how bad they are)
Mine sweeper.

I honestly think that publishes know that all they need is a good marketing campaign behind the game and it will sell. Its true for anything. This is why Apple and Nintendo are so successful. Although some of their products arguably are not as good as some of the opposition, they lead the market.

I also think games don't need to be more violent than what they are now, and whoever made solider of fortune 3 is either hoping to get at 'the small percentage' or thinks its over the top violence can cover for what is quite a terrible game. Graphical violence is not game play, it's just something to make the game look better. It's just like adding blood splatters to chess. It needs to be a good game to start with to be enjoyable.

 

[shatnershaman]

"Violent content was only preferred by a small subgroup of people that generally report being more aggressive."

*Checks Gears of War 2 Gore setting*

Uh-oh.

 

[Soulreaverm]

I've never found violence to be a selling point in games. Story, challenge, innovation, all are more important. For me, the most satisfying part of a game is the narrative - and my definition may need a little explanation. I am an avid reader, and while reading a good book you are exposed to and immersed in the world, the characters and the events. In a book, the characters and events are defined by the author, and the narrative, the flow of the story, is set exactly as they wish.

While this can be enjoyable, games bring this to the next level, by allowing you to participate in the narrative, to experience it for yourself, and even to affect the flow of events. Even in the most linear game, you decide when and how things happen, to the extent that you are allowed by the developers. By narrative, I don't mean the story, or at least, not only the story. I mean the way in which the story is advanced. It's whether you use a shotgun or a sniper rifle, if you fight your way through, or sneak around. The best games, such as (in my opinion) Fallout 3 and Mass Effect, allow you an incredible amount of freedom in shaping the flow of the story, allowing you to create your own narrative. Any violence in these games is presented as an obstacle, a challenge you must overcome in order to proceed to the next stage of the narrative.

I'm not shooting zombies because I like to watch the blood spurt out (although that can be cool). I'm shooting zombies because if I don't shoot them, I can't get to the end of the level. That's not to say that violence doesn't have a place in games, or even that it isn't enjoyable. Simply that it isn't the most important factor in making a good game. In fact, it isn't important at all.

 

[RPJesus]

Well, there's something cathartic about blowing the head off a zombie, but yeah, it's mostly about figuring stuff out. Hell, most RPGs have very little violence by today's standards. (Sure you hit stuff til it dies, but they generally just disappear rather than esplode in a shower of blood or whatever). Although nothing beats a game of house of the dead 2 with a friend. "My god! These are G's bloodstains! How could anyone do this?"

 

[Asehujiko]

For Half-Life 2, players had the choice of a "a bloody battle against computer-controlled adversaries or a low violence alternative, in which the robots were tagged and teleported serenely back to base.

I'm interested on how both versions of that play. Having stuff teleport away would make zombie fights easier due to the lack of headcrabs but the final levels will be alot harder as you have to attack each soldier seperately instead of grabbing one and using him to mow down the rest of his squad. Also, the way they say "computer conrolled adversaries" makes me think that the "no violence" part of the second version involves completely passive enemies. And alot of weapons would make 0 sense in a non-violent setting.

 

[Padfoot13]

i think the correct title is INTELLIGENT gamers drawn to challenge. notice that these were undergraduates at the university of rochester. i think the tests might have been a bit different if it took place at valencia community college.

Hey I live in Rochester and know quite a few gamers from UofR. I met them when I was president of the gaming club at the local community college and we were a motley bunch of scum and villainy but we had damn good tastes in games.

Anyways F*** this sentiment young people have about the inferiority of junior colleges and the people in them. I'm at a highly respected four year institution now and the people here are equally as stupid as the people at community college, plus you meet a hell of lot more interesting and unique personalities at community college, and the education you get there is just as good as the 100 and 200 level classes you get at a four year institution.

Anyways this study is useless, because 90 percent of people, if asked why hey like something isn't going to say, "mostly because it's violent" It makes them sound brutish, so even if it were the truth it doesn't matter.

i wasn't saying that Rochester is unintelligent, Valencia is.