The Game Anthropologist: Games' Influencing of Players
September 14, 2008 4:00 PM |
['The Game Anthropologist' is Michael Walbridge's take on gaming communities. One time he participated in a psychology experiment that colored his outlook on game rules, game communities, and the influence each has on the other - and here's some ensuing thoughts.]
The "Game Anthropologist" emphasizes game communities because a game is only as good as the community it spawns; not only are games more interesting because of their communities, but the communities that participate in a game and its network tells us a lot about the game.
This begs a question: "Which more strongly influences the other: the demands of game communities and players on the games that are created, or the games on the communities and players that play them?"
I have an anecdote on the matter.
At college I majored in one of the most overpopulated lib arts programs: psychology. At the rather large university I attended, requests for test subjects are frequent. One experiment I participated in involved a computer game a professor had designed.
I don't remember the mechanics perfectly. Participants were told they'd be playing a game and start with forty dollars, represented digitally in the game. The sum of money would increase or decrease in size depending on choices made during the game and upon the game's conclusion an assistant would present the participants with the cash equivalent of what they'd made during the game.
Each round, the players were required to give a certain amount of money to the other three players as they saw fit; the minimum amount was about five dollars. If players gave a lot of it to certain people, and everyone chose that route, everyone would get more money from the game, but if one person chose not to participate in that mechanic, that person would benefit at everyone else's expense. Each participant did this all alone by using a computer in a tiny room; we'd make our choices, and within a minute we'd find out how much each person gave to us each round.
I immediately saw the point of it. Would everyone, without human interaction, choose to do what it takes to benefit the group, or would people choose to look out for number one?
I chose to take the altruistic route, hoping people would catch on; my gaming habit made me immediately analyze the game's rules, and I naively assumed everyone else would do the same. It worked, for a little while; I gave a lot to one or two people and they started giving some back.
Before long, though, everyone started crystallizing and giving me the same amount. I couldn't budge them. I ended up with 17 bucks. Other people I had met had boasted of making twice that much, and I was only a little bitter as I later learned I had earned less than most of the other participants.
But the gamer and psychologist in me later thought that maybe the game wasn't revealing information about people; maybe it's just a game that is designed to encourage people to behave in a certain way. I thought that surely if everyone had been together in person, they'd have all cooperated to make the most amount of money together.
Maybe the game and experiment designer shared my hypothesis in the first place. The point is that I realized that the mechanics of a game have the potential to be as strong as any other context in culture as far as influencing the perceptions, beliefs, and behavior of a person. The well-known Stanford prison experiment shows us that when we agree to certain roles and strive to play them well, those roles can change us.
Money was involved in the game I played, but other games provide other forms of intrinsic motivation; we see the effects of role-playing on people in the games we play.
The long and short of it? The game makes the player. When we play games, we are at the outset making an agreement that we are going to do whatever the game tells us to. We can change our minds. We can find out beforehand what is in the game.
Yet once we sit down and press start or enter, we are promising to be someone we aren't, for a while. And we are doing it with the knowledge that we are doing it within the confines of the game. The game is law, and players choose to subscribe to that law.
"But," you may protest, "people change how games are played—the player changes the game." Sure they do! They do that with mods, and we often see communities invent and even enforce new contexts and rules.
In psychology, chicken/egg questions are common. Genetics vs. environment, emotion vs. action, behavior vs. belief. Which causes the other?
The common answer to all of these is that neither is the sole first cause—they both reinforce each other continually. This isn't a new or exciting conclusion. But for those of us playing and making and talking about games, it's something worth being reminded of. We keep purely blaming the players for being who they are, but consider this: don't game mechanics highly influence how we behave?
I mean, how can anyone who takes games seriously believe that the only factor that influences communities is that certain games simply attract certain audiences? Lots of adults want (or at least wanted) to play Halo 3 on Xbox Live.
Do immature people always choose Halo 3, or do the mechanics for matches and communication in Halo 3 provide an environment that makes it easier to treat people horribly? An MMO is an opposite environment complete with a monitoring system, a government if you will; this might explain why anyone who is gay or a woman feels more comfortable playing those games.
Our laws and most of our minds believe people have agency; abusive gamers should still be held responsible for their actions. Still, it is desirable for anyone who is producing, reviewing or discussing games to ask "What kind of community does this game foster?"
[EDITOR'S NOTE: Those interested in pursuing these kinds of concepts further should read Bill Fulton's recent Gamasutra feature named 'Fixing Online Gaming Idiocy: A Psychological Approach', which has some good thoughts on similar topics.]
Categories: Column: The Game Anthropologist
14 Comments
Excellent article. If you dig into experimental economics at all, you'll find a lot of the same issues addressed: what set of institutions or cultures foster cooperation? One thing we seem to be sure of is that institutions definitely matter, and if that's true of economies it's true of videogames.
Swimmy | September 14, 2008 6:30 PM
The question arises “which strongly influences the other: the demands of game communities and player on the game that are created, or the games on the communities of the players that play them.” I really believe that it is the games on the communities of the players that play them. Society says to be affected all the time on different games and what not. I believe its all the people that play them. I also believe it is the games in which certain people are playing. They say do some certain video games make people more and more violent. I do not believe so. I believe that it is all in peoples heads.
Chris Svancara | September 15, 2008 6:32 AM
this was a very interesting article, and really made me think. i believe that the gaming world influences the gamers. when you sit down to play a game, you become that character, you reem the benefits, and have to deal with the bad as well. if someone is good at a game, then it influences them and they seem to want the real world to be just like the world they are playni in. although i do not believe video games should be an excuse for murders, game makers do need to look at what they are doing in creating this "fake" but real looking world.
nicole | September 15, 2008 6:36 AM
Gaming communities could be a positive and a negative thing. It is nice for people who like to play the same video games or even who just have video games in common to come together and share what they love as a group. They can share there common interests together and have time for themselves to do the things that they want to do. There are many factors that influence communities and contradicting what the author says I do believe that certain games do attract certain audiences. Some people like violence, some people don’t. Therefore the people that don’t like violence will most likely not be participating in those certain games. I have different views on if video games influence certain behaviors and it goes back and fourth. Just because it is a destructive game does not mean the kid who is playing it is going to turn out horrible. But I do think that it has some influence on the behaviors of kids.
borkey | September 15, 2008 6:36 AM
this was a very interesting article, and really made me think. i believe that the gaming world influences the gamers. when you sit down to play a game, you become that character, you reem the benefits, and have to deal with the bad as well. if someone is good at a game, then it influences them and they seem to want the real world to be just like the world they are playni in. although i do not believe video games should be an excuse for murders, game makers do need to look at what they are doing in creating this "fake" but real looking world.
nicole | September 15, 2008 6:39 AM
This is a really interesting point being brought up, and I agree that the game makes the player. Depending on what the game is, that will determine how the player reacts. If the player reacted the same way for every game, then that would mean the player affected the game. So, obviously the game affects the player. The game the professor created sounds really interesting and would be a good game to test people’s reactions. It’s simple enough to observe easily, yet complex enough to let people give one something to observe. Interacting through video games is much different than interacting with humans in the real world. Humans will treat each other differently, which proves your point once again that the game influences the player. In the beginning of this article, it is mentioned that the game is only as good as its community, and that the communities are what tells us a lot about the game. This is something someone who studied psychology would think of, and it’s a good topic for discussion.
A Burson | September 15, 2008 7:28 AM
I think this article is very interesting, but I do not agree with the entire thing. I do feel while you are playing a video game; you become part of the video game and its characters. I feel that is one of the reasons why the world loves video games. It can be an escape for some people, but I also believe once you turn off the video game, that all ends. The people who enjoy playing games with violence in them should know the difference between reality and a game. Or else they have no business playing them. There is no reason to blame violence in our communities on video games. I do understand that children are easily influenced, but that why parents should be very particular with the games they allow their children to play. I believe adults have no excuse though. They should know the difference between right and wrong.
Taylor | September 15, 2008 7:36 AM
This article was very interesting to read. In some ways I think that video games influence the gamer. Video games are a way to escape from the world around us. They offer a fantasy world that some people probably like better than the real world around us. They could want the real world to be a lot like the world they are playing in. Video games take a sort of control over people when they are playing. I have seen people completely engulfed in the game they are playing, completely in the game and away from the real world around them. Some of the violence and bad stuff we see going on around us can be attributed to video games and pop culture in general, but I do not agree that it is the sole reason for violence and other bad things we are subjected to. There are a lot of other factors that can be reasons for violence etc.
Lizzie | September 15, 2008 7:36 AM
This sort of reminds me of the old saying "what came first the chicken or the egg?". I believe the games influence the gaming communtiy much more than the gaming community affects the games. Gamers play the games that other people design and therefore are basically forced to be influenced by them. Of course the popularity of the game and the type of following it has will influence the games makeres for the future sequals. But I truly believe the initial influence the game has on the players is much stronger than the opposite.
T. Kistler | September 15, 2008 7:37 AM
I too believe that when most people get together to work on something that they will act for the greater good of the whole community, but when they are apart, might find it more appealing to put themselves before anyone else and solely reap the benefits at hand. It’s human nature to take care of yourself before anyone else. It’s the old argument of survival of the fittest. Only those who are willing to do anything to survive will survive. I also agree that “the game makes the player”. When put in a certain situation, a person is forced to act in a pre-determined way. Being in the structure of the video game, you are required to do what the game wants you to do in order to complete even a single level. I do not agree, however, that video games can alter a person’s frame of mind so much that they will feel that they need to kill other people. Some people argue that media is responsible for the violence in today’s society; this is completely illogical. Millions of people play violent video games everyday and they are fine. I believe that these people are using today’s media as a scapegoat for something that they maybe don’t completely understand.
A Stephenson | September 15, 2008 7:45 AM
I'm not arguing here, just clarifying: I don't think video games "cause violence", really, and never said so; the article is talking more about the "game community" and what it's like to play with them and how they treat each other in game.
The point about media and violence isn't irrelevant, of course; just wanted to make clear what I feel.
Michael Walbridge | September 15, 2008 8:21 AM
I believe that it is true that the game influences the player. Players react differently to different types of games. I agree that it is almost like changing into someone else while playing the game. Take violent shooting games for example, people that play these games are not necessarily violent killers in real life. Video games allow people to escape from their every day lives. Some people find video games to be a stress reliever. You don't have to think about what is going on in the real world, you just focus on the game. I also agree that playing with a group versus playing alone does make a difference in the way games are played and the influence that the game has. So, i believe that the game influences the gamer and not the other way around. The game can never change, but the player can.
Grady | September 15, 2008 11:26 AM
I don’t know much about gaming or gaming communities, but I couldn’t see what could possibly be wrong about gaming communities. There is nothing negative about bringing together people with similar interest, whether it is religion, books, or even video games. I am a believer that the video game and the gaming community influence each other continuously. What I disagree with is that video games have an influence on the behavior of people once the put the game controller down. So I don’t believe that in a gaming community, where a violent game is the common interest, the members of the community are violent or influence each other to do negative or violent things once the gaming system is turned off.
Mielke | September 15, 2008 6:05 PM
I think this is an interesting article that has a lot of truth behind it. The players and the game being played have an equal impact on each other. Players choose to play a game for a certain reason. Making that allowance lets players decide what they want to do with their time, which obviously impacts them. In videogames, players can decide who they want to be or how they want to manage their city. Yet games have rules in them that make them bend and mold to their surrounding. Thus putting its impact on the player. The player would never be able to play a game if they didn’t adapt and adjust to the rules they were made to follow. But still the player can put an impact on the game by how they play it. So when Michael Walbridge asked which influenced each other more, my answer is simple. They both go hand in hand and one couldn’t work without the other.
Colleen-ksu | September 15, 2008 7:53 PM