The Psychological Appeal of Violent Shooters

April 10th, 2013, 02:26 Posted By: wraggster

Jamie Madigan asks why headshots, loadouts and military themes are so attractive to video game players
As anyone who has accidentally walked into a room full of children can tell you, they're good at asking the kinds of questions that just keep drilling down. "Why is the sky blue? So why does blue light get scattered more? Then why is the sky red at sunset? Where are you going?"
"Competence is communicated by immediate and unambiguous positive feedback in response to your actions. The headshot is particularly effective in this regard"

And although I don't recommend it, if you were to sit one of these little buggers down with a quarterly earnings reports from EA or Activision, they might soon start asking "Why are violent video games so much more popular than other games?" It's a tricky question to answer without falling down the why hole. Because shooting stuff is fun. Why is it fun? Because people like military themes where they can be the hero. Okay, but why is that? Because players like feeling ridiculously powerful and enormous guns let them do that. But why is that appealing? Why, why, why?
Well, some psychologists are trying to tease apart the reasons why violence sells without throwing their hands up and shouting "Just because! And I'm not even your real dad!" Researchers Scott Rigby and Richard Ryan describe how they think that the design of violent games - especially shooters - naturally does a pretty good job of satisfying some very basic psychological needs. But not in the way you may be thinking.
Remember that skull modifier that made headshots on Halo's grunts explode into a spray of confetti? That's some super-effective feedback on competence.

In their book, Glued to Games: How Video Games Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound, Rigby and Ryan describe "self-determination theory," a fairly well established framework that aims to describe why people pursue certain voluntary activities. In part, self-determination theory says that people are motivated to engage in activities to the extent that they satisfy three psychological needs:

• 1. Competence - progressing in skill and power.
• 2. Autonomy - being able to choose from multiple, meaningful options.
• 3. Relatedness - feeling important to others.

There are 0 comments - Join In and Discuss Here