Video Games: Psycho-games

In my last entry my explorations ended up focusing on specifically online games and how they players of them might help push us forward as a society. Today I want to step back to some of my initial questions about games. How can games affect an individual?

Henry Jenkins, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (school webpage located here wrote an essay published at PBS’ website titled ”RealityBytes: Eight Myths about Video Games Debunked.” In his essay Jenkins covers a number of topics but I want to focus on only a couple, which matter to me personally. It’s no secret that many anti-game groups and activists, including disbarred attorney Jack Thompson, strongly believe that exposure to violent games produces violently behaved children. Jenkins rebuts this argument by educating his readers that per Federal crime statistics violent crime is at an all time low over the past 30 years. He further points out that, apparently, violent criminals have lower media exposure (and the implication is all media, not just games) than the average person. Jenkins’ kindly informs his readers that per a US Surgeon General study, the prime factors in producing a violent criminal are mental stability and quality of home life, neither of which inherently rely on media exposure. In his second point Jenkins discusses how the articles and studies said anti-gaming groups use are controversial themselves. It seems that they are performed using questionable research methodology: content is taken out of context, subjects “are asked to engage with content that they would not normally consume and may not understand”, and the laboratory environment is different, substantially, from the environment in which the game was intended to be played. He concludes this section by admitting that violent games may be a factor to increased violent and aggressive behavior, but that no study has found them to be a primary factor.

This article is interesting in that it argues against the one of the major claims that anti-video game groups hide behind. It also produces some interesting information while doing so. It confirms, for example, that games are not solely marketed at children, with some games being specifically marketed, and rated, for adults. It discusses, and debunks, the theory that games are socially isolating by discussing multi-player games and online multi-player games. But in the end the information essay doesn’t discuss what effects a game CAN have on it’s players. To that end I set out to find an article discussing exactly that.

Douglas Gentile is a PH.D. in the field of child psychology at the Iowa State University. He and 5 other experts discuss the subject of the effects, both positive and negative, that video games can have on their players in an article titled “Brains on video games” published in Nature Reviews| Neuroscience Volume 12, December 2011. A copy of the article is available at Dr. Gentile’s website. Dr. Gentile discusses that some positive effects games can produce, even citing violent games such as Unreal Tournament, include improved perceptual and attention skills. He also mentions that studies are showing evidence, as I learned from Jane McGonigal’s Ted Talk (discussed in my last post), that social games (such as MMOs) lead to, in general, positive helpful behaviors in their players. This change can actually happen in less than a year; students who played what he calls pro-social games early in the school year were demonstrating helping behaviors later in the school year. A major point in the article, which affects me personally, is the discussion of the addictive properties of video games. I was interested to note that Gentile theorizes that of gamers 8 to 18, only about 8% suffer from an actual addiction to games; he does note that the term addiction is often misused and should is measured in how damaging it is as opposed to how much consumption is involved. Additionally Gentile discusses the potential games have for education and rehabilitation, favorably; however he notes that games as of yet have not lived up to their promise as an educational tool.

I liked this article. While I discuss here the responses of one doctor, Douglas Gentile, the article actually possesses a significant wealth of information from the other five doctors interviewed. At the personal level I dislike seeing any corroboration of negative effects since it weakens my personal bias in favor of games. But I like the acknowledgement academically because I know we can’t overcome the negatives without knowing about them.

When looking at both articles I can see they are both focusing on dispelling ignorance about video games. The first article is heavily biased, no doubt. Jenkins concentrates on dispelling negative assumptions and myths against games, presenting only a positive opposition. Meanwhile Gentile and his peers respond in their interview as neutrally and honestly as possible, presenting both the positives and negatives. As much as I would like to say Jenkins commands my respect more, I have to honestly say I prefer Gentile’s approach to the subject. He accepts and explores both sides, allowing his readers, both fellow psychology professionals and the layman, to see that like so much else the subject isn’t black and white. That appeals to me.

These articles do prompt a few additional questions to look into. Addiction. How serious is video game addiction? How prevalent is it?

Separate from the articles, but relevant to the discussion of violent games, are ESRB ratings effective in keeping content deemed inappropriate for an age group away from that group? 

Video Games: Billions of hours, millions of years!

At the recommendation of my commenter, I actually decided to skip starting with Wikipedia (however, when it becomes relevant I will return there to seek out new sources), and I started by searching Jane McGonigal and her book "Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make us Better and How they Can Change the World." At the moment I haven’t had an opportunity to get my hands on a copy, however her website, Reality is Broken. offers links to a variety of wonderful resources. In addition to the interview that Allison mentioned with Stephen Colbert, Jane has done a TED Talk on this topic, which can be viewed here.

In this 20 minute video, McGonigal discusses quite a few ideas about how video games can help better or fix our broken world. She also discusses how games are helping better our youth. And she presents a few interesting factoids. 1) We currently, as a people, spend 3 billion hours, globally, playing online games… weekly. 2) Globally we as a people have invested 5.93 million YEARS worth of hours playing World of Warcraft ALONE. 3) Per a Carnegie-Melon researcher the average young person in a developed country will spend 10,000 hours playing games by the time he/she is 21; contrasted to the 10,080 hours spent in school (assuming perfect attendance) from the 5^th grade until high school graduation.

All of these things she presents actually help to explore a question I was ruminating on the other day: Social games, and how they can affect players. Now specifically I was wondering about social disorders, such as social anxiety. Can online games be used as an effective alternative treatment regimen? Based on her TED Talk, yes they can and more. It was rather inspiring to listen to, to be frank.

McGonigal’s talk also inspired another question. Can games be developed or turned to helping solve global problems? Gamers are notoriously focused and goal driven. We enjoy meeting and beating challenges. And we aren’t easily deterred. Can craft scientists, mathematicians, psychologists, and game designers work together to start solving real crises? We, as a group, already understand tactics and strategy. Resource management is well within our scope of ability.

So with that in mind I ended up recalling an interesting news story from last year. With this to inspire us, it would seem that yes games and gamers can be put to practical use! In 3 weeks, gamers produced an accurate and workable model of a protein that retroviruses need to replicate; read the full article here. This is, apparently, an accomplishment that scientists were unable to achieve in over a DECADE.  To motivate players they simply gave them points for each chemically stable model a player or team could produce.

Both of these sources are interesting to delve into, however both regard online games. Online gaming is one facet of the world that is gaming.  I haven’t had an opportunity to really explore offline games, which some of my original inquires relate better to. So I now wonder, since online gaming offers such promise to the player (and even the global community) is it only online gaming that has merits? Perhaps offline games are too limiting and isolationist? And I also wonder, especially after watching McGonical’s talk, is it healthy or unhealthy to spend so much time on games? 3 billion hours weekly… it’s staggering. And she wants to multiply that number 7 fold in the next decade!

Watch the Ted Talk below:

Video Games: Fun for all?

Video games. Arguably they are one of, if not the single, favorite past time of mine. I remember back when I was 4 and 5 playing games such as the original Super Mario Bros. 1,2 and 3 on the original NES. When my dad was reassigned to a duty station in Hawaii, our NES was damaged in the move. My parents replaced it with a Sega Genesis. I've played Kings Quest 5-8 on the PC. I own, presently, an Xbox 360 with 120 gig harddrive, purchased back when the black Xbox was a new release onto the market. A few months ago I upgraded my computer, building one for the first time. I spent more money (after mail-in and immediate rebates) on my graphics card than I did on the processor (which is not to say I bought a sub-par processor), ensuring that I could play Skyrim in all its glory. I even recently took on a position of lead in-game moderator for a new public Minecraft server. I devote more than 70% of my free time to playing games.

Naturally when someone decries games as terrible, devil sent, or a bad influence on a person, I get a tad bit upset. How can games really be that bad if I turned out well? Am I an exception or am I the rule?

For the first few posts in this blog I intend to look into the effects games have on people. What effects do, or can, video games have on a person? Can games have a positive effect or are the detractors opinions accurate that games are inherently evil? Personally I believe games can offer a variety of positive effects. I recall that athletes, football players in particular, were training hand-eye coordination with video games. I can't deny, though, that games could have a negative effect on a person. But as the single source that opponents would say they are, I argue against. I sincerely doubt that any negative effect a game could produce in a person could not also be produced by being subjected to violent movies, television, music, or even literature.

Detractors often argue that we should "think of the children!" when unilaterally declaring games to be evil. So I'll be inquiring as to whether any effects are age-based. Are younger children more likely to be influenced? Are young-adults (I'm thinking early 20's and up here) immune?

For anyone who wants to follow along with, and maybe even do their own inquires or offer contributions, I'll be starting at Wikipedia. Yes, I know that Wiki is considered untrustworthy, especially from an academic stand point. However I find that it happens to be the single perfect place to start a search for information, more so even than Google. While the content of the article may be edited by anyone, a well written and important article is monitored to ensure accuracy whenever revisions are made. But more importantly, a well written article cites sources. Wikipedia will show me the opening s to the avenues of research I will drive down.