Gaming: Do You Like The Violence?

[Kyuuketsuki]

Interesting article on Wired:

All That Gore Gets in the Way of Gameplay

Barely 15 minutes into the new Wolverine videogame, I am ankle-deep in carnage. I have filleted soldiers straight up the center, like fish; I have spun in a pirouette of death, decapitating anyone and everyone an arms’-breadth away. And I’ve grabbed enemies by the neck, hoisting them aloft and stabbing them repeatedly — crick, crick, crick — right through their rib cages. Eeeyikes.

Does grisly violence like this make action games more fun? For years, I assumed the free market had answered that question with a resounding “yes.” If shoot-’em-up games were insanely gory, it was, I figured, because developers were simply giving their hardcore young-dude audience what it wanted. Violence sells because violence works: It’s crucial to creating a sense of dastardly fun. Right?

Maybe not. In fact, some recent and fascinating scientific work suggests precisely the opposite: In a paper in January’s Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, a group of researchers found that violence might be the least compelling part of our favorite videogames. In fact, sometimes it gets in the way of the fun.

[Read More Here]

So what gets you going when you're playing games? I admit I like the action but I think these researchers may have a point.

Kyu