Chapter 1.2 Games and Society

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Chapter 1.2Games and Society
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Why Do People Play Video Games?
3
Audience and Demographics

• What good are demographics?
• Are they always accurate?
• Recent survey what stands out?

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Audience and Demographics ESRB

• EC (Early Childhood)
• E (Everyone)
• E10 (Everyone 10)
• T (Teen)
• M (Mature)
• AO (Adults Only)
• 32 different Content Descriptors

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Audience and Demographics ESRB 2003 Statistics

• 57 of games received an E rating
• 32 of games received a T rating
• 10 of games received an M rating
• 1 received an EC rating

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Audience and Demographics ESRB 2003 Statistics
(2)

• 70 of best-selling console games were E or T
  rated
• 90 of best-selling PC games were E or T rated
• Buying habits or development habits?

7
Societal Reaction to Games

• Misleading perception of games as being childs
  play
• Violence in video games drawing parental
  attention
• Legal Issues (1992)
• Night Trap
• Mortal Kombat
• Led to Senate Hearings (1993)

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Societal Reaction to Games

• Legal Issues Doom (1994) and the 1999 Columbine
  Massacre
• Shooters were known to play Doom
• Lawsuits were initiated against the industry, but
  eventually dropped

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Societal Reaction to Games

• Legal Issues Grand Theft Auto
• GTA Vice City
• Haitian-American Rights Groups
• GTA San Andreas
• Hot Coffee mod

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Societal Reaction to Games

• Games and Youth Violence
• Root of All Evil, or Good, Old-Fashioned Fun?

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Cultural Issues

• Abuse of stereotypes (Shadow Warrior)
• Foreign Diplomacy
• Germany (The Index List of banned games)
• China, Japan (controversial elements)
• Cultural Acceptance
• Changing standards and thresholds

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Society Within GamesOnline Behavior

• The Good
• Everquest Weddings
• The Bad
• Addictive properties
• Online rivalries becoming offline rivalries
• Can games contribute to erratic offline
  behaviors?
• The Ugly
• Disinhibition and deindividuation occur because
  of perceived anonymity.
• Hate crimes

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Society Within Games

• Tools
• Moderators
• Communication tools
• Fan sites to discuss gameplay and community
  outside of the game

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The Upshot

• Games are an immature medium

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Chapter 2.1Understanding Fun
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What is Fun?

• Dictionary
• Enjoyment, a source of amusement
• Important to consider underlying reasons
• Funativity thinking about fun in terms of
  measurable cause and effect

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Getting a handle on fun/play

• Evolutionary roots popular
• Johann Huizinga, Homo Ludens
• But different ways to proceed
• Play as basic desire?
• Play as evolutionary advantage?
• Crawford, Salen/Zimmerman, Koster, .

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Evolutionary Roots

• We must look to our distant past
• Young mammals play to learn basic survival skills
• Games are organized play
• Human entertainment is also at its heart about
  learning how to survive
• Mating and social rules also critical to us
• Education Entertainment
• Fun is about practicing or learning new survival
  skills in a relatively safe setting

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Natural Funativity Theory

• Basic concept is that all fun derives from
  practicing survival and social skills
• Key skills relate to early human context, but
  often in modern guise
• Three overlapping categories
• Physical, Social, and Mental

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Definition of a Great Game

• A great game is a series of interesting and
  meaningful choices made by the player in pursuit
  of a clear and compelling goal

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A Series of Choices in Pursuit of a Goal

• Interactivity
• Games goals and rules?
• Toys vs. games?
• Interesting and Meaningful Choices
• Meaningful choices are perceived by the player as
  having significant consequences
• S/Z meaningful play
• Actions to outcomes are descriptive and
  integrated

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A Series of Choices

• No choice

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A Series of Choices

• Meaningless choices

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A Series of Choices

• Infinite choices

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A Series of Choices

• Choose wisely

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Classic Game Structure

• Convexities
• Other terms (e.g., Narrative spine)
• Fractal nature

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A Series of Convexities

• Popular structure
• Some freedom, implementable

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The Concept of Flow

• Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
• Flow The Psychology of Optimal Experience
• Flow is a state of exhilaration, deep sense of
  enjoyment
• Usually when a persons body or mind is stretched
  to its limits to accomplish something difficult
  and worthwhile

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The Flow Channel

• Start with relatively low level of challenge to
  match starting skill levels
• Gradually increase challenge
• Fast enough to prevent boredom
• Not so fast as to induce frustration

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The Flow Channel
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Difficulty Increase Varies
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Story and Character

• Emotional association, strengthen reaction
• Interactive story different than linear stories
• Murray, Hamlet on the Holodeck
• Do, dont show
• Dont make choices for the player
• Bring out character through action
• Gameplay Trumps Story!