Tag Archives: Deus Ex

Posted on by

Ideal Self Image and Game Choice

So why do you think you choose to play the games you do? NO! WRONG ANSWER! Well, actually, you’re probably mostly right about that, but an recent article in Psychological Science ((Przybylski, A., Weinstein, N., Murayama, K., Lynch, M. & Ryan, R. (2012). The Ideal Self At Play: The Appeal of Video Games That Let You Be All You Can Be. Psychological Science, 23(1) 69-76.)) suggests that your choice of games and your motivation to keep playing them may have something to do with how well they allow you to experience something deeper and more personal.

In the article, Andrew Przybylski (whose work I also cited in my article for GamePro on the appeal of shooters that’s sadly no longer online) and his co-authors hypothesize that we’re motivated to play video games to the extent that they allow us to sample our “ideal self characteristics,” especially when there’s a large gap between our ideal selves and who we actually think we are. This could help explain why people are attracted to games in a way that’s unique to the medium.

Przybylski and his colleagues tested this theory in a couple of experiments in which they had gamers self-report their personality (using a standard “Big 5” measure) in three contexts:

  1. As they think they are IRL
  2. As the type of person would like to ideally be IRL
  3. As the type of person they felt like while playing a certain game

They found that we apparently enjoy games most when they let us feel like an idealized version of ourselves (i.e., #2 and #3 above are similar), and that effect is greatest when there’s a big discrepancy with our ideal self and our perceived self (i.e., #1 and #2 are dissimilar). So if I fantasize about being a loquacious, extroverted type of person, I feel better about myself when I’m able to play a game that lets me do that even though in reality I get tongue-tied in public. Or if I strive to be a more conscientious master of details and micromanagement, I might prefer a real-time strategy game over a first person shooter.

Hmmm... Should I put my augmentation points into Conscientiousness or Emotional Stability?

You may think this is a bit obvious, but I think some of the implications are profound for game designers, especially those working on role-playing games. We’re all probably familiar with the binary “Do you murder the puppy or do you help the puppy?” morality choices in some such games. Many of my favorite games in this genre include choices or developments that were much more complicated than that. Taking Przybylski’s research to heart, effective choices in these games are going to be the ones that allow let players adopt a much wider spectrum of personality, desires, values, and judgments.

I won’t share any spoilers, but those of you who have made it to the end of Deus Ex: Human Revolution will be familiar with a good example of this. It provides choices that allow you to have Adam –and through him yourself– weigh the importance of freedom, progress, purity, justice, honesty, and the like. Similarly, many paths in Dragon Age 2 ask you to create a persona that reflects varying emphasis on loyalty, dogmatism, anarchy, and justice. And while there’s something to be said about “playing the dark side” in these games for fun ((Dark Brotherhood quest line in Skyrim, anyone?)) one could hypothesize that that kind of thrill comes most strongly from playing something equally complicated, just in the opposite direction from your ideal self.

Okay, for extra light side points, kill this thing using only passive agression.

But there’s more. I haven’t played Bioware’s new Star Wars: The Old Republic MMORPG yet, but from what I’ve heard there are some improvements to that game suggested by the above research. In keeping with the Star Wars tradition, the game lets you play on either end of the “light side” or “dark side” morality spectrum. But as is with common with such systems, meeting certain thresholds of good or evil are required to use certain equipment and abilities. You get light or dark points by role-playing certain actions, so most players are on the lookout for ways to boost their standing. The problem with this is that it may not only over simplify the role-playing in the game, but by dangling a carrot from such choices the game may actively discourage players from exploring more subtle choices and consequences that let them feel more like their idealized self and thus motivate them to continue playing.

So, game writers take note. When you’re dreaming up your game’s stable of complex supporting characters, don’t leave the player character out of the action. We all love trying on different hats in the way that only video games allow, but some of us have very oddly shaped heads.

Posted on by

Just World Hypothesis and Homefront

Years ago I watched a friend (hi Chris!) play through some of the later levels in the original Deus Ex and commented on how he was repeatedly subjecting Majestic 12 security personnel to death by natural causes, in so much as shooting them in the face would naturally cause their death. I noted that there were nonlethal ways to deal with the security on this level, such as stealth or knocking them unconscious with stun batons.

“Nah,” he said, murdering another security guard who I personally thought might have doing his job and was glum over missing his kid’s soccer game. “These guys are pretty high up in MJ-12. They have to know the kind of stuff their employer is up to. They deserve it.” (For those of you who have forgotten, MJ-12 hijinks included creating a global pandemic in order to sell the cure. Not too nice.) Apparently feeling that the victims of his progress through the game deserved their virtual fate was important to this player, and I can understand why.

In fact, psychologists have studied this phenomenon and dubbed it the “Just World Hypothesis.” When people witness someone subjected to some misfortune, they’re susceptible to suggestions that the person deserved it and thus see the misfortune as evidence of karma or justice –hence the “Just” in “Just World Hypothesis”.

I'm sure this guy had a wife and kids ...UNTIL HE MURDERED AND ATE THEM!

A few years ago one researcher showed this effect by presenting two groups of people two versions of an interaction between a “Barbara and Jack,” a man and a woman in a relationship. ((Carli, L. (1999). Cognitive Reconstruction, Hindsight, and Reactions to Victims and Perpetrators. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 25, 966-979.)) The stories presented to each group were identical except for the endings: in one group Jack proposed marriage to Barbara, and in the second he sexually assaulted her. Participants later filled out a survey asking them to recall the situation and those who read the story ending in sexual assault tended to remember (or rather misremember) things from the scenario and thought it more likely that Barbara engaged in risky behaviors like flirting, dressing provocatively, getting drunk, and agreeing to go back to Jack’s apartment. The author argued that people were more subject to remember things in hindsight in such a way that they matched their expectations.

On the flipside, social psychologist Marvin Lerner, who pioneered the concept of the just world hypothesis showed that people are more likely to view lottery winners as harder working students. ((Lerner, M. The Belief in a Just World: A Fundamental Delusion, (New York: Plenum Press, 1980.)) So it goes both ways.

I think I see something similar in my friend who was assuming that the MJ-12 security guards he was murdering deserved it, because they “must have known.” Note that the game didn’t really provide any evidence that these fellows knew ANYTHING about their employer’s crimes; my friend just filled that part in because presumably he just wanted to shoot dudes without wrestling with any moral quandaries ((And honestly, in the context of a video game that’s hardly unusual, much less a war crime.))

Go on, murder some dudes. No, no, it's cool. Don't worry about it. They're total jerks.

Now consider the recently released first person shooter Homefront, which has you play as an freedom fighter in an America occupied by a North Korean superpower. The introduction to the game goes to great lengths to relieve you of any moral misgivings you might have about plugging away at the enemies it’s getting ready to throw at you. You see enemy soldiers not only brutalizing American civilians, but outright murdering a mother in front of her children and callously tossing corpses around. The message is clear: Hey, these guys are evil. When we give you a gun, SHOOT THEM and FEEL GOOD ABOUT IT. Doing so is just increasing the amount of justice in the world, which is something your human psyche is naturally all on board with.

Of course, the interesting thing (or, more to the point, the uninteresting thing) about Homefront is that it’s not leaving any blanks to be filled in by the just world bias. By turning it up to 11, the THQ is is making entirely sure that your natural proclivity for blaming people (i.e., the parade’s worth of North Korean soldiers you meet between each level’s start and finish) for their own misfortune (i.e., being at the wrong end of your various guns and explosives) is indulged. And while I appreciate the easy out, I think it kind of robs the game of some narrative depth. Some of my favorite gaming moments over the years have been born of difficult decisions about who to let live and who to gun down. Let me decide, act, and ruminate on those actions once the smoke clears; that will keep the game with me for longer. ((Though in full disclosure, I haven’t played Homefront; maybe it becomes subtle, but the intro video I watched sure wasn’t.))