The therapeutic potential of video games deserves more exploration. In addition to games specifically designed to help deal with mental illness, games can provide safe ways for us to experiment with and overcome challenges that are harder to tackle directly in real life (as I’ve touchedonbefore).
In this insightful and deeply personal video, ShayMay discusses The Binding of Isaac within the context of his own difficulties with anxiety and how it served as a safe way to practice - and even learn to enjoy - not being in full control.
As satisfying as it is to dunk on esports pros for essentially complaining that they can’t play on easy mode (especially given the short-sightedness and lack of empathy on display in their desire to freely stomp on less-skilled players - everyone has a better time when skills are more closely matched), there’s also some fascinating psychology beyond that here.
While the article doesn’t provide citations for this beyond quoting Halo 2’s multiplayer lead, it claims that “every major multiplayer shooter since Halo 2” has had skill-based matchmaking in both ranked and unranked playlists, with the different lists existing to lure the hyper-competitive or more-toxic players to ranked and leave supposedly-unranked play more enjoyable for other players.
This writeup discusses a study showing the unsurprising result that group dynamics make people care more about others, whether they are real or fictional - we want good things to happen to our allies and bad things to happen to our enemies. This is relevant to game design because caring more about a game’s characters is a recipe for improved engagement. But what I found particularly interesting about the study was that it implies that a good way to make players care even more about their allies is to have them suffer setbacks and losses together, and a good way to make players care even more about their enemies is to make their rivalries as evenly-matched as possible.
The effects of violent video games have been the subject of debate for decades, but most discussions miss a key factor: the context of the violence. This write-up summaries a 2013 study finding that playing as a villainous character makes players more likely to perceive violence in neutral faces (suggesting an aggressive mindset) and less likely to return a planted lost letter than playing as a heroic character, even when both characters behave violently - and that these differences were magnified when players were prepped with articles on the characters' backstories that made them more sympathetic.
What we do in games may matter less than why we do it and who we are.
The broad appeal of The Sims has always been fascinating, but it’s always had a lurid undertone as well. This 2007 article by Kieron Gillen unpacks that, examining how The Sims functions as a particularly effective safe space to explore, experiment with, and work through interpersonal issues, especially in the fraught areas of romance and sexuality. (It’s also one of a small handful of classic articles that demonstrated to me that it is interesting and worthwhile to write about games and which inspired me to start Pixel Poppers.)
Holly Gramazio takes a detailed look at player creativity and expression - why it’s valuable, what gets in the way, and how to get around the barriers and encourage it.
A long time ago, I wrote about how games can present fake achievement which can be abused by players in unhealthy ways. Someday I’d like to revisit this topic and discuss how fake achievement can be used in healthy ways.
For example, here’s an article about experiments showing that “meaningless rituals” can improve feelings of self-discipline and thereby improve actual self-control. Sometimes, going through defined steps and completing goals - even empty ones that accomplish nothing - make us feel like we can do things and we can then bring that motivation to our actual real-life goals.
An in-depth and wide-ranging look at coziness in games - what its value is and how you encourage it. As a fan of cozy games, I found myself nodding vigorously at many parts of it.
Imagine you’re a kid at a new school deciding where to sit for lunch. Another kid sees you and offers you some candy, saying they have some extra they don’t want. You eagerly accept the candy and sit with the kid. The next day, you run into the same kid and they offer you candy again, explaining that their parents keep packing their lunch with this candy they don’t like. This keeps happening every day - when you sit with this kid at lunch, they give you candy.
Then one day you go to the candy store and see that same kid buying lots of the candy they supposedly don’t like. You realize they are deliberately getting this candy to give to other kids to try to make friends.
What might you say to this kid if you confronted them? Would you explain that their actions are not only clearly manipulative but also counterproductive in the long run - that they may have an easier time making new friends right now, but these people are likely to be put off when they realize what’s going on, even if they had actually enjoyed spending time together? Might you suggest that the kid should focus instead on being genuinely enjoyable to spend time with and seek out people with compatible personalities and shared interests who actually like spending time with them?
This is basically how I feel about games with log-in bonuses.
A quick look at what the research says about how to avoid overwhelming players with too many options and turning them off of mechanics or entire games. See also Barry Schwartz on the paradox of choice and there’s room for more analysis on option categorization and its relationship to chunking or the way it turns one overwhelming decision into a short series of manageable ones.
