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November 7, 2005
Video Games & Emotional Highs
Wired News recently published an article about how the video game industry might someday mirror the movie industry in its ability to affect us emotionally. As next generation video game graphics approach a new level of realism, are we on the brink of interactive entertainment that can emotionally affect us as much as movies do?
Writer Clive Thompson mulls over whether games can go deeper emotionally. Like a good novel or a play, can games tap into the subtler feelings like sadness, envy and sadness?
According to market researcher Hugh Bowen they can. In his book Videogames: The Impact of Emotion, he asked 535 gamers to describe how deeply their favorite games trigger various emotions. Most of the answers were competitiveness and a sense of accomplishment which is no surprise since most games task you to achieve a goal. However, clear lear lines of how game genres affect emotional states became apparent when gamers into war games said they experienced feelings of honor, loyalty, integrity and other patriotic feelings.
Not surprisingly RPG's (role playing games) evoked the strongest emotions. In particular, a large segment of those questioned said the Final Fantasy series were the most emotionally potent. Again, no surprise here since RPG's rely on narratives to convey story and emotion. Many of the gamers chose Final Fantasy because it had genuinely caused emotional heartache. One noted scene was the death of Aerith in Final Fantasy VII. Just like in movies, the cut scene caused an uproar of reactions. As gamers everywhere watched her life drain from her body and then metaphorically leave in a crystal gem bouncing away to dramatic music, gamers actually felt disgust for the villain and remorse for the lead character who just watched the love of his life die at the hands of his enemy.
So as the dawn of next-gen consoles arrive with their hyper-realistic graphics, HD resolutions, multimillion dollar development and production budgets, will they replace current forms of entertainment that illicit strong emotional responses? Unless everyone in the world starts playing video games, I doubt it but I do believe there will be a time when the two will somehow merge. One key ingredient to strong emotional attachment is interactivity and that's something theatrical releases could never touch.
Posted by tranism at 2:10 PM | Permalink