- Joined
- Jan 31, 2013
- Messages
- 1,116
- Reaction score
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For what reason do you and I have such an attraction to video games?
The answer lies in our very nature. Socializing, exploring, escaping, dominating... I acredit the amazing sucess of the video-gaming industry to a large list of basic human needs. The reason we play video-games is the same exact reason we do anything other than video-games. For some people, exploring new worlds and stories is their fix, be it books or movies or games or hiking, it doesn't matter! Some enjoy the visciousness of a dark, harsh world. Some fight for it, and some fight against it, both in equal vicarity. Both sides of human nature, light and dark, are represented clearly in the gaming industry.
If a game's ability to satisfy human needs directly equates to it's success, should we rate reality in the same sense? If we 'escape' reality into games, that must mean that something is wrong with reality itself. This definitely isn't true, but that doesn't mean that there's no merit to video gaming.
Let's visualize this by bringing in psychology! Yay!
The above chart is the result of google'ing 'human psychological needs graph' and it's kin fill up the first few pages of results. Let's look at these as if we didn't know what video games are.
Near the bottom you have physical needs. Near the top you have emotional needs. You need all of them in order to live healthily (To my understanding... Bear with me. We're not talking about development cycles, by the way).
Start with the bottom of the chart; physiological needs. If you wanted to go take a leak you should have a general idea of what to do. Same with getting food or something to drink.
Next; safety. You could plan things out, make sure you've got good income and friends. Maybe keep your fire alarms charged (Maybe). These aren't things that your body automatically knows how to do, but are still goals for it to achieve and it's not too hard to formulate a plan to get it done.
Continuing: love/belonging. Here is where a lot of people seem to fall off a cliff, especially when they haven't had much experience in the area. This becomes difficult territory, but is also a great reward for those who can pull it off. It's hard to 'plan' to make friends or have a love life, with people being people and all. It's more instinctive... Out of your control, almost.
The next two categories, Esteem and Self-Actualization hold qualities that are too deep for some people to even grasp, much less consciously strive for.
Now, enter the video game.
Starting from the bottom again... Physiological needs are impossible to meet through playing video games. 'Nuff said.
Safety is extremely difficult to achieve from the internet, as the dangers to your physical job, family, health, property, etc. usually have no representation connected to them in-game.
These two categories at the bottom of the pyramid represent the areas of life that video games have no affect on. This may change in the future if augmented reality becomes mainstream, but that would lead to another rant I just don't want to do right now.
Now let's look at Love/Belonging. This is interesting to me as it's a large part of the reason I think I play video games. Communities are a great way to find friends and develop a self-identity. What is the internet? One giant disfunctional community, made of many millions of smaller, slightly less disfunctional communities. I firmly believe that making friends online is exactly as valuable as making friends offline, albeit for vastly different reasons.
A lot of people are going to argue with me on this but I stand my ground firmly. They will say that talking to someone's avatar or typing with someone isn't the same as actually being there, talking with them. I agree, you get a depth of feeling and understanding by simply being in the same room as someone else that is very hard to get off of a friendship online. Still, online communities are wildly succesful, so it must be belying some hidden merit. Look at online relationships with the qualities of computers in general. They are accessible, understandable, and built towards the user. Those qualities apply to online communities to give them their strengths.
Remember, a good online friendship will give you a friend in reality. A good friend in reality will become your E-buddy so you can talk anywhere at any time.
Esteem and Self-Actualization are the hardest to mentally grasp and induce through regular stimuli, but most if not all video-games MUST satisfy some form of need in these categories to be considered fun.
Look at what the pyramid has to say about Esteem. Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, and respect of/by others. Does this not look exactly like an MMORPG? Constant achievements, guilds, leaderboards, raids, and competitive PvP... Everything I can see satisfying me in an MMO points straight at this point in the graph.
Self-Actualization: Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts... This sounds a lot like Mass Effect, hmm? The responsibility of having to make decisions can reveal a lot about your psyche that you didn't previously know. Games like this can make you pause and second-guess yourself on things that you were previously sure of.
We play games because games are like, but also very much unlike any other sort of healthy mental activity. A simple game can cause us to question our morals in a way that reality can't, ignite our creative engine, learn to accept the ideas and ideals of others, and it can bring together people who would otherwise keep well away of each other.
Just remember that life is about balance. Too much or too little will always lead to something bad happening.
Players, keep all of this in mind as you explore your universe. Schema, please keep this in mind as you further design Starmade. Satisfying a player's base needs in the right way can create a diehard fan. I know it has for me.
The answer lies in our very nature. Socializing, exploring, escaping, dominating... I acredit the amazing sucess of the video-gaming industry to a large list of basic human needs. The reason we play video-games is the same exact reason we do anything other than video-games. For some people, exploring new worlds and stories is their fix, be it books or movies or games or hiking, it doesn't matter! Some enjoy the visciousness of a dark, harsh world. Some fight for it, and some fight against it, both in equal vicarity. Both sides of human nature, light and dark, are represented clearly in the gaming industry.
If a game's ability to satisfy human needs directly equates to it's success, should we rate reality in the same sense? If we 'escape' reality into games, that must mean that something is wrong with reality itself. This definitely isn't true, but that doesn't mean that there's no merit to video gaming.
Let's visualize this by bringing in psychology! Yay!
The above chart is the result of google'ing 'human psychological needs graph' and it's kin fill up the first few pages of results. Let's look at these as if we didn't know what video games are.
Near the bottom you have physical needs. Near the top you have emotional needs. You need all of them in order to live healthily (To my understanding... Bear with me. We're not talking about development cycles, by the way).
Start with the bottom of the chart; physiological needs. If you wanted to go take a leak you should have a general idea of what to do. Same with getting food or something to drink.
Next; safety. You could plan things out, make sure you've got good income and friends. Maybe keep your fire alarms charged (Maybe). These aren't things that your body automatically knows how to do, but are still goals for it to achieve and it's not too hard to formulate a plan to get it done.
Continuing: love/belonging. Here is where a lot of people seem to fall off a cliff, especially when they haven't had much experience in the area. This becomes difficult territory, but is also a great reward for those who can pull it off. It's hard to 'plan' to make friends or have a love life, with people being people and all. It's more instinctive... Out of your control, almost.
The next two categories, Esteem and Self-Actualization hold qualities that are too deep for some people to even grasp, much less consciously strive for.
Now, enter the video game.
Starting from the bottom again... Physiological needs are impossible to meet through playing video games. 'Nuff said.
Safety is extremely difficult to achieve from the internet, as the dangers to your physical job, family, health, property, etc. usually have no representation connected to them in-game.
These two categories at the bottom of the pyramid represent the areas of life that video games have no affect on. This may change in the future if augmented reality becomes mainstream, but that would lead to another rant I just don't want to do right now.
Now let's look at Love/Belonging. This is interesting to me as it's a large part of the reason I think I play video games. Communities are a great way to find friends and develop a self-identity. What is the internet? One giant disfunctional community, made of many millions of smaller, slightly less disfunctional communities. I firmly believe that making friends online is exactly as valuable as making friends offline, albeit for vastly different reasons.
A lot of people are going to argue with me on this but I stand my ground firmly. They will say that talking to someone's avatar or typing with someone isn't the same as actually being there, talking with them. I agree, you get a depth of feeling and understanding by simply being in the same room as someone else that is very hard to get off of a friendship online. Still, online communities are wildly succesful, so it must be belying some hidden merit. Look at online relationships with the qualities of computers in general. They are accessible, understandable, and built towards the user. Those qualities apply to online communities to give them their strengths.
Remember, a good online friendship will give you a friend in reality. A good friend in reality will become your E-buddy so you can talk anywhere at any time.
Esteem and Self-Actualization are the hardest to mentally grasp and induce through regular stimuli, but most if not all video-games MUST satisfy some form of need in these categories to be considered fun.
Look at what the pyramid has to say about Esteem. Self-esteem, confidence, achievement, and respect of/by others. Does this not look exactly like an MMORPG? Constant achievements, guilds, leaderboards, raids, and competitive PvP... Everything I can see satisfying me in an MMO points straight at this point in the graph.
Self-Actualization: Morality, creativity, spontaneity, problem solving, lack of prejudice, acceptance of facts... This sounds a lot like Mass Effect, hmm? The responsibility of having to make decisions can reveal a lot about your psyche that you didn't previously know. Games like this can make you pause and second-guess yourself on things that you were previously sure of.
We play games because games are like, but also very much unlike any other sort of healthy mental activity. A simple game can cause us to question our morals in a way that reality can't, ignite our creative engine, learn to accept the ideas and ideals of others, and it can bring together people who would otherwise keep well away of each other.
Just remember that life is about balance. Too much or too little will always lead to something bad happening.
Players, keep all of this in mind as you explore your universe. Schema, please keep this in mind as you further design Starmade. Satisfying a player's base needs in the right way can create a diehard fan. I know it has for me.
