Do blood and gore make a game more fun? Does the bloodlust and violence make you want to play the game more than something else?
A brand new study conducted by the Researchers at the University of Rochester and the think-tank and consultancy company Immersyve, based in Orlando, Florida have gotten some very interesting results that fly in the face of popular media and culture that believes violence is an attractor and that having more violent material will make your game more likely to be played or your movie more likely to be watched.
To quote:
Lead author Andrew Przybylski, a graduate student in social psychology, said they began the project after noting the popularity of games like “World of Warcraft,” “Halo 3” and “Team Fortress 2,” which have a “good deal of violent content.”
“So we wanted to know if the violent content by itself was motivating because these games also do offer compelling challenges and stories,” he said from Rochester, N.Y. “We found that, on average, violent content didn’t add to motivation for play.” In fact, he said the games are popular because they offer players meaningful opportunities to interact and work together, or to feel effective and exercise choice.
“The reason why children gravitate to something like ‘Halo,’ ‘Halo 3’ or ‘World of Warcraft’ or ‘Team Fortress’ isn’t necessarily because they want to get at the blood or the acts of violence,” said Przybylski. “What they’re really chasing is having their psychological needs met. Cranking up the violence knob doesn’t automatically make a game automatically more fun.”
Personally, I think that blood and gore can make things “more interesting” in an eye-catching, “Holy crap I can’t believe that just happened!” way, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into making a game “more fun.” Case in point. I am a huge fan of Mortal Kombat Trilogy. I love the game and the MK series in general. But it’s not JUST the violence that attracted me to it. How do I know this? Because I have played other violent fighters, and they did nothing for me. The reason that MK is so attractive is due to the awesome character design, the deep backstories and character bios and, of course, the fun gameplay and awesome fatalities.
Now I can hardly get my friends to play Mortal Kombat Trilogy for over an hour. And yet, I could easily get them to spend more than an hour with Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Mario Kart Wii or Guitar Hero: World Tour.
Like with all things, the violence is cool and funny at first, but it wears thin after a while and people will get bored. Blood by itself does not have lasting power. Take Sega’s upcoming Wii-exclusive Madworld (seen above in the screenshot) for example. Everyone is immediately intrigued thanks in no small part to the gallons of blood that are spilled with every violent attack the player executes. But beyond that, gamers only have two real questions: “How long will it last.” and “Will it remain fun?”. So I have to agree wholeheartedly with this study. Violence can help a game become more appealing, but without much more (excuse the pun) meat on it’s bones, then it simply will not hold people’s interest.
Give the full article, Blood and gore don’t make video games more enjoyable: study, a read. Thanks to the Canadian Express for the story.