Gaming Psychology and Mass Effect II

I should really blame Mass Effect 2 for not allowing me to do my daily work. For couple of days, I have been playing this for 4 -5 hours straight every day, without even realizing that I have some homework and project works to do for my class and my company. I have not been posting blogs here in NoobFeed for some time nor have I been creating music for my future “Back to the Past” blogs. My whole thinking is focused on that Mass Effect II game. Even I started posting status messages based on Mass Effect II. Right now, while I am writing this blog, I am thinking which character I should date: Miranda, Tali, Jack or Kelly. Even I thought about this for 10-20 minutes when I went to sleep (I usually think every night before I sleep, anyone reading my earlier blogs can recall that. This is psychoanalysis.). What is the psychology behind all this that is changing my daily life-cycle? Let’s research. I will mostly refer Mass Effect II in many cases since my thoughts are seriously focused into that game.

 

Is it cognitive? It should be. According to Wikipedia, cognitive psychology is a discipline within psychology that investigates the internal mental processes of thought such as visual processing, memory, problem solving, and language. While playing games, all these thought processes come under play. Mass Effect II is a visually appealing game. The whole game makes gamers feel like they are watching a movie with a complete story (that is what RPGs are all about). Visual psychology states that your eye will try to catch every detail in the game and pass to the brain in the form of neural signals thus allowing you to analyze the signal and finally aware and understand the surroundings. This process is more imminent when you play a game with very good graphics, making the eyes more willing to catch more details, analyze and thus allowing the person to get into the game so easily. This is why graphics are important to gain people’s attention. Now I ask all the gamers and even audiences to play horrible games like Big Rigs or Hours of Victory and see whether they really want to watch the game. Some of my friends, who are not gamers, are always interested only to be an audience of a visually appealing game. One of my friends, who don’t play games, wanted me to carry on playing Final Fantasy 8 (the cinematic graphics was top-class at the time when the game was released back in 1999) just to see what happens next.

 

If the story is good, it is enough to make gamers get into the game very easily. It is cognitive psychology in the form of perception, knowledge representation and memory. It is generally accepted that books are greatest form of medium for story telling compared to other forms of medium (movies, audiobooks, ebooks) due to its greatest story absorption ability. Books allow a person’s brain to go into greater depths than any other form of medium. The texts from the book are enough to make a person to imagine to great extent and feel they are in the story. It makes a person feel that he/she is “lost in the book”. After playing Mass Effect II, I can tell that gaming is the ultimate form of medium for storytelling (even better than reading books). It is my personal opinion though. I have read books and I played this game and similar games like this. I was more absorbed in the game than I was in while reading the books. When there is any story involved in games, it takes the storytelling advantages of both movies and books combined. Books make absorption easier and movies make imagining and getting the whole picture a lot better (General perception). Combining both advantages, the result lets you create a whole scenario inside your brain (Knowledge representation in the form of mental imaginary).  Games boast this combinative advantage since in games like Mass Effect and Dragon Age (especially the former one since it gets closer to a movie), gamers can see both texts and cinematic graphics to represent the story. To make absorption better, the gamers can choose to decide what to do and what not to do and can interact with other characters (Thinking and decision making in cognitive psychology). If the gamers are “lost in the game” how can you get them out? They will keep on playing until they finish the game (they are motivated). Right now for the time being, I am thinking how I can approach the female characters in the romantic scenario while writing this blog. I am recollecting the whole scenario in the game where I left off during my gaming break (mental imaginary and working memory). Mass Effect II story has been so effectively implemented that leaves the gamers get into mental imagination right from the start. In some critical stages in the story the player loses one crew members and this can also affect the players too (Emotion). Some players may even restart the game or reload a saved part just to save that crew member (like what I do), cause I do not want them to die (especially the one with whom my character is carrying out a relationship). Emotion takes into account in many ways. First gamers are “lost in the game” and can be emotionally affected in some parts of the story. Second the game play experience can make the gamer emotionally satisfied. I have not finished the game yet but imagine how I would feel when I finish this epic game. Complete satisfaction. That’s what I felt when I finished Modern Warfare in Veteran mode and Bionic Commando in NES. Complete satisfaction is good for health. It makes your mind fresh it makes your blood pressure go down.

 

 During the 19th century books were rumored to inflict drug like habit to people. Now in this 21st century, games can replace these books. As I said before games can make people lost since they are motivated to finish the game. That is what happening to me. I cannot do any other work since I am extremely motivated to finish this game. Unless someone spoils the story by already saying what happened at the end or bring something that brings me into attention (attention in perception) or someone just knocks me down by banging my head. I don’t know maybe this can be a reason why most gaming companies are trying to make games short, since stories are so addicting. Now people will ask what happens when people play multiplayer games. In multiplayer games three cognitive psychological areas (Attention, Motivation and Emotion) comes to play. Gamers are already focused into any sort of multiplayer games (Attention) and cannot think of anything else outside the multiplayer game (Motivation) until they complete the game with high note giving them satisfaction (Emotion). This is why games like WOW and even Championship Manager is so addictive as people (in WOW) are always determined to get to the top (motivation) so they can brag themselves with their achievement (Emotion). Mass Effect II includes achievements just to let gamers satisfied. I really want to get that “No One is Left Behind” achievement so I can get complete satisfaction in my mind.

 

Who says games are harmful to people? There are so many psychological factors involved while playing the games. This is why people who play games since the early age can learn and develop their thinking and decision making process. That is why most of my little cousins are turning out to be geniuses as they are playing games at early age. Children are exposed to many things and they learn at extremely faster rate than adults. Also if children are exposed to violence and bad things, then they also learn those and tend to adapt those and use in practice since children are not able to categorize what is good and what is bad. That is when parents come to play as they are responsible to apply methods (behaviorism) upon children so that children can finally able to categorize what is good and what is bad. I have been playing games like Mortal Kombat during my young age but I already knew that applying the same practice outside is bad. The best part comes if you tend to grow up into adult in this way. In some website (maybe Gamespot), I saw an article that playing violent video games releases stress and tension. Well this is actually true at least for me and some of my friends. So if anyone is angry to someone at certain point when you are determined to murder to get rid of that someone, please play violent video games just to release the anger and stress as games overshadows anger with satisfaction.

 

For those who haven’t played Mass Effect II, I urge them to play the game. I also advise to play the first Mass Effect before going to the second Mass Effect II. I also warn you not to play when you are fully loaded with works and studies. Maybe during summer time when you are free to play as long as you want. There is another thing I didn’t mention. If you feel you are getting bored while playing certain game but still continuing the game, stop the game immediately as your brain cannot handle information processing for the time being and needs some rest to replenish its energy. You will not be able to enjoy the game and the gaming flow, which you are maintaining, will be damaged severely. As a result you might end up like those who plays 2-3 days continuously and harming themselves. Also the brain may not be able to initiate the thought process thus making you play any game horribly bad and make bad decision. Getting into the game and enjoying it at its fullest potential requires your brain to be fully energized so the brain is efficient enough to create mental images and perform effective decision making processes while you play the game thus allowing you have great gaming experiences