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Many have heard the phrase “stop playing and do something useful” in childhood. We have become adults … and now no one will interfere with us. Why don’t we feel sorry for the time for games?
It’s nice sometimes to imagine yourself as a great warrior, a wise wizard, a clever rogue or a daredevil! And if earlier we had to rely on the power of imagination or a group of like-minded people who were ready to spend the weekend on a trip to the forest with armor and swords, today we go on extraordinary adventures without getting up from our chairs.
Goal one: to become different
The difference between adventure and tragedy is that in the first case, everyone returns home: in games, the danger is not us, but the avatar, and any mistake can be corrected – start over and choose the right path. But if this is the only thing, then why not read a book or watch a movie, because even there you can imagine yourself as the main character and experience his adventures without risking anything?
Games make it possible to identify with the character much more: we can choose the appearance, skills, even backstory – make him truly ours and live another life “in his shoes”. Sometimes the developers do not even voice the character, so that someone else’s voice does not prevent the player from identifying with the hero. “Interactivity also matters,” notes psychodramatherapist Roman Kryukov, “in the game we control the actions of the avatar and interact much more closely with the virtual world.”
Watching a movie, reading a novel, we still remain only observers. Even though we worry about the heroes in the course of the plot, we are powerless to influence their fate. In games, success or failure depends on our choices. And that is not all. “Computer games allow you to instantly realize fantasies,” adds psychotherapist Viktoria Ivannikova, “what in the real world would require long and complex work (for example, the desired physical form or the acquisition of a new skill), in the game is achieved with a couple of mouse clicks.”
Today, in order to sit in the pilot’s chair or sink to the ocean floor, it is enough to choose the right game. Allied characters in the game world are programmed to love us and admire our successes, and villains are programmed to tremble at our appearance. “If in the real world we lack recognition, then games are one of the ways to make up for its lack and thereby give ourselves some support,” says Viktoria Ivannikova. However, if this support becomes the only one, we risk not returning to the real world.
Non-Gift Boxes
If we once bought a game, it does not mean that we will no longer pay for it. Developers have their own tricks.
The cost of the games stays the same (roughly $60/box) and development costs go up. Therefore, publishers are looking for ways to keep their profits: season passes (season pass), offering in-game bonuses for the time spent in the game, downloadable add-ons (DLC) for super-complete tasks and maps. But the loot box turned out to be the most profitable option: the player buys a virtual box that contains some in-game add-ons (weapons, character appearance, music), but it is not known which ones specifically.
One box usually costs a little, but it can take more than one hundred of them to get the desired item. Loot boxes have proved so popular that many countries have begun to think about the danger: after all, games are primarily aimed at children and teenagers who have not yet learned to control their own budget, if they have one at all.
China and South Korea have made it mandatory for publishers to indicate the drop rate of certain items. And the politicians of Australia, known for strict game censorship, proposed to oblige publishers to set the age limit of “18+” for games with loot boxes. In Russia, loot boxes have been equated with gambling since 2018, and their use on the territory of the Russian Federation is formally prohibited, but since the servers on which Russian players play are most often located in Europe, in fact, nothing has changed for us.
Goal two: improve communication
The time we spend in front of a monitor could be spent on real communication. However, online games, as it turned out, also develop communication skills and help to establish contacts. After all, we compete or cooperate not only with computer characters, but also with many of the same as ourselves, players from all over the world.
The social skills we learn online are just as good as those we learn on the street, according to a study by Ryan Perry of the University of Melbourne, Australia.1. And in terms of diversity, they are superior: not every street platform allows you to make friends with a resident of another continent and a different social status. Communicating with interlocutors who are different from us, we expand our horizons. The game provides many reasons and topics for conversation.
“It is easier to establish communication online than in real life,” says Evgenia Astapenko, a Gestalt therapist. “We are talking on behalf of the character, and this gives you the opportunity to look at the interlocutor without revealing yourself.” True, there is a “but”: the rest are also in no hurry to open up.
Goal Three: Competition and Cooperation
Stand shoulder to shoulder with other players in order to repel the dangers proposed by the developers, or fight against each other using the game world as an arena? It all depends on what need we have at the moment.
By cooperating with other players, we get the opportunity to feel like part of a group and expect that our contribution to the common cause will be noticed and recognized. “The brain provides a reward for completing a task in the form of a release of dopamine,” explains Viktoria Ivannikova. Game developers know this and build the plot so that we receive regular rewards: it rarely takes more than half an hour from the beginning of the task to the end.
In competitive games, we also get a reward – the pleasure of our feeling of superiority. They make us feel not just a good player, but someone who is better than others.
In the real world, it is difficult to understand exactly how good we are, Viktoria Ivannikova notes, “so you have to rely on the assessment of others who have their own interests,” but in games objective statistics are kept and you can find out how much better we are than your opponent by pressing one key. But even if the statistics hint that we still have room to grow, we still return to prove to ourselves and our opponents that we have become better. Even in games where there is no direct competition, you can find leaderboards (and descriptions of the rewards for them) that encourage you to strive for first places.
Why games are no longer just for kids
Children and teenagers who are ready to spend hours on the Web, grow up and cannot devote as much time to games as before. Among the adult audience, the most time in online games (8,21 hours per week) is now spent by players aged 26 to 35 years. However, players aged 36-45 are struggling to catch up with those that are younger: the time they spent in games in 2019 increased by 25% compared to the previous year2. What is the reason?
“At this age, we often face crises and take a break from our unresolved problems in games where it’s much easier to succeed: this is how we compensate for life’s dissatisfaction with online achievements,” explains Evgenia Astapenko.
In response to the increase in the average age of players, developers are changing the structure of games. Single-player RPG playthroughs have declined over the past decade from an average of 80 hours to 40 hours. And the average duration of a game on the Web is from 60 to 30–45 minutes. Session games appeared, especially popular on mobile devices.
In the first online games, you had to log into the game every day and spend several hours there in order to keep up with the others. It is enough to enter the session rooms for 15 minutes a day. The reduction in time was achieved by introducing timers (for example, a building in the game is built in 5 minutes of real time) or by limiting energy (transition from one location to another consumes one energy out of a hundred available). You won’t be able to play these games all day, but they are suitable for a quick game on the subway on your way to work or at a particularly boring lecture.
“Today we no longer perceive games as exclusively children’s entertainment,” notes Roman Kryukov. “Adults don’t hesitate to play and talk about their victories.” It’s time to prepare for the fact that in the near future a generation of pensioners will appear, spending time not at dominoes and knitting, but in front of monitors.
Let’s get better
Players prefer difficult games. Why?
They are more likely to return to games that challenge them, according to a study by Alev Alan of Turkey’s Gebze University.1. The brain does not care whether we coped with a difficult task in the real world or the virtual one. But, unlike the real world, the rules by which the game world functions are much simpler, and any game first of all explains them to us. In the game, we always have a full set of skills and tools to overcome the challenges that the developers offer.
“Git Good” (eng. Git Gud – a meme resulting from a deliberate distortion of the phrase get good: “become better”) is a popular response from game developers to the user’s claim “why is it so difficult”. Games are the only entertainment that tests how good we are. The book will not close in the middle if it decides that we did not read carefully enough, but the game will not allow you to skip a difficult section and move on. And this requirement not just to play, but to play well is one of the reasons we love games.
Alev Kocak Alan et al. Replaying online games for flow experience… sciencedirect.com
1 R. Perry et al. Online-only friends, real-life friends or strangers?… sciencedirect.com
2 State of Online Gaming — 2021, report LIMELIGHT Network, 16.03.2021