Comparability

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: A journey mostly ends with the presentation of a lot of pictures. A journey through a game world mostly ends with the credits … What might be the reason why there’s  almost no talking about the latest playthrough? How could these two different immersive experiences be compared? What makes it so hard to talk about the latest gaming experience?

Computer games are designed to be doable. There’s no uncertainty like doing a supersonic parachute jump from 128.100 feet [1]. There’re also no limitations which can prohibit the player from beating the game: the player doesn’t need to qualify to play a game. A computer game can be played as long as the challenge lasts and whenever the player likes to play it. Of course, the content in games like World of Warcraft can be adjusted (or „nerfed“) by the designers to make it more accessible for the majority of the users. In this case, some hard challenges might only have a certain life span.

Playing computer games can’t be compared to other media leisure activities. Watching tv is a passive activity: the recipient just follows the narration without doing anything actively. Reading a book isn’t passive, but does not allow the recipient to have influence on the outcome of the actions. The reader only enjoys the narration without being able to interact with it.
Gaming allows the player to follow the narration and to interact with it. Additionally, the player’s decisions can have a deep impact on the outcome of the narration. The player is immersed in the gameplay and has a deeper and more personal experience of the actions.

Considering this, computer games can be compared to special but regular activities: going on a hike, doing sports or any other complex activity. But even if it’s a great personal experience for players to beat a hard challenge, they don’t have anything in particular to share with their friends. In today’s life it has become common to take pictures of current activities and share it with friends over the internet. Furthermore, watching pictures and talking about the experiences has become a new leisure activity that adds an additional feature to the original activity: it now can be shared.

But what about computer games? Players can take screenshots while playing a game. But sharing in-game experience by sharing screenshots over the internet isn’t very common today. Additionally, while playing a game, players have to make difficult decisions or experience complex situations. If this would be easily comparable to the real world, many people might be interested in hearing about these experiences.

One reason might be the complexity of the games. Every game has different rules and requires a different gameplay. Things that might be easy in one game can be hard in an other game. Additionally, every game has its own rules and own background story. To understand the player’s experiences, it’s necessary to know all the important facts and rules about the particular game world. If some informations are lacking, it can be hard to understand the achievements of the player because there’s no relation to the real world.

Furthermore, it’s complex to understand all the things a player might have learnt during the gameplay. Often, it’s hard to compare human skill requirements in a computer game to human skill requirements of real world activities. Future (my!) research should achieve a better understanding between the real and the game world.

But even if gamers can’t share their experience or don’t have any real reward for their success, they’re still rewarded: the emotions during are a playthrough are real [2]. These emotional rewards are one of the main reasons for playing computer games.

Finally, presenting screenshots of the last game journey could be a new trend …

References:

[2] McGonigal, Jane (2011): Reality Is Broken, New York.