EMOTIONS

vr_man · 2005-12-05T09:03:36

EMOTIONS I am a twenty-four year old male that does not enjoy playing most videogames because I believe that they are stupid and childish. When I was a child I was able to experience a wide range of emotions from playing videogames. In the present time the only thing that I feel when I play a game is boredom or excitement when I am competing against someone in a game that has a 2-player mode. The last time that I felt something like fear, happiness or, excitement when I was playing a game with a story line was back in the mid 90's. I remember being surprised at the end of the game D when I found out that D was Dracula. I remember being a little scared when I was playing the first Resident Evil game because I always played it in front of a large television at night with the lights turned off and the sound turned up. I remember feeling proud of myself because I was always able to complete games like Myst or Riven in a relatively short period of time. In the present time if I want to feel something other than boredom when I am looking at my television I have to watch a good movie or a television show. The same thing applies to most adults. Some of these adults are people that used to play videogames when they were younger but they stopped, as they got older. It does not have to be this way. The videogame industry is currently a 25 billion dollar a year industry and most people in the industry believe that it will be a 50 billion dollar a year industry in four or five years. I believe that it could be so much bigger if some of the games were made for mature teenagers and adults. I am not referring to the games that are rated M. Those games are childish also. Some of them just contain a lot of animated violence. When I am watching a movie or a television show I am able to experience emotions that I was never able to feel when I was playing a game. I can experience fear, sadness, excitement, joy, anxiety, or sympathy. I am able to experience these emotions because of the great scripts that are written by some of the talented writers out there. I believe that adults should also be able to experience these emotions when they are playing games with a story line. MAKING A GAME THAT INVOKES AN EMOTIONAL RESPONSE IN ADULTS THAT DO NOT ENJOY PLAYING VIDEOGAMES With each year that passes the number of adults that are playing videogames continues to increase. It is one of the reasons why sales in the videogames industry are increasing every year. Some of the adults that play videogames are the people that were playing the first videogames that were made back in the late 70's and early 80's. That can make the age of adult gamers anywhere from 18 to 50+ years old. The majority of adult gamers are between the ages of 18 and 30. Most of the people in this age group are people that still enjoy playing the childish games that they played when they were kids. Some of the people in this age group are people like myself that only enjoy playing specific kinds of games occasionally when they are bored. The majority of the games that the people in my group play are sports games. There is a very small percentage of adults over the age of 30 that play videogames on a regular basis. I believe that sales in the videogame industry could quickly triple or quadruple if a company or companies could find a way to increase the percentage of adults over the age of 30 that play videogames. I am one of the few people that enjoyed playing FMV games in the 90's despite the fact that most of the game play was horrible. Adults that do not enjoy playing videogames do not experience any emotions other than boredom when they are looking at images that are not photo realistic. How many adults do you think watch cartoons on a regular basis? You could be thinking that they are millions of adults that are interested in things like cartoons, comic books, and videogames. Millions of adults around the world are interested in these things, but it only represents a small percentage of the adult population. They are hundreds of millions of adults that would rather watch a good movie or a television show. It would be much easier to get an adult to care about photo-realistic characters. A game can be creative and it can have a good story. But if the visuals and the sound in the game are not good enough, the average adult will not enjoy it. With today's technology (HD-DVD's, Blueray discs) it is possible to design FMV games that will give the players much more control and options in the games than what they had in the past. The games will also look much better. The best games for the PS3 and PC during the next three years could have photo-realism that will be close to the CGI images in the movies like Final Fantasy or the Animatrix. With each year that passes we are getting closer to photo-realism. Companies like ATI and Nvidia are releasing better graphic cards every year. Companies like Intel are releasing faster microprocessors every year. Some of the videogames that are being released every year may look a little better than the year before but the game play remains the same. It is still an industry of childish recycled ideas with an extremely small amount of innovation. It is up to the programmers and the writers that are out there to make a change. FORMING AN EMOTIONAL ATTACHMENT WITH A FICTIONAL CHARACTER How many times have you cried when you were watching a sad part of a dramatic movie or television show? How many times did you feel sorry for a fictional character in a movie or television show that was suffering from physical or emotional pain? If you are capable of caring about someone other than yourself then there is a good chance that you formed an emotional attachment with a fictional character in a least one movie or television show. Now I want you to try to think about a fictional character in a videogame that you formed an emotional attachment with. I am guessing that most of you did not form an emotional attachment with any of the fictional characters in a videogame. If an important character in a game is killed you can always press the reset button, or you can continue the game from a place where you saved earlier. I don’t know about you but when I am playing a game with a story line I don’t even care about the character that I am controlling. Most games are designed in a way that allows you to play recklessly and make stupid mistakes without dying. Some of you may be thinking that it would be difficult to develop a game that causes the same wide range of emotions that a person can feel from watching a dramatic movie or television show. Most great pieces of art were difficult to create, but I believe that it could be easier to create an emotional videogame than a movie. When a company releases a movie it is usually 90 min to 120 min long. The longest movies are little over 3 hours long. It is not easy to make a movie that can have an emotional effect on people within this short period of time. Everything in the movie has to fit together perfectly. It is much easier to play with people's emotions with a television show. The writers, directors, and editors can have anywhere from 500 min to 1000 min of programming during a season to get into the minds and hearts of the people that are watching their show. They are many other things to consider. Most movies don’t have cliffhangers unless they are planning to make a sequel. The writers that are working on a television show can write a couple of bad episodes and the show can still be successful. However the dialog and the story in a movie has to be perfect for it to be considered a great movie. With technology like blueray discs and HD-DVD's it will be possible to give a gamer hundreds of hours of high quality game play. The players will also be able to interact with the fictional characters. This could create a stronger emotional bond with the fictional characters in a game. If you are interested in making games that adults can enjoy the first thing that you should think about when you are designing a game is what makes the average person happy or sad. (Child, teenager, or adult) What would I have to do to make a person care about his or her avatar in the game or character in the game? All human beings have some things in common. We can’t help but like some things and hate some things. We all similarities but we are all unique. We like the things that we can relate to. We like the things that we can understand. We fear or hate the things that we do not understand. These are the things that talented people in the film industry are thinking about when they are working. It is all about psychology and human biology. WAR GAMES War is a part of American culture. The U.S government spends more money on its military than any other country in the world. Some countries believe that the U.S is the modern day Roman Empire. Think about the amount of war games that have been released for the X box compared to other consoles like the PS2 or Gamecube. Think about the amount of war games that have been released for the PC since September 11th. It is obvious that some people in the videogame industry are attempting to make war look cool or fun to the teenagers that are playing these games. Some people in the news media have written articles’ saying the military is working with people in the videogame industry in an attempt to persuade young males to join the military. I played quite a few in the past despite the fact that I don't like them. Of course the reason why I don't like them is because most war games are an unrealistic portrayal of what war is really like. The war games that are more realistic still do not include the nasty, disgusting, emotional things that a soldier would experience on the battlefield. War is not fun and it is not cool. If you are a citizen of The United States Of America or a country that requires all of its healthy males to enroll in its military before a certain age then you will be probably be able to ask a family member or a friend what war is really like. If they had the unfortunate experience of entering into a combat zone they will be able to describe some of the horrible things that you may have seen in a realistic movie. One important thing that they will be able to describe to you is the emotional training the soldiers go through before they go to war. They will describe how they are trained to turn their emotions on and off when they are on the battlefield. The soldiers that are not able to be in complete control of their emotions usually end up suffering from posttraumatic stress syndrome or worse. Those of you that enjoy playing war games and killing countless numbers of people in the game may be unaware of what it takes to be a good soldier. The games that you play don't include things like men crying on the battlefield because they don't want to take the life of another human being. You are not able to experience the intense emotions that a soldier may feel when he or she is in a kill or be killed situation. You don't have to deal with the consequences that a soldier would have to live with if they make a mistake because of their emotions. (Killing civilians, friendly fire, ect.) Some of the things that I just mentioned could be implemented into videogames over a period of time. It would require a lot of creativity and new ideas, but it could be done. War games that are more realistic may not be fun to some people, but war is not supposed to be fun. The games should be used as a learning tool. I think it would also be nice to see more realistic consequences in fantasy-based war games or any kind of game that includes some kind of battle or combat against computer characters or other players. I would like to see games that incorporate some of the things in Project Entropia or some of the entertainment center cash exchange ideas that I wrote about in my first post, Virtual Reality Assistance And Pleasure. It would actually force players to take care of their avatar and bond with it. Your actions would have real consequences. Losing money may not be as painful as losing a friend during a war, but it is one of the best ways to make players feel pain when they make mistakes in a game. VILLIANS Does evil really exist or is it just a chemical illusion? If you are in a situation where you have an enemy, is it easier for you to think that you are good person and your enemy is evil, or are you one of the few people on this planet that is aware of the fact that life is not black and white and it is many different shades of gray? Even if you do believe in the concept of good and evil because you are religious, you have to admit that holy books like the bible say that no one is without sin. You may have also heard the phrase; the road to hell is paved with good intentions. When is taking the life of another human being murder and when is it justifiable homicide? Unfortunately most videogames are black and white. You either get to play the role of a good guy or a bad guy. The bad guys are usually your typical comic book villains. (Ugly face, glowing eyes, black clothing, a desire to rule the world or destroy it) It is the same story over and over again. If someone wants to get a realistic portrayal of villain they will have to read a book or watch a good movie or television show. Occasionally writers are able to write a great script for a movie or television show that can take you into the mind and world of a so-called villain. Sometimes good scripts give you the opportunity to experience the emotions of two enemies. This allows you to experience things from both sides. Therefore the fictional characters do not always appear to be good or bad. They are just two flawed human beings. Think about movies and television shows like Crash, The Cell, Seven, The Sopranos, and Oz. All of the movies and shows that I just mentioned contain realistic portrayals of villains. Some of the villains are crueler than others and some of them are just ignorant. There is one thing that all of these shows and movies have in common. The scripts and story lines are phenomenal. When you are watching one of these shows or movies your able to experience emotions that you could never experience from playing a serious or violent videogame. You are able to get into the mind of the characters and you can understand why they are doing the things that they do. You are able to experience fear or sympathy for some of the characters regardless of whether they are good or bad. PLEASURE I spent a lot of time writing about emotional pain during this post. I am going to end my post by writing about pleasure. As I said before, I believe that the main form of pleasure that the videogame industry offers to people is childish fun. They are many other forms of pleasure that is being left out for some reason. (Sexual pleasure, the self confidence that a person can feel form learning and achieving new things in a game or a virtual world, and the pleasure of competing with other people for cash) You can read more about this in my first post Virtual Reality Assistance And Pleasure.