Players love the game not the gore

[Mousehound]

The next time a loved one brandishes a virtual shotgun in their favorite video game, take heart. That look of glee, says a new study, likely stems from the healthy pleasure of mastering a challenge rather than from a disturbing craving for carnage. Through two online surveys and four experimental studies, the researchers showed that people stayed glued to games mainly for the feelings of challenge and autonomy they experience while playing. Both seasoned video gamers and novices preferred games where they could conquer obstacles, feel effective, and have lots of choices about their strategies and actions. To assess players' experiences on a wide variety of games, the authors conducted two survey studies involving 2,670 frequent video game players. Participants rated their current favorite games based on statements like "When moving through the game world, I feel as if I am actually there" and "I would buy a sequel to this game." The surveys focused on players' needs satisfaction, immersion, and enjoyment, based on a psychometric model developed by Immersyve called the Player Experience of Need Satisfaction (PENS). Respondents were 89 percent male and between 18 and 39 years of old. Four additional experimental studies involving more than 300 undergraduates allowed the investigators to study the effects of violence under controlled conditions. In three of the tests, researchers modified the video programs to create violent or non-violent formats of the same game. One study used the commercially available game Half-Life 2 and assigned subjects to play either a bloody battle against computer-controlled adversaries or a low violence alternative, in which the robots were tagged and teleported serenely back to base. Another study using House of the Dead III varied the gore level from no blood to realistic wounds and graphic violence. A fourth experimental study took a closer look at subjects' aggressive tendencies. Using a 29-item scale, including such statement as "Given enough provocation, I may hit another person" and "I sometimes feel like a powder keg ready to explode," the study measured participants' hostility before having them play the bloodier version of House of the Dead III. Across all of the studies and both surveys, added violent content added little and in come cases detracted from the enjoyment reported by players. Violent content was preferred, though not enjoyed more, by a small subgroup of people who scored high in aggression traits.

Full article here:
http://www.physorg.com/news151307342.html

[Jishuku]

I can tell you my view of, for example, first person shooters.
I play a lot of Counter-Strike. Been doing it since early beta (2000-2001'ish).

The way I see it is; with all the news about war and murder and all that bullshit.... videogame violence is a way of making something good out of something that is, in real life, bad.
It's just like a joke about the world trade center attack. It was a horrible event, but humans have a way of making it funny anyway to be able to deal with it emotionally.

So, in closing: video game violence = making something bad, into something fun.