Psychology and Video Games, Sims 2 to World of War Craft
>>ASIAN GIRL: What makes video games so fun?
And what made
them so addictive?
What made the World of War Craft the
number one online game ever?
Sarah's on vacation
over the Christmas holiday so I will be taking her
place in a couple of videos.
My name is Jen.
She had said that she would be doing a couple of videos
on the psychology of video games, so that's what we'll
be doing today.
Usually when psychologists talk about
the psychology of video games, they talk about behavioral
psychology and the stimulating at the reward centers
in the brain, though in my opinion, that's a pretty
short sighted view.
Today I'm going to give you a
completely different perspective.
Instead of behavioral
psychology we're going to talk about the humanistic
psychology of video games.
When you think about it,
most psychologists aren't gamers and they certainly
don't think like game designers, but the game designers
have to think like psychologists, or else the games just
wouldn't be appealing.
There's a great deal of psychology
that goes into video games.
If the video game designer
doesn't think like a psychologist, well, the game's
going to suck.
Here we have Maslow's chart of human
needs.
They are the physiological needs, Safety needs,
belonging needs, esteem needs and the self-actualization
needs.
Under physiological needs, you have your basic
bodily needs such as breathing, eating, sleeping,
and going to the bathroom.
Under safety needs we have
a place to live, a job, money, things to ensure
our survival in the future.
Under belonging needs we
have things such as friendship, romantic relationships,
sexual intimacies, things that basically help us
connect with other people.
Under esteem needs we have
things such as self-confidence, self-esteem, reputation,
how we view our self and how other people view us.
Then, at the top, we have self-actualization,
fulfilling our potential.
It's kind of like being
all that you can be.
You may be asking, "what does
this have to do with video games?"
Let me give you an example.
Have you ever heard of a
video game called The Sims?
If you compare that chart
to The Sims video games you'll see that your Sim
has physiological needs.
You have to make sure that
your Sim eats, sleeps and goes to the bathroom.
They
have safety needs, which you spend a huge portion of
your time trying to fulfill.
For example, they need
a place to live, a job, money, etcetera.
You Sim
has belonging needs also, don't they?
So they can
advance in their career.
And hopefully they'll find
a lover, which is part of the belonging needs, too.
Then, in esteem needs.
your Sim has a reputation with
other Sims.
In self-actualization, you want your Sim
to fulfill his full potential.
Fill out all of those skill
points.
You want him to reach the top of his career path.
Your Sim has a lifetime aspiration and if you can fulfill
that aspiration then your Sim is permanently happy.
Then you can say that he has reached his self-actualization.
Maslow's chart is built right into the game which
revolves around fulfilling all the human needs listed
on that chart.
You can say that all successful video games
mimic life to one degree or another.
Then we have the Sims,
which people can identify with, which made it the
best selling video game ever.
Here's an interesting question.
Do we see this chart
of human needs in the World of War Craft?
Before we get into that, I want to bring up one point
about the chart.
The first two needs, which are
physiological and safety, are more biological,
while your other needs such as belonging, esteem
and self-actualization, are largely psychological.
We do see the first two levels represented in
the World of War Craft.
Your physiological needs are
largely represented by your health bar and if
your health bar gets too low you can eat food
to recharge it.
Safety needs are represented by
your gear, what gold you have, your profession,
etcetera.
Feeding your character in the game
doesn't mean you're going to be full in real life,
and selling things in the auction house for gold
doesn't mean that you're going to be filling up
your bank accounts.
It's impossible to fill up
your real life biological needs in a video game.
But what about fulfilling your psychological needs?
Here's the surprising thing.
People actually fulfill their real life psychological
needs in the video game.
Let me give you some examples.
People fulfill their belonging needs in the game
by interacting with other people.
People make
online friends and people join guilds.
They fulfill
their belonging needs.
Under esteem needs you see
people taking great pride as skilled players and
esteem needs are built right into the game, such
as your PVP rating and your titles.
If you think
about it, the word nOOb would have never
been invented unless someone was trying ot fulfill
their esteem needs.
Surprisingly, one of your
primary motivations in a game like this is self-
actualization needs, kind of like trying to reach
your full potential.
People are trying to maximize
their level and constantly trying to get to
the next level to get more talent points
and unlock new skills.
To some degree, video games
mimic life.
Kind of like, when you're successful
in your own you receive a certain amount of pleasure
for this.
But instead of receiving pleasure for
success in real life, people are receiving pleasure
from success in video games.
That's not actually a
bad thing, until you get to a point where they are
receiving more pleasure from a video game than they
are really getting from real life.
When people talk
about game addiction they are really talking about
people neglecting their real life.
Sleep is one of your
physiological needs, and if you stay up for days
on end playing video games, someone may accuse you
of being addicted to video games.
If you're so busy
playing video games and you ignore your wife's
belonging needs, she may say you're addicted.
If you are students and you're failing your classes
because you're too busy playing video games
instead of studying, someone's going to cry addiction.
No one is going to accuse you of being addicted to
video games until you start to neglect your real life
needs.
As you can see, video games and video game
addiction has a lot to do with human needs and if
you want to play your video games you can't neglect
your real life.
In a future video we're going to
talk about how to overcome game addiction
if you have one.
In another video we're going to
talk about brain washing.
If it sounds interesting
then subscribe.
Thanks for watching, please rate
my video and see you next time!
>>SARAH: If you liked this video, we have hundreds more
alternative videos, ranging from sexual health to
psychology to mind control, so if you like it,
go ahead and click on me to enter
The Psyche Truth Channel.