I want your opinions on video games. For science!

[Nine Inch Heels]

2 minutes ago, Memfis said:

What's all that stuff about doing stupid things when you're in a great mood? I couldn't relate to it at all.

It's about gathering a rough estimate as to how impulsive you are, or how likely you are not to set the right priorities.

[Uncle 80]

6 minutes ago, Memfis said:

What's all that stuff about doing stupid things when you're in a great mood? I couldn't relate to it at all.

That one is reserved for scandinavians who travel to magaluf and try to jump into the hotel pool from the balcony.

 

Or driving drunk to pick up more friends for the after-party

[Malrionn]

I got these two :

 

 

"Reculsive Tactician" fits me, not really for "Masterful Traveller".

[Bauul]

My employer (a big market research firm) did some similar work for one of the big game publishers a few years back, based on Jungian Archetypes.  

 

We were looking at the motivators people had for playing games.  Essentially, why someone chooses to play a particular game, what itch are they trying to scratch.

 

We identified 6 motivations that existed on a circular scale (as in each motivator fed into the ones on either side of it).  One person can experience all six of these, and a specific game can satisfy more than one.  But generally, when you pick up a game, it's generally one or two of these specifically that you're in the mood to satisfy.

 

If I remember the research correctly, the six reasons people play games are:

 

Quote

 

Adrenaline

Basic heart-pumping excitement.  You're playing the game to feel excitement and thrill - loud noises, big explosions, fast gameplay etc.  It doesn't matter what you're doing or who you're beating as long as you get a rush from it.

 

Dominance

It's not just the excitement you crave, it's who you beat.  You play to feel powerful.  Whether that's beating the final boss or beating a competitor in deathmatch, you want the thrill of knowing you're good and mastering the game to prove it.  

 

Strategy

You enjoy the feeling of overcoming the game through sheer mental willpower.  Excitement and adrenalin isn't particularly important to you right now, your buzz is coming from understanding the systems, learning the processes, and carefully executing the perfect plan.

 

Immersion

You're after an emotional experience from your game.  You want to be lost in the story and the characters, in the fictional world you're exploring.  Not just positive emotions either: horror games tend to satisfy this motivation too.

 

Belonging

You want to feel part of something.  A community.  Not just a standalone story, but genuine socialness with other people.  Be that a big MMO, cooperative game or just being part of a big team on Battlefield, you play to feel a connection - to feel like you achieve something as a team.  People who role-play as fictional characters in online games satisfy both Immersion and Belonging in a single go.

 

Carefree

You enjoy playing with and having fun with other people.  You're not exactly fussed about maintaining social bonds or being part of something special, you just like messing around and having fun.  You're not taking your gaming very seriously right now, and having a good time is what matters to you most.

 

 

The benefit we found of this approach was it doesn't pigeonhole gamers into a fixed category.  In truth, we don't play Mario Kart with our friends for the same reasons we play Dark Souls.  Why you fancy playing a game can change every time you pick one up, but it's still useful for publishers to know which motivations their games are satisfying.  

 

It's also useful for players too.  Take Doom as an example, it almost can be used for every single one of the motivations above:

 

• Adrenaline: "Yeah let's blow up some Demons and shoot stuff!  Woo!"
• Dominance: "I will 100% UV this Slaughtermap and do it without taking a single hit!"
• Strategy: "If I tweak my speed-running technique and instigate monster infighting at just the right moment, I can shave 3 seconds off my time!"
• Immersion: "What are those weird pig noises?  And is that a pentagram on the floor?  What were these UAC scientists up to!? I'm scared!"
• Belonging: "Let's play this megawad together and watch each other's demos!"
• Carefree: "Russian Overkill vs NUTS.wad.  Sploosh"

 

[GarrettChan]

@Nine Inch Heels

Interestingly, I got the same outcome with ya, and my views are almost the same. Also, I am totally with ya about the test is not about your gaming personalities.

 

First, I want to say that Real Time Strategy is not the same as Strategy, and I think they are different categories. I enjoy Startegy, but not RTS. Now I want to talk about the Immersion Engineer. I pretty much have a very limited range of choice when playing games. Yeah, I enjoy new experience and like to have a taste before removing the game from my view, but I will never or extremely unlikely to try even it's new, such as RTS, FTG or RAC. Also, being not persist of one game is always not my style. I think probably the weight of "unfinished jobs bother you" answer is a little bit problematic...

 

Then, Reclusive Tactician, I like both social and being alone, depending on different timing. Now, I guess you have think that speedrunning is one form of competitive gameplay. Even I can't catch up with record times, but I can try to beat my PB. Also, as a gamer from the 90s, I don't really like narrative. If narrative is done correctly, which is relatively rare, it's fine, but some games are just filled with these to interrupt your gaming experience. For example, I think the narrative time for Doom (2016) is a bit too much for me. (Probably you'll know that I don't like to watch movies.)

[ShoDemo]

Is this the Quiz/Survey week?

 

So, I got Reclusive Tactician and Champion of Glory.

The first is spot on!

About the second one, I am actually not so sure. Maybe it is 50% true, who knows???

 

What I didn't like is that the last 2 weeks I haven't been gaming a lot, thanks to studying, so it might be a bit of a not steady way to make the survey.