What gives multiplayer online games the edge?
Tuesday, October 30th, 2007 - 1:05pm
Future Tense from American Public Media is available as a podcast, which I subscribe to and enjoy for both its technology-related content and conciseness.
Although I haven't yet listened to this particular podcast (topic title), since it's related to gaming, I'm sharing it with the GWJ crew.
Quote:
Syracuse University psychology professor Joshua Smyth recently divided 100 students into four groups. One got tokens to play at a local arcade, a second group played Gauntlet: Dark Legacy on a PS2, a third played Diablo II on a PC, and the fourth played Dark Age of Camelot, the only game that involves online interaction with someone else.The last group played more than twice as much as the next most avid group. They also reported lower overall health, mostly because they lost sleep. But there were also favorable advantages. They had more fun, and made more friends.
I'll check it out during my lunch break and add comments if it's interesting.
http://www.publicradio.org/columns/futuretense/
http://mprdownload.streamguys.com/podcast/futuretense/mpr_20071030_futuretense.mp3
For me it's two-fold. For one it's the level based enhancements. I bet the Dibalo2 people came in 2nd. Seeing improvements after getting enough xp is like a drug that seems to compell me to forgo things like sleep to get just ONE MORE LEVEL. Then when you add the online portion in it's magic. You have the leveling but then you're interacting with real people doing the same things. If you're in to PvP which DAoC has a nice helping of then you have that competitive drive kick in where you want to win.
Gamer Tag: Rantyr
Very nice. It's refreshing to hear a media report (even if it's only public media) talking about games in a good light.
For those unable to listen in what we've basically got here is a short bit on one researcher's study showing multiplayer games impact on social and interpersonal skills and development.
I'm sure we can all attest to the fact that what this Mr. Smyth refers to as the MO's ability to "enthrall" players is just a fact of life. We play with other people, many of who we come to see as friends. In doing so we feel compelled to continue playing in a way that no mere AI bot in a single-player game can make us feel (No offense meant to the Bioshock fanbois).
Again glad to see the media finally publicly acknowledging the "facts of life" we gamers have known all along.
I'll take a single player game every time.
People suck.
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I really think I must be immune to this drug. I like to think it's because I've already capped as a human.
I'm guessing that the subjects who played Dark Alliance and Diablo II played alone and offline. Dark Alliance is every bit as fun as Marvel: Ultimate Alliance if you have friends over, and I know Diablo online was plenty addictive to some people.
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Without wanting to take the time to listen right now, it seems flawed to compare 4 different games and draw conclusions based on the fact that only 1 was online. It seems to posit that every other aspect of them is equal.
I think it would be better to have used 1 group playing Diablo offline, and 1 online, and compare those two.
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