We are what we pretend to be... Really?

[Scoopy Doopy]

I've ruined the lives of countless players in games over the last 16 years, made them rage, call me a cheater, quit the game, throw themselves at me in rage only to die repeatedly, post threads on forums in a rage and one guy even stalked me for years on YouTube and game forums accusing me of cheating in call of duty 2.

I've ganked thousands of players in Eq2 pvp, killed thousands more in various fps games, murdered hundreds in Age of Conan, even resorted to tea bagging the more obnoxious individuals that I felt deserved it. I've killed in Half life death match, medal of honour: allied assault, call of duty 1, 2 and 4, battlefield bad company 2, absolutely destroyed survivors in left 4 dead (1 and 2) and made them rage quit when it was their turn as the infected, I've run over, shot and humiliated others in All Points Bulletin, dominated in Crime Craft, slaughtering thousands of players, been responsible for thousands of deaths in Red Orchestra and through it all I've witnessed uncountable levels of anger, rage, tears and bitterness from other players.

I loved every minute of it. I love it more if my opponents compliment me. But that's rare. Much more commonly, they get angry and treat me with disrespect. And I enjoy that, too. Particularly when I keep on beating them. Because if they can't play a game respectfully, I'm not going to let them spoil it for me. I relish making them more and more angry.

I'm nothing like that when the game ends. I'm a caring father, I do everything I can to make the love of my life as happy as she can be, I love my job and am approachable, considerate, hard working and helpful. I have friends who I love spending time with and I always try to be a gentleman, treating others as I want to be treated.

I make mistakes, I try to learn from them and am willing to admit I'm wrong when I realise I am. I hate hurting others.

But when it comes to games, I don't really care if someone takes the game seriously and acts like a child. But if I ever met one of these anonymous people I would be myself. And if they respect me in game then I respect then in return.

But that's the issue. Very few do respect others in games online. The fact is, people on the Internet do and say things they never would in person. That goes both ways. I play games for fun and that includes winning. If someone gets personal, I take joy in making them rage more.

So, in this study, do I fit in its results anywhere? Am I really a sadistic bully who gets enjoyment of of upsetting people? Where do I fit into this psycho analysis?

Because I don't think I do. I think I am a statistic that simply supports the idea that being evil in games has absolutely zero correlation with a person's true persona.

It is an interesting topic. But I think far too many people think there's a serious side to games. And I've got no time for that negativity.

One difficulty to overcome when assessing these kind of issues is the fact that we are not the best placed to know what we are really like in real life.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

Read and its a pile of biased rubbish ,please move it to elsewhere not Dangerous Discussion forum ?

Thank you for your opinion, again. It helped bump the thread.

Not dangerous you say...

Please read on:-

I think that people who look for some kind of a deep connection between the kind of character one plays and the person behind the controls (more often than not) either project their personal issues, or try to construct something artificial in order to justify their opinions.

Also, aside from pure PvP, we should look at what course of behavior is more richly rewarded by games. At the end of the day, we all want the whitest steed, the shiniest armor and the most vorpal blade of all vorpal blades. I can't think of but a handful of games that would give you equal opportunities to achieve the above whether you play a white knight or the second coming of Hitler. Usually, it's either one or the other, and the white knight usually ends up with effectively better rewards.

(Come to think of it, ED is guilty of that too, because piracy and cheating on your employer offer godawful rewards and/or entail consequences that make being evil untenable).

The thread has caused Rasputin to have an epiphany (I could not resist the pun, sorry)

 

[Wavey]

Thank you for your opinion, again. It helped bump the thread.

Not dangerous you say...

Please read on:-



The thread has caused Rasputin to have an epiphany (I could not resist the pun, sorry)

This thread is not about the game and should be moved to where its relevant and im so fed up with it being here ,ask a mod to move it to real life or something.I have been wanting to report this as it is not game related at all ,but those options arent available when i try .

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

This thread is not about the game and should be moved to where its relevant and im so fed up with it being here ,ask a mod to move it to real life or something.I have been wanting to report this as it is not game related at all ,but those options arent available when i try .

I beg to differ. From the OP:

I am interested in your thoughts on this as Elite is a game that crosses a large age range of players, as such many of us are possibly quite set in our ways and would like to think nothing can change us... or can it?

There is no need for you to come into the thread, just let it pass by, plenty of others to read and enjoy.

But before you do, please, consider this...

A player is in open, he is attacked and destroyed by a wing of 4 players - a tale we here often. The player comes to the forums and posts a rant, no matter what reply is given he is angry. His reaction has been affected by the emotion caused within the game.

 

[Brimstone]

I beg to differ. From the OP:



There is no need for you to come into the thread, just let it pass by, plenty of others to read and enjoy.

But before you do, please, consider this...

A player is in open, he is attacked and destroyed by a wing of 4 players - a tale we here often. The player comes to the forums and posts a rant, no matter what reply is given he is angry. His reaction has been affected by the emotion caused within the game.

Who's fault is it, though? Is it the fault of the 4 players that killed the rant writer, or is it the rant writer's fault for taking the game too seriously, for be so emotionally vulnerable to a video game encounter?

I'm just saying... I've lost millions of credits due to a few PVP encounters in the game. I wasn't angry, quite the opposite. Those encounters were some of the most exciting experiences I've had in Elite.

 

[Wavey]

I beg to differ. From the OP:



There is no need for you to come into the thread, just let it pass by, plenty of others to read and enjoy.

But before you do, please, consider this...

A player is in open, he is attacked and destroyed by a wing of 4 players - a tale we here often. The player comes to the forums and posts a rant, no matter what reply is given he is angry. His reaction has been affected by the emotion caused within the game.

You have posted in Dangerous Discussion so to me that makes me think its game related .No it isnt its some crap survey made by idiots that you believe is important .It is not ,post it in a different board its is not related to the game at all .Why do you now change the topic ?
PS you are the OP !

I am discussing your original post ,which did not in any way relate to playing ED

Welcome CMDR's!

Time to put a torch to the fire and light the flames of debate once more...

We see a lot of threads regarding the whole PvP v PvE debate, players getting killed while others combat log - you get the picture. A typical response that comes up regularly in these types of thread is to do with role playing a psycho or killer. Morals shouldn't hinder you in a video game is another along with the all encompassing its only a game.

Many studies have shown there is no link between violent video games and violence in the real world and that is not what I want to look at in this thread, it's how it reflects on you as a real person living in the real world. You see, no matter how much we try to trick ourselves into thinking we are role playing we are still the human being we were before we sat down to play.

To this end I looked up a study that I had read a couple of years ago as I think it pointed out some very relevant research to be considered when playing Elite and in fact many other games. I couldn't find the whole study but at least found the summary.

You can find the article here:- http://now.dartmouth.edu/2014/08/new...teens-behavior
Full report is here:- https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/re...pm-1-4-244.pdf

It is only one page and I would appreciate it if you are going to reply to this thread please take the time to read the document.

I am interested in your thoughts on this as Elite is a game that crosses a large age range of players, as such many of us are possibly quite set in our ways and would like to think nothing can change us... or can it?

As always keep it clean and fun!


EDIT: Sorry I could not find the full study which is almost 300 pages long. The second link is to a PDF which has a detailed summary of the data sets used and the criteria for collection as well as the conclusion.

I make no claim that this in anyway a definitive study nor is it a slant on any ones play style.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

Who's fault is it, though? Is it the fault of the 4 players that killed the rant writer, or is it the rant writer's fault for taking the game too seriously, for be so emotionally vulnerable to a video game encounter?

I'm just saying... I've lost millions of credits due to a few PVP encounters in the game. I wasn't angry, quite the opposite. Those encounters were some of the most exciting experiences I've had in Elite.

As the report reflects, we are not all the same, different groups had different levels of reaction which ranged from fun to frustration. A reaction is not always a violent thing, sure the study focus's on the bad side of things, shock science always does.

An explorer returns home from a long trip, he reaches Elite. He feels good. A friend asks to lend £10, in a happy mood he agrees.


On that note, I have to get some sleep so have fun and good night!


EDIT:

You have posted in Dangerous Discussion so to me that makes me think its game related .No it isnt its some crap survey made by idiots that you believe is important .It is not ,post it in a different board its is not related to the game at all .Why do you now change the topic ?
PS you are the OP !

I am discussing your original post ,which did not in any way relate to playing ED

You just don't understand an analogy. The moderators are more than welcome to move the thread if they see fit, they have been since I posted it. Now as I have said already. Move along, this is not the thread you are looking for...

 

[Backelaer]

Thank you for your opinion, again. It helped bump the thread.

Not dangerous you say...

Please read on:-



The thread has caused Rasputin to have an epiphany (I could not resist the pun, sorry)

But isn't what Rasputin says exactly in line with what Wavey (albeit somewhat less, err, subtle) said? In his first sentence Rasputin states that trying to connect the person with the in-game character, and making conclusions based off of that is nonsense? Projection from the ones that conducted the research.
And I kinda got the same vibe reading the article in your original post. I don't know, that really reads more like someone trying to make a point than someone conducting unbiased research.

Nonetheless, the topic you started is an interesting one. And the title very well chosen, so I'd like to go from there "We are who we pretend to be". Well, first off, shouldn't you make the distinction between people who engage in roleplay and the ones that do not? Not to mention people that are kinda inbetween on that matter. (Wich would be me: when chatting ingame with other cmdrs I like to spread some Imperial propaganda, but I also talk about real-life aspects of the game, like instancing and general Waldorf&Stadler-like grumbling ) My point is, engaging in RP makes you consciously choose what kind of character you play in-game. You deliberately choose to be a certain person.
I think those players that don't do any roleplay would be the only ones you perhaps could draw some conlusions from about their real-life characters and in-game characters. But even then I'd be very very careful of drawing any conclusions.

On a whole other note, the games mentioned in the study are completely unlike the one we play. They're linear, and you play characters already written by the devs. You follow a story they wrote, playing a character they created. Which, come to think of it, makes the study less relevant imo. In fact, they should study a game where you start play an 'unwritten'chracter, a clean slate. And then watch where people take that character. I mean in GTA you play a bunch of psychos. DOn't get me wrong, it's a great game, but how the hell can that tell you anything about the person playing the game?? They should have been studying a game just like Elite! You would still have to make a distinction between players that go the RP way and those that don't. (The latter being the group you would want to study)
But you gotta pick a game where one interacts with other people, and where you start out as a blank character. Now that's a study I'd be interested in.

Because just picking a couple of games where the protagonists are already written to be more or less psychotic (GTA, and Manhunt especially) and then trying to reflect those games back on the people playing them? Nah. Not my kind of science.

Still, major +rep for starting a very interesting discussion!

 

[Ydiss]

One difficulty to overcome when assessing these kind of issues is the fact that we are not the best placed to know what we are really like in real life.

I'm definitely certain I'm nothing like the characters I've played in games. Particularly when I'm playing the evil characters.

The whole point of games is escapism. I don't escape to be exactly the same person I aim to be in real life.

More to the point, I've never felt the need to face stomp someone just for the lols. Or tea bag their lifeless corpse.

 

[the100thmonkey]

I'm only going to reply to the replies on the first page here. Later replies will go further into the thread!

I think any teenager who does not have proper support from his or her family might be affected by the video game they play.

The study controls for parenting style.

I would like to know if the study took into account the family background of the subjects.

At my age (WAAAY closer to 60 than 50) the game has absolutely no effect on who I am as a person.

Are you sure? One of the weaknesses of the study (which is acknowledged by the researchers) is that it uses self-reporting, which can be somewhat... unreliable.

As to the rest: Does the game change who they are? or does it allow them to become what they would be without consequences?

The study found a correlation - a strong one - between playing video games, throughout one's teenage years, wherein the protagonist engages in risky behaviours, and an increased propensity towards risky driving behaviours as an older teenager.

I question these articles, especially when they can't even link their own study. What was their methodology?

It's clearly stated in the summary paper Brian posted.

When it comes to playing games, if I am playing a FPS and go around murdering the opposite team I do not then think about going out to do anything violent. If I RP a murdering space prate, that is not going to reflect on reality. With a brain I can distinguish between a game and real life. Maybe some people out there can't but I would suspect that without video games, they might get into real trouble whereas video games might placate them.

That would be to misunderstand the study. It's not drawing a direct link between video game violence and proper violence. Indeed, that's specifically mentioned in the lit review as something where there is no definitive correlation. The study models propensity to engage in risky behaviours using the construct of playing "risk-glorifying video games" as a predictor, and finds a correlation. Rather than it being a conscious process, this might be related, for example, to influencing how the brain processes assessments of risk, which might not even be a conscious process.

I'd never go and blast someone to smithereens in reality, if I did have a space ship though in ED I might give it a go. Separating a virtual life to a real life is obvious and if you aren't able to do that, you are crazy and need to seek help.

But that's not what the study investigated.

I find this study doubtful, if it was slightly serious, it would have shown the good side of video games (thinking process, ability to learn things faster, social interactions (yes, yes), strategy, relaxation effect etc...) and not just "video games are bad and if your kid plays he'll not only fail in our glorious society but also become a junkie with HIV and personality troubles"....

Well, first of all, that wasn't part of the research question. Secondly, that's neither what they argued nor what they found.

Behavior comes from perception. If people perceives the game they play as another perception of their reality and do it too often, of course it will change the way they behave. As would do watching too many horror movies or reading too many studies from people who claim themselves to be experts...

Dunning and Kruger would be proud.

I always take any articles like that with a pinch of salt, at the minimum.

It's clear that different people are differently susceptible to suggestion.
Taking above into consideration, IMHO no research can be flagged opinion-worthy until influence of game on one's personality is measured over time, with psychological evaluation not only focusing on "after", but also on "before".
In other words, determining how susceptible to suggestion the patient is BEFORE exposed to 3-4 years of playing brutal games, is more than important, and should precede studying the effects of brutal games exposure.

Without that, the image is incomplete and simply cannot be treated as representative.

I have been exposed to brutal games my entire life.
And yet I find it hard to role-play brutal, ruthless characters (never had Mass Effect 3 clearly bad character, always found choosing ass-hat responses leaving bad taste in my mouth).
And yet I find real-life violence unacceptable, and even when attacked, I try to minimize my self-defense to the least necessary use of violence in return. And even then, I feel guilty I actually kicked someone's ass.
I am who I am, and my conscious is what it is, I can't change that.

How dose that stack up in regards to article?
Just like I said: these studies should analyze one's psyche before long-time exposure to brutal games, and evaluate them equally thoroughly afterwards.

The study was longitudinal in that it followed the sample over a period of five years. One weakness in the study is that it's difficult to assess 13 year olds' risky driving behaviours at the age of thirteen. That's why the researchers used a multi-factor model for the entire period of the study, taking into account parenting style, rebelliousness, sensation-seeking and video game use as contributory factors. They found that playing "risk-glorifying video games" was a stronger predictor of the participants' propensity to engage in risky driving behaviours as older teenagers than parenting style.

The conclusions aren't 1-to-1 definitive causal statements, such statements are impossible in statistical analyses. The researchers did, however,find a strong correlation between the two, meaning that while certain individuals may not have fit the model, a large number of participants did.

I'm old enough to have seen attempts to link "violent behaviors" to literally anything from hard rock to comics, depending on the "thinking fashion" of the time. I have a definition for all this: .

The paper didn't look at viloent behaviours. Did you actually read it?

Where's the data for the people they tested that didn't play video games, is that on this exert? I'd like to see what non-video gamers are getting up to with their drinking, driving and sex habits.

It is. All people who didn't play video games on the initial interview were recorded as such.

In our sample, 35.5% of participants reported that they did not play video games, 15% reported that their parents never allowed them to play mature-rated games, and the remaining 49.5% of participants reported that their parents allowed them to play mature-rated games at least occasionally. Among those participants who reported that they did play video games, 32.4% reported that they had played Spiderman II, 12.3% Manhunt, and 57.9% Grand Theft Auto III

That's 57.9% of all the thirteen year olds in the study (n=5019). While th number of participants who actually completed the study is far smaller (expected in longitudinal studies like this), that's still a lot of kids beating up prostitutes and crashing cars.

More later. I have to change trains now.

 

[Brimstone]

Social Science is largely pseudoscientific bull that can't be replicated

https://www.insidehighered.com/news...ology-studies-dont-yield-reproducible-results

Hence, “Estimating the reproducibility of psychological science,” in today’s Science. The four-year study involving 270 co-authors replicated 100 social and cognitive studies published in three top psychology journals in 2008. Nosek said he was expecting about a 50 percent reproducibility rate, but the actual results were much lower: while 97 percent of the original studies produced significant results (a p-value of 0.05 or less) for whatever theory was being tested, just 36 percent of replications did. The effect sizes or magnitudes of the original studies were about half in Nosek’s project, too.

I got this as a source for a very different arguement (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKzt8Da1Uco Sargon of Akkad, regarding the recent 'no-platforming' of Richard Dawkins) and I felt it would fit neatly here in this discussion.

 

[the100thmonkey]

Many of the responses on the thread remind me of this:

https://www.dartmouth.edu/~nyhan/nyhan-reifler.pdf

 

[Lianachan]

I've not read the report, but my highly subjective opinion is that on these boards, the people who insist the loudest that we should all be playing in Open so we're part of their game seem also to be, how should I put this, not people I would be socialising with out of game either. So maybe there's something to it.

 

[Comrade Napoleon]

Just want to add:
What a nice mature, polite thread, on an interesting subject , What a joy + rep to the thread and subject if I could
Carry on please

Cheers Cmdr's

 

[Brimstone]

I've not read the report, but my highly subjective opinion is that on these boards, the people who insist the loudest that we should all be playing in Open so we're part of their game seem also to be, how should I put this, not people I would be socialising with out of game either. So maybe there's something to it.

That's not a fair assumption, but then again, it's an assumption.

 

[Bran Tse Mallory]

Just want to add:
What a nice mature, polite thread, on an interesting subject , What a joy + rep to the thread and subject if I could
Carry on please

Cheers Cmdr's

Thank-you very much.

I am glad that some people are finding it a good read and debate. I know it's not for everyone and fully accept the views of all the people who post here.

 

[Lianachan]

That's not a fair assumption, but then again, it's an assumption.

It's based on the only interactions I have with these people - the way they conduct themselves on these boards.

 

[Hell Razor5543]

I think that we play as the people we really are (because it is easier to revert to type). I have (in the past) taught people how to build and repair PCs, and currently I go out and fix them at client sites (and this could be reflected in the first link in my signature). If I had a second Commander save slot (I am not going to buy a second account) I might then set that one up as a really nasty person, but I would have to be careful not to let that cross over (either between Commanders or real life!).

 

[Frank]

Are you sure? One of the weaknesses of the study (which is acknowledged by the researchers) is that it uses self-reporting, which can be somewhat... unreliable.

I only skimmed through the summary, but that was dry enough for me. This "self-reporting" part is the part that gets me and makes me question the validity of the results. There are now devices on the market that can gauge the performance of someone's driving. I'd like to see a study using this technology. My own expectation would be that people's driving would become more reckless after playing a video game that could trigger such a response, but that the recklessness would diminish over time and that there'd be no long term effects.

Of course the best way to conduct such an experiment would be to use a crop of cloned humans who have been kept under strict laboratory conditions for the whole of their life.

 

[Jex =TE=]

With respect to Elite Dangerous I wonder if the questions could be applied to slavery. With all these Slave traders roaming around in Elite, does that mean that players' attitudes to real world slavery may be being changed? Or is it a reflection of people's real world attitudes to slavery? I really hope that it's more a reflection of capitalism and an understanding that within the game "slavery" is rarely chattel slavery. (Ingame they are generally indentured.)

No it doesn't mean anything at all. What ED players trade in is in no way a reflection of reality. There is a caveat to this - should real life become as dull and boring as ED, people might have to resort to slavery

If you take a look back through human history, you might notice a trend that is moving towards being more social and nicer to each other. Slavery has pretty much been abolished along with a lot of other nasty things we did to each other. 500 years from now who knows what other things we'll have dropped but it does seem to be trending towards a more humane world