An argument Research paper

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The Positive

Rogers, Ryan. How Video Games Impact Players : The Pitfalls and Benefits of a Gaming Society, Lexington Books, 2016. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/piercecollege/detail.action?docID=4519035. Created from piercecollege on 2021-05-08 16:47:18.

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Chapter Two

Education

In interviews with video games players, one player known as Lucifer641 in the online gaming community said that playing video games taught him more about War War II, specifically the Battle of Stalingrad, than any history course he had ever taken in his formal education (Rogers, 2012). He was referring to one of the stages in the video game series Call of Duty that takes place during World War II. In one mission the player assumes the role of a Russian sniper during the Battle of Stalingrad. This sentiment is not unique and there is much evidence that video games are valuable teaching tools. Indeed, video games have been used as effective educational tools. Video games have been connected to improved problem solving skills (Lopez & Caceres, 2010), improved probabilistic inference (Green, Pouget, & Baveli- er, 2010), and improved spatial rotation tasks (Spence & Feng, 2010). Simu- lations or games have helped orthopedic surgeons and other medical profes- sionals develop their skills (Cowan et al., 2010; Graafland, Schraagen, & Schijven, 2012) and video games are also tied to improvements in students’ typing, reading, politics, financial skills, resource management, and engi- neering (Prensky, 2005).

It is worth noting that a distinction has been made between serious games and non-serious games. Serious games are video games meant for purposes other than pure entertainment such as education and behavior change while non-serious games are meant for entertainment/commercial purposes (Con- nolly, Boyle, MacArthur, Hainey, & Boyle, 2012). Some examples of serious games are Darfur is Dying, a game that simulates being in a refugee camp, and IBM CityOne, a city-building game that describes how complex systems interact with one another within a city’s infrastructure. In both cases, the games are used to educate players and raise awareness on a topic, not to just entertain. Goals of serious games might include political activism or adver-

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Chapter 226

tising as well as education. Meanwhile, non-serious games, such as Call of Duty and Halo, are more well-known and meant for primarily entertainment and commercial purposes. Notably, education can be a by-product of non- serious games as well. As such, this chapter examines both serious and non- serious games. To date, a handful of frameworks have been put forth regard- ing how video games impact learning.

In one of James Paul Gee’s (2003) seminal works, he asserts that video games are “learning machines.” In other words, they train users in certain lessons and encourage users to learn the way the game works. In fact, a game’s success depends on its ability to educate its players effectively. Players find video games frustrating and not worth the effort when the games do not provide adequate instruction. As such, Gee asserts that many “good” video games have already solved one of the major problems facing educators worldwide: How to get people to enjoy learning difficult lessons. Gee (2005) uses the video game System Shock 2 to explain how video games work to educate players. In this game information kiosks are placed in key areas such that the player will learn information from them and then apply the informa- tion to the game. Players learn by doing in System Shock 2 (Shaffer, Halver- son, Squire, & Gee, 2005). This is common in many games. As a result, the player learns how to play but also gets to feel the play and gauge it on his or her own terms.

Prenksy (2005) details five levels of game based learning:

1. Video games teach players how to do something. Early in video games, players need to learn how the game functions. Prensky indi- cates that this shows how repetition is valuable for learning outcomes.

2. Second, players learn what to do and what not to do. Players learn the rules and parameters of the game. Many games integrate tutorials directly into game play so the rules are clear. For example, in a flight game, Strike Suit Zero, the first mission in the game teaches the rules of the game while playing. This teaches rules in practice, not in the abstract. Players can see how the rules worked as they learn them. According to Prensky (2005), doing so encourages players to evaluate rules and determine which are fair or valuable and which are unfair or detrimental.

3. Games also teach why things happen. Prensky (2005) argues that players learn strategies within the context of why things happen. In other words, players figure out how to function within a game effec- tively, what works and what does not.

4. Players learn about context of various situations. Games immerse players in a culture where they must learn what has value and what does not in order to succeed. Players learn the “where” of the game.

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Education 27

5. Players can do things in the game space that they cannot do in the physical world. Video games present situations in which certain be- haviors are appropriate. These behaviors may not be appropriate in the physical world. See the previous discussion of the magic circle for examples. Prensky argues that this requires players to evaluate the consistencies and inconsistencies of their actions in the game and in the physical world. Both the classroom and a video game can be considered magic circles or isolated spots where special rules pertain (Huizinga, 2014). The rules of the classroom/video games simultane- ously can simulate the rules of the “real” world but students/players are insulated from rules in the “real” world, allowing for safe and comfortable learning environments. This allows students and players to make mistakes without suffering “real” consequences.

Fundamental to this framework is that video games can get people to enjoy learning difficult lessons because they are entertaining, motivating, gratify- ing, emotional, and involving (Prensky, 2005).

Similarly, the General Learning Model (GLM) uses cognitive theories to explain this phenomenon (Buckley & Anderson, 2006). The GLM is based on the General Aggression Model, which is discussed in detail in this book’s violence chapter. In short, the GLM indicates that students learn through repetition provided in games and games provide a simulated environment that can enhance students’ ability for trial and error in unique scenarios. From there, games can alter automatically accessed knowledge structures to help students learn more effectively.

Meanwhile, Annetta (2010) outlines a handful of critical components for educational games:

• Identity or self-presentation in a virtual world increases investment in the virtual world. If the virtual world encourages learning then learning goals should be salient to the player represented in the game.

• Immersion helps gamers to become motivated to accomplish in-game goals. When players feel immersed, they are more likely to achieve a flow state. A flow state is when skill is appropriately matched with challenge and an individual becomes absorbed in what he or she is doing (Csikszent- mihalyi, 2014). If skill outweighs challenge then the game will be boring. If challenge outweighs skill then the game will be frustrating.

• Annetta also describes a feedback system in terms of interactivity such that input and output messages are related. These feedback systems in games can help build specific skills for students.

• Educational games should also increase in complexity so that they chal- lenge multiple skill levels and build upon previous knowledge. This paral- lels effective game design.

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Chapter 228

• Lastly, informed teaching and instruction should also be included so that student progress can be effectively evaluated and managed.

Another framework describes rich environments for active learning (REALs), Grabinger and Dunlap (1995). REALS offer a series of learning assumptions relevant to education:

• Complex situations facilitate transfer of knowledge from the classroom. • Learners should be allowed to create meaning in their lessons not just

receive information. • Students learn more when they are collaborating with one another than

when they are not. • Students should be placed in situations in which they must use critical

thinking and problem solving skills • Learners can assess their own needs and experiences when learning. • Skills are most effectively learned in realistic contexts.

REALs incorporate each of these attributes and, in turn, develop student responsibility, initiative, and decision-making (Grabinger & Dunlap, 1995). Based on these assumptions, a video game can be a REAL. Consider a flight simulator intended to train amateurs to fly an airplane. A flight simulator video game: presents a complex scenario (flying an airplane), immerses players in the realistic context where they must make decisions and assess their needs.

One final framework for understanding video games and education can be understood as epistemographic frames. Many games have their own episte- mology, or how players know what they know. Some have suggested that games are particularly effective in educating because they can shift players’ epistemographic frames (Nash & Shaffer, 2013). This means that players start to think in a certain way when playing a game. In other words, games place players in situations where they are asked to alter their frame of mind. This allows players to see which practices work and which do not. Moments of failure force players to reevaluate their thinking. The speed and efficiency of this learning presents key scenarios for learning and eliminates minutiae (Shaffer et al., 2005). In an educational context, learners can be placed di- rectly into the most critical points for acquiring knowledge. For example, the video game Game Dev Story puts the player in the role of a video game developer. The object of the game is to create a successful business within the video game industry. Players are required to make staffing and work flow decisions. The feedback systems in place encourage a specific way of think- ing and problem solving. Players are placed into the role of a video game developer and learn how to think and act like a game developer. That is, video games require players to think like their self-presentations. Shaffer and

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Education 29

colleagues (2005) illustrate this with the video game Full Spectrum Warrior, a video game based on U.S. military training. As such, the game requires players to think and act like soldiers. Players are given new identities and informed on what it is like to be in a certain combat situation. Thus, players are trained to think in a certain way consistent with their self-presentation. It is worth noting that players can also be placed in abstract situations not easily replicated in the physical world (Shaffer et al., 2005). For example, the video game Foldit allows players to fold proteins.

All of these frameworks offer insight into how video games impact learn- ing. In order to reconcile each, it seems logical to explain the benefits of video games in terms of the psychological advantages they engender. Using games for education is associated with higher student engagement (Annetta, Minogue, Holmes, & Cheng, 2009), enjoyment (Hicks & Higgins, 2010), greater use of attention (Greenfield, DeWinstanley, Kilpatrick & Kaye, 1994) as well as an increased sense of presence, involvement, and arousal (Ivory & Kalyanaraman, 2007). The idea, then, is that video games enhance psychological states conducive to learning. Indeed, playing commercial video games can impact brain plasticity (Kühn, Gleich, Lorenz, Lindenber- ger, & Gallinat, 2014).

While video games can be a valuable educational tool, they are not a panacea for education. There are many barriers to using video games in the classroom. For example, playing a game can increase cognitive load, making learning more cumbersome (deHaan, Reed, & Kuwada, 2010). Drawing upon and extrapolating from this literature, this book posits that the efficacy of video games in the classroom can be explained via rules, feedback, and self-presentation with special attention to psychological states. The remain- der of the chapter will be dedicated to these topics.

Rules define a classroom’s structure (Boostrom, 1991). In the same fash- ion, rules define the structure of video games (Juul, 2011). Rules in a class- room are implemented to achieve learning goals. In other words, rules are intended to lead to learning outcomes. For example, in a journalism class, the instructor may not accept late assignments. Many students may find this rule to be extremely harsh. However, in the journalism industry deadlines are extremely important. Stories need to be turned in on time for the printing press or produced in time to go on air. As a result, this “no late assignments” rule teaches the students about industry practices and trains them to become effective journalists. Video games operate the same way such that they teach the values of the game.

In most games, rules are introduced early to players and the rules are intended to help players understand deeper nuances later in the game. Rules are introduced and iterated upon as the game progresses. In doing so, a well- designed video game can inform best practices for pedagogy. Juul (2012) describes how rules should work in video games and applying these descrip-

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Chapter 230

tions to classrooms is a meaningful exercise. In both games and classrooms, rules should: provide understandable guidelines, create challenge, help users learn how to improve/sharpen skills, emphasize different challenges, and distinguish a class/games from others. Juul also notes that rules should inter- act with the user and create a “machine” that responds to player action and helps users learn. Juul is describing the concept of feedback. Classrooms are effective when they implement a feedback loop, are interactive, and “active.” Active learning, or learning in which the student is engaged in the learning process, is an effective teaching strategy and leads to improved learning outcomes and more consistent outcomes than passive learning (Freeman et al., 2014; Krogh & Vedelsby, 1995; Myers & Jones, 1993).

Feedback, at its most fundamental, is education or training. Feedback trains users to act in accordance with certain goals, in this case: educational goals. For example, grades in classrooms are a form of feedback that helps students pursuing learning goals (Hattie & Timperley, 2007) and many of the desired psychological outcomes for education are related to feedback (Glanz, Schoenfeld, & Steffen, 2010; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Hawkins, Kreuter, Resnicow, Fishbein, & Dijkstra, 2008; Kluger & DeNisi, 1996).

In terms of self-presentation, when a player uses an avatar, or a graphic virtual character that represents someone or something in a computer envi- ronment (Holzwarth, Janiszewski, & Neumann, 2010), the player merges psychologically with the avatar (Klimmt, Hefner, & Vorderer, 2009; Lewis et al., 2009; Yee & Bailenson, 2007). When the player becomes the charac- ter, he or she adopts attitudes and behaviors consistent with the character (Klimmt, Hefner, Vorderer, Roth, & Blake, 2010). While this phenomenon has been well documented, the use of avatars in an educational context is underexplored. Included below is a study that posits assigning an avatar with specific attributes related to learning goals can advance pedagogical out- comes (Rogers, 2014). Specifically, this study argues that avatars are valu- able educational tools such that assigning students with avatars whose goals match the goals of the educational task will improve performance on the task. For example, assigning a student an avatar that is a mathematician will encourage the student to act in accordance with what is expected of a mathe- matician. Consequently, this student’s performance on math-related tasks should improve.

Importantly, when a task is perceived to be difficult it is more taxing and requires more cognitive resources. Cognitive resources are limited and, when depleted, tasks become cumbersome (Shiv & Fedorikhin, 1999). “Cognitive overload”—the prevailing state when a user’s capacity for mental processes is depleted—is a challenge for learning goals (Mayer & Moreno, 2003). Essentially, when an individual perceives that a task is difficult, cognitive resources will be more depleted than if the task is simple, making a student less capable of successfully completing a task (Drolet & Luce, 2004; Hattie

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Education 31

& Timperley, 2007; Ward & Mann, 2000). Furthermore, perceptions of diffi- culty impact self-esteem (Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Pajares & Schunk, 2001) and persistence on tasks (Baumeister, 1998; Di Paula & Campbell, 2002; Schunk, 1995). Both of which can impact performance on tasks (Ak- gunduz, 2015; Hattie & Timperley, 2007; Schunk, 1991; Schunk, 1995). Ultimately, avatars that are meant to excel at certain tasks will encourage their users to feel that they can excel at the task as well. In other words, if the avatar should think a task is easy, then its user will think the task is easy as well. When an avatar should think a task is difficult or has no connection to the task, the task will seem more difficult. Due to alterations in perceived difficulty, performance will improve.

In this study, participants were randomly assigned to one of two condi- tions in which they were given an avatar that appeared in their browser window. One avatar was a student and one was an average person. Then, the participants performed a series of tasks in the browser window. These tasks tested reading comprehension and math skills (tasks related to performance in school). Participants were then asked to rank how difficult the tasks were.

The main outcome was task performance. This was measured in two ways. First it was measured through reading comprehension score. Partici- pants were asked to read a short, 25-line passage then answer a series of questions related to the passage. Second, task performance was assessed through math score. Participants were asked to solve a series of elementary math equations. Both the reading comprehension questions and the math questions were based on high school standardized tests sample questions. The potential mechanism explored was perceived difficulty.

Analysis revealed no significant effects of avatar type on task perfor- mance. Thus, avatar type had no impact on reading comprehension score and math score. However, there was a significant effect of avatar type on per- ceived difficulty such that participants assigned a generic avatar perceived the tasks to be significantly more difficult than those assigned a student avatar. Further analysis revealed that lower feelings of difficulty led to higher scores on reading comprehension and math. In summary, avatar type did not impact task performance directly. However, participants assigned a student avatar perceived the task to be less difficult and that led to improved perfor- mance on both reading comprehension score and math score.

Based on previous research, the student avatar should have positively impacted performance. Importantly, the outcomes tested in previous studies were limited to psychological or cognitive characteristics, not performance on potentially challenging tasks. These findings suggest that avatars may be less effective in provoking behaviors when the behavior requires knowledge or skills. It seems plausible that some participants, regardless of their avatar, would have less ability to answer these questions than others; a limitation of the effects of avatars. As such, there should be a distinction between psycho-

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Chapter 232

logical measures and task performance measures when it comes to avatar influence.

Accordingly, avatar type did impact psychological dimensions related to the task. The finding that those who were assigned a student avatar perceived the reading comprehension and math tasks to be easier than those assigned a generic avatar supports the notion that the avatar psychologically merged with the user. Those assigned an avatar that was a good student adopted the traits of a good student. In turn, the participants, when faced with a challeng- ing educational task, felt that the task was easier than those who did not have a student avatar. Within the domain of education, this is a compelling find- ing. If students struggle with certain lessons, assigning them avatars might help ease that difficulty.

Importantly, there are instances when avatar assignment might actually impede task performance in a classroom. Based on the preceding literature and findings, it might seem like a good idea to provide an avatar to students that is an expert in a specific field to enhance task performance. However, this might actually work against desired outcomes. Assigning an avatar that has already made considerable progress on relevant tasks may actually hinder task performance. Feedback on progress is important to improving perfor- mance (Connellan & Zemke, 1993; Fleming & Levie, 2005; Gee, 2005). This is especially applicable to educational pursuits (Schunk & Swartz, 1993). Consumer behavior literature indicates that if a user perceives a large degree of progress toward a goal then the user will feel that the goal is attainable (Huang & Zhang, 2011) and perceptions of high progress suggest imminent goal completion, which gives users license to deviate from goal pursuit (Fishbach & Dhar, 2005). In other words, when users feel comfortable with their progress on a task, they do not maintain actions consistent with com- pleting those tasks.

The supposition then is that assigning an avatar that is highly accom- plished on related tasks will result in high perceptions of progress on those tasks and these high perceptions of progress will lead to a drop in task performance. An additional study explored this phenomenon (Rogers 2014). The procedure for this study replicated the previous study with a few excep- tions. First, the student avatar was replaced with a reporter avatar. The re- porter avatar was dressed professionally and was standing in front of a came- ra. The avatar was accompanied by text that read, “He/She is a news reporter with excellent journalism skills.” Second, the reading comprehension and math tasks were replaced by tasks that were relevant to a reporter. Specifical- ly, participants were asked to identify dimensions of newsworthiness as well as correct Associated Press style, which they were briefly trained on at the front end of the study. These items were based on undergraduate level jour- nalism course goals. Instead of perceived difficulty, participants were asked about their perceived progress on the tasks.

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Education 33

Again, avatar type had no impact on task performance but avatar type did have an impact on perceived progress. Participants with a generic avatar perceived less progress than those assigned a reporter avatar. However, there were no indirect effects of avatar type on task performance. The lack of findings reinforces that avatar type does not impact task performance but those assigned a reporter avatar did not demonstrate higher scores on tasks related to associated press style or newsworthiness. Again, this shows that assigning an avatar does not imbue the user with skills that the avatar pos- sesses. Instead, the avatar likely alters psychological dimensions related to that task.

On this point, the prediction that those with a reporter avatar, or an avatar that had already demonstrated success on the tasks, would perceive more progress on the tasks than those assigned a generic avatar, was supported. In this instance, the avatar, by already having professional accomplishments, conferred higher perceptions of progress than those using an avatar without professional accomplishments; although, avatar type had no impact on task performance via progress.

These two studies demonstrate that the impact of an avatar on pedagogi- cal goals can depend on the type of avatar used. Namely, avatars that reduce perceived difficulty are ideal. In particular, this shows practical tactics for improving performance on educational tasks and also shows some critical conceptual differences when assigning avatars. Meanwhile, this highlights the importance of avoiding assigning avatars that might encourage negative traits in students such as aggression, apathy, or insubordination.

In conclusion, video games offer promising applications in education. However, their application is limited because video games can be difficult and expensive to produce. Further, many instructors do not include them in lessons as their applications are not always apparent (Torrente et al., 2009). The biggest problem facing educational games is that the ones that exist are not being implemented. However, thinking about educational games in terms of feedback, rules, and self-presentation offers solutions for improving the efficacy of video games, or game elements, in education.

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Rogers, R. (2012). The virtual locker room: Hate speech and online gaming. Journal of New Media and Culture, 8(1).

Rogers, R. (2014). Who are you in the classroom? Avatars for learning and education. Present- ed at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Com- munication, Montreal, Quebec.

Schunk, D. H. (1991). Self-efficacy and academic motivation. Educational Psychologist, 26(3/ 4), 207.

Schunk, D. H. (1995). Self-efficacy and education and instruction. In J. E. Maddux (Ed.), Self efficacy, adaptation, and adjustment: Theory, research, and application (pp. 281–303). New York: Plenum Press.

Schunk, D. H., & Swartz, C. W. (1993). Goals and progress feedback: Effects on self-efficacy and writing achievement. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 18(3), 337–354.

Shaffer, D. W., Halverson, R., Squire, K. R., & Gee, J. P. (2005). Video games and the future of learning. WCER Working Paper No. 2005–4. Wisconsin Center for Education Research (NJ1).

Shiv, B., & Fedorikhin, A. (1999). Heart and mind in conflict: The interplay of affect and cognition in consumer decision making. Journal of Consumer Research, 26(3), 278–292.

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Spence, I., & Feng, J. (2010). Video games and spatial cognition. Review of General Psycholo- gy, 14(2), 92–104.

Torrente, J., Moreno-Ger, P., Martínez-Ortiz, I., & Fernandez-Manjon, B. (2009). Integration and deployment of educational games in e-learning environments: The learning object mod- el meets educational gaming. Journal of Educational Technology & Society, 12(4), 359–371.

Ward, A., & Mann, T. (2000). Don't mind if I do: Disinhibited eating under cognitive load. Journal of Personality And Social Psychology, 78(4), 753–763

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Chapter Three

Prosocial Behaviors

Later, this book will detail arguments regarding violent video games causing aggression in players; violence is readily associated with video games but there is also plenty of evidence that video games can actually increase help- ing, or prosocial, behaviors. While a violent video game might influence violent behaviors, a prosocial video game might promote prosocial behav- iors. Aggressive acts are those intended to harm another and prosocial behav- iors are acts in which one person helps another attain a positive outcome (Eisenberg, Fabes, & Spinrad, 2006; Wiegman, Kuttschreuter, & Baarda, 1992). A prosocial behavior should be voluntary and the positive outcomes for the other must be intentional (Eisenberg et al., 2006). Penner, Dovidio, Piliavin, and Schroeder, (2005) describe three levels of prosocial behavior.

• The meso level describes an individual helping another in a specific situa- tion.

• The micro level describes prosocial behaviors in terms of biology and evolution.

• The macro level describes prosocial behaviors at the group or organization level.

Video games, primarily, provide opportunities for prosocial behavior at the meso level, less frequently at the macro level, and occasionally at the micro level.

There are a handful of games on the market that emphasize prosocial behaviors. Animal Crossing requires players to help others in their commu- nity. From Dust asks the player to alter the environment to ensure a civiliza- tion’s survival. However, even in these games players can engage in anti-

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social or violent behaviors. For example, in From Dust, the player can delib- erately kill members of the tribe or sacrifice certain members.

Conversely, there is a large cross section of games that are ostensibly violent but feature a large degree of prosocial behaviors as well as violent behaviors (Irvine, 2008). At the time this was written, the current best-selling video games were Grand Theft Auto V and Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire. The ESRB description of Grand Theft Auto V follows:

Players assume the role of three criminals whose storylines intersect within the fictional city of Los Santos. Players can switch between each character to follow his storyline, completing missions which often include criminal activ- ities (e.g., stealing cars, executing heists, assassinating targets). Players use pistols, machine guns, sniper rifles, and explosives to kill various enemies (e.g., rival gang members); players also have the ability to shoot non-adversary civilians, though this may negatively affect players' progress as a penalty system triggers a broad police search.

Meanwhile, Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire is described as follows:

Players pit their collection of small creatures (known as Pokémon) against other trainers to become Pokémon League Champion. Players interact with characters from a fantasy land and engage in turn-based battles: selecting attack moves (e.g., Thunder Shock, Fusion Flare, Poison Jab) from menu screens. These encounters are accompanied by smacking/zapping sounds, col- orful light bursts, and depletion of health meters.

Based on these descriptions, both of these games can be considered fairly violent. However, they both have portions of narrative or play that would be considered prosocial under the definitions described above. Video games often present complex characters and different scenarios. As a result, vio- lence and prosocial behaviors in video games are not mutually exclusive (Granic, Lobel, & Engels, 2014). For example, in Grand Theft Auto V the player can rescue one of the characters’ sons, prevent a construction accident, or catch a thief as well as run over pedestrians, commit burglary, and murder. Likewise, Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire emphasizes battle but it also requires the player to aid townsfolk and care for creatures. Video games can be both violent and prosocial and the content is not as black and white as it is often presented.

Within the context of video games, prosocial behavior can take several different shapes of helping: cooperation, leveling, walkthroughs, and crowd- sourcing. Many games offer cooperative game modes where players work through game objectives together. Far Cry 4 and Halo: Master Chief Collec- tion are games that feature these modes. However, there are also some games that allow more one-sided prosocial behaviors. In Dark Souls, individuals can summon the help of other players. This help allows the summoning

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player to advance through difficult areas of the game while the helping player receives a relatively minor resource increase as a reward for helping. People in the Dark Souls community refer to this as “jolly cooperation” (Peskadoshi, 2011). Sometimes players even give resources to each other in order to benefit another player or a group (Sneakyø, 2013). In the game, Game of War: Fire Age players collect wood, stone, and other resources. Players will store these resources in a “bank” or give them to another player to aid others’ progress. While this may seem inconsequential, it may have taken these players hours to acquire these resources and it helps others be- come competitive more readily. These are examples of cooperation between players in video games but there are other forms of prosocial behavior in video games as well. However, these actions may not be completely proso- cial based on Eisenberg et al.’s (2006) definition of prosocial. Specifically, players may not be performing these actions voluntarily if the game requires them to progress. If we accept that game play in and of itself is voluntary then the intent of the behavior might not be consistent with Eisenberg et al.’s definition. A player might be helping another in order to achieve a game goal, not necessarily to benefit the other player. Notably, a recent study on prosocial behavior asked “How often do characters help each other in this game?” and “How often do you help others in this game?” (Prot et al., 2014, p. 3). This book takes the position that some actions in video games may not be purely prosocial due to game requirements and rewards, although, many behaviors do qualify as prosocial. As a result, this chapter will detail com- mon instances of prosocial behavior with the caveat that some may not be strictly prosocial based on the game’s parameters and the player’s intentions. Based on this, it is important to keep feedback and rules in mind when examining these prosocial behaviors. Often, prosocial behaviors are re- warded. Thus, the rules of the game might encourage or discourage prosocial behaviors. Likewise, the feedback loop is directly impacted by these rewards. By injecting these rewards the adjustment of behavior is funneled toward prosocial behaviors unless the reward is deemed not worth the increased effort/difficulty.

Many video games like World of Warcraft, Borderlands, and DOTA 2, allow players to level up, meaning that a character within the game can progress, become stronger, and unlock new skills or abilities. For example, in the video game Borderlands, a character gains experience points for each objective he or she completes. These experience points can then be spent on new skills such as faster weapon reload times or increased weapon damage. Thus, it is generally desirable to be at a higher level. Sometimes a player with a high level character will aid a lower level character by increasing the weaker character’s level more quickly. Since higher level characters are stronger, they can defeat enemies and complete objectives more easily than

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lower level characters and thus the lower level character attains levels and rewards more readily than they would without the high level character’s help.

There are also many user-generated game guides and walkthroughs living online; websites like IGN.com have guides for many commercial video games. These are typically documents that are designed to help other players figure out how to beat certain games or certain portions of certain games. Importantly, other players typically create these guides for free not the game creators who sometimes sell their own official guides. For example, the website Gamefaqs.com hosts thousands of user-generated guides. A single author might write these guides or the guide might be a “wiki” in which many authors share their experiences and expertise in a specific game. This type of prosocial behavior could be understood as meso level or macro level depending on its production and use.

When these guides are generated as wikis, they can be understood as crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing is an “online, distributed problem-solving and production model that leverages the collective intelligence of online communities to serve specific organizational goals” (Brabham, 2013, p. xix). Brabham (2013) details four key ingredients for crowdsourcing:

1. An entity that needs a task performed. 2. A group that is willing to perform the task. 3. An environment for that work to take place. 4. Mutual benefit for all involved.

This final point might suggest that crowdsourcing does not qualify as proso- cial based on Eisenberg et al.’s (2006) definition as the player might be engaging in the behavior primarily for selfish benefit.

One video game developer, Peter Molyneaux, developed a video game based on the concept of crowdsourcing. Billed as a “social experiment” Curiousity: What’s Inside the Cube? was a simple game in which players tried to get to the center of a cube, made up of billions of smaller “cubelets,” by tapping each tiny cubelet. Tapping a cubelet destroyed it and revealed the layer underneath. According to the developers, the game contained 69 billion cubelets (Ivan, 2013). The game was released on November 6, 2012, and completed on May 26, 2013. Many users were playing this game simultane- ously so the work of removing the layers took considerably less time than if only one person had been playing. What is perhaps most fascinating about this game: Only one person, the one who destroyed the last cubelet, was able to discover what was in the center of the cube. In other words, many people were working toward a goal/reward that they had no guarantee of ever expe- riencing.

Despite the stereotype that video games are isolating (Griffiths, Davies, & Chappell, 2003), there is evidence that video game play actually enhances

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socialization. Indeed, children who reported playing the Famicom (the early Japanese version of the Nintendo Entertainment System) were more socially adept than students who did not play the Famicom (Shimai, Masuda, & Kishimoto, 1990) and family members tend to interact more with one another when they have a video game console (Mitchell, 1985). Similar results have been found more recently (Bowman, Kowert, & Cohen, 2015). Also, having a video game console can encourage children to see each other outside of school and interact socially (Colwell, Grady, & Rhaiti, 1995; Irvine, 2008). Despite this, children who play video games are judged to be less prosocial by their classmates (Schie & Wiegman, 1997, see chapter 1). Perhaps video games are replacing traditional social interaction such that children might be socializing with friends in virtual spaces instead of physical spaces.

Importantly, these examples of prosocial behaviors primarily relate to multiplayer video game experiences where several human players are inter- acting in the game space. However, prosocial behaviors occur in single player experiences as well. These experiences are quite common. In the game D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die, players attempt to solve a murder mystery. Along the way, players have the opportunity to help non-player characters (NPCs) with various tasks. For example, a woman on an airplane was very nervous about the safety of the plane. The player can check on various items around the plane to help calm her down. In Spelunky, players can rescue a NPC that is stranded in a perilous situation. People can demonstrate helping behaviors for virtual and physical beings in video games.

Up to this point in the chapter, the varying uses of prosocial behaviors within video games have been demonstrated. Now, this chapter will shift to evidence that prosocial video games might actually impact prosocial behav- iors outside of video games. Broadly speaking, prosocial actions outside of a game might be primed by media content such that prosocial stimulus can lead to more prosocial interpretations and behaviors in response to subse- quent stimuli (Roskos-Ewoldsen, Roskos-Ewoldsen, & Dillman-Carpentier, 2002). That is, playing a prosocial video game makes prosocial thoughts top of mind to the player. Furthermore, prosocial actions can be learned through observation of media characters (Bandura, 2001) and players may model prosocial behaviors seen performed in a video game. Based on these theoreti- cal premises, playing a prosocial video game should impact prosocial behav- iors. There is some literature that supports this supposition. Playing nonvio- lent games is related to an increase in prosocial outcomes (Buckley & Ander- son, 2006) and exposure to prosocial television programs has been shown to promote prosocial behaviors in children (Ostrov, Gentile, & Crick, 2006).

In another study, middle-school students listed their favorite video games as well as how often they played these games and how often these games required players to help or hurt others (Gentile et al., 2009). This revealed that students who played more prosocial games engaged in more prosocial

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behaviors such as cooperation, sharing, emotional awareness, and empathy. Conversely, violent video games had a negative relationship with prosocial behaviors. In a follow-up study, children were asked to note how often they played video games with specific prosocial behaviors: helping behaviors or affectionate behaviors. Results showed a connection between prosocial video game play and subsequent prosocial behaviors like helping a friend. Similar- ly, performing prosocial behaviors led to more prosocial video game play. Gentile and colleagues (2009) called this two-way relationship an “upward spiral.” In other words, playing a prosocial video game enforced prosocial behaviors but simultaneously predisposition toward prosocial behaviors en- couraged the play of prosocial video games (Slater, Henry, Swaim, & Ander- son, 2003). Any description of a behavior spiral such as this can be under- stood as a feedback loop (Slater, 2003) and is helpful in understanding the role of prosocial video game content. In a third and final experimental study by Gentile and colleagues (2009), college students played a prosocial game, a violent game, or a neutral game. The prosocial games were Super Mario Sunshine (the player cleans up pollution on a tropical island) and Chibi Robo (players do household chores and help various members of a family). The violent games were Ty 2 (players need to destroy objects and defeat bosses) or Crash Twinsanity (the player uses another character as a weapon and as a skateboard). The neutral games were Pure Pinball (a pinball simula- tor) or Super Monkey Ball Deluxe (the player navigates a ball through a puzzle). After playing the game, the player assigned puzzles to another par- ticipant. The puzzles varied in difficulty such that some were easier to com- plete and some were more difficult to complete. Notably, if the person who was assigned the puzzles could complete a large number of them, he or she was given a cash reward. Thus, the player could be helpful to the other person by selecting easier puzzles and avoiding harder puzzles. As expected, those who played a violent game chose to assign more difficult puzzles and those who played a prosocial game were more likely to assign easier puzzles. Those who played a prosocial game were more likely to act in ways that aligned with prosocial behavior than those who played a violent or neutral game. Again, playing a violent game had a negative relationship with helping behaviors (Gentile et al., 2009).

Greitemeyer and Osswald (2010) performed four experiments to further explore this phenomenon. In the first study, participants played the video game Lemmings, a game in which players guide creatures through a series of obstacles, Lamers, a parody of Lemmings in which players try to kill the creatures with guns and explosives, or Tetris, a game in which players try to form lines with various geometric shapes. After playing the game, the re- searcher “accidentally” spilled a cup of pencils on the ground. Participants who had played the prosocial game helped the researcher clean up the pencils while those who played the violent or neutral game did not help the research-

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Prosocial Behaviors 43

er clean up the pencils. In a follow-up study, participants only played Lem- mings or Tetris, eliminating the violent video game condition. After the experiment was ostensibly over, participants were asked to help a confeder- ate with his or her master’s thesis. Those who had played the prosocial video game were willing to help the student with the thesis and were willing to spend more time helping with the thesis despite a lack of compensation. In a third study, players again played Tetris or City Crisis, a game in which players rescue people in peril with a helicopter. During the experiment, a confederate posing as an ex-boyfriend entered the lab and began harassing the experimenter. The “ex-boyfriend” became mildly aggressive with the experimenter as the conflict went on. A majority of the prosocial video game players intervened to help while less than a quarter of those playing the neutral game intervened. In the last experiment, Greitemeyer and Osswald (2010) used the same exercise from experiment 1 where a cup of pencils was spilled and had players perform a thought listing task. Participants who played the prosocial video game reported more prosocial thoughts and more pencils picked up than those in the neutral condition. In this final study, the suggestion is that prosocial games lead to prosocial thoughts and these thoughts lead to an increase in prosocial behavior. Neuroscience results re- flect a similar pattern (Liu, Teng, Lan, Zhang, & Yao, 2015).

While many of these studies focus on the promotion of prosocial behav- iors via video games, video games can also make players less aggressive (Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2009). In their first experiment, Greitemeyer and Osswald asked participants to play a prosocial video game or a neutral video game. Then, participants were provided with a story that they were asked to complete. One story involved a near traffic accident, another involved an inconsiderate friend, and the third revolved around a frustrating restaurant experience. Participants who had played the prosocial video game finished the story in less aggressive ways than those who played the neutral video game. A similar experiment was conducted with a word completion task as the outcome (Greitemeyer & Osswald, 2009). In word completion tasks, a participant is asked to complete a word based on a stem of letters. When someone has more aggressive thoughts, they are expected to complete the stem with more aggressive words than those who are not having aggressive thoughts. For example, the word stem KI_ _ can be completed as KISS (non- aggressive) or KILL (aggressive). Those who played a prosocial video game reported fewer aggressive words on this task than those playing a neutral video game.

Another study examined how prosocial video games might lessen scha- denfreude, or taking pleasure in the misfortune of others, and increase feel- ings of empathy (Greitemeyer, Osswald, & Brauer, 2010). Again, partici- pants played a prosocial video game, Lemmings, or a neutral video game, Tetris. Then, they read a story about Paris Hilton in unfortunate circum-

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stances and an essay by a student who was under duress. Those who played the prosocial game derived less pleasure from Paris Hilton’s misfortune and showed more empathy toward the student in need.

These results, however, are not always uniform (Chambers & Ascione, 1987; Wiegman & Schie, 1998) but a recent meta-anlysis showed that, broadly, prosocial video games are associated with prosocial behaviors (Greitemeyer & Mügge, 2014). Thus, when a game encourages prosocial actions instead of violent ones through rules and feedback, the game is asso- ciated with prosocial behaviors outside of the game.

In terms of self-presentation, a recent study found that giving a player control over a character—like in a video game—facilitated a connection between the player and the character (Dillman-Carpentier, Rogers, & Bar- nard, 2015). The character, in the story, engaged in prosocial, charitable behaviors. After completing the game, players were more likely to visit a website for charity and participate on the site. The study argued that when players had control over the character, the players felt a connection to that character. Thus, the players were more willing to appropriate attributes of the character in the story, in this case, charitable behaviors. Extrapolating from this, video games might encourage prosocial behaviors in the event that the character they are using engages in prosocial behaviors.

Indeed, video games are increasingly complex and some games may be violent and prosocial simultaneously. Different aspects of the game, proso- cial or violent, can be made salient through feedback, rules, and self-presen- tation. This salience impacts whether or not the video game has prosocial outcomes. For example, one person may be playing a Call of Duty video game that features a large degree of violence in a war setting. However, the game rules allow for multiplayer modes of play. The idea of socializing and playing with friends might be more salient to this player than committing virtual acts of violence. Similarly, in Grand Theft Auto V, a player can commit many criminal acts but the police chase the player whenever he or she does. Likewise, if the player helps the main characters’ friends and family, then the plot advances. Thus, the feedback system might make acting prosocially more salient in spite of the player’s ability to act in antisocial ways within the game. In fact, Granic and colleagues are “inspired” by the positive possibilities of video games (2014, p. 76) and this perspective should be considered in the larger conversation related to video game play.

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Bowman, N. D., Kowert, R., & Cohen, E. (2015). When the ball stops, the fun stops too: The impact of social inclusion on video game enjoyment. Computers in Human Behavior, 53, 131–139.

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Brabham, D. C. (2013). Crowdsourcing. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Buckley, K. E., & Anderson, C. A. (2006). A theoretical model of the effects and consequences

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Chambers, J. H., & Ascione, F. R. (1987). The effects of prosocial and aggressive videogames on children's donating and helping. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 148(4), 499–505.

Colwell, J., Grady, C., & Rhaiti, S. (1995). Computer games, self-esteem and gratification of needs in adolescents. Journal of Community and Applied Social Psychology, 5, 195–206.

Dillman-Carpentier, F., Rogers, R., & Barnard, L. (2015). Eliciting behavior from interactive narratives: Isolating the role of agency in connecting with and modeling characters. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 59(1), 76–93.

Eisenberg, N., Fabes, R. A., & Spinrad, T. L. (2006). Prosocial behaviour. Handbook of Child Psychology, 3, 646–718.

Gentile, D. A., Anderson, C. A., Yukawa, S., Ihori, N., Saleem, M., Ming, L. K., & Sakamoto, A. (2009). The effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behaviors: International evi- dence from correlational, longitudinal, and experimental studies. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 35(6) 752–763.

Granic, I., Lobel, A., & Engels, R. C. (2014). The benefits of playing video games. American Psychologist, 69(1), 66.

Greitemeyer, T., & Mügge, D. O. (2014). Video games do affect social outcomes a meta- analytic review of the effects of violent and prosocial video game play. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 578–589.

Greitemeyer, T., & Osswald, S. (2010). Effects of prosocial video games on prosocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 98(2), 211–221.

Greitemeyer, T., & Osswald, S. (2009). Prosocial video games reduce aggressive cognitions. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 45(4), 896–900.

Greitemeyer, T., Osswald, S., & Brauer, M. (2010). Playing prosocial video games increases empathy and decreases schadenfreude. Emotion, 10(6), 796.

Griffiths, M. D., Davies, M. O., & Chappell, D. (2003). Breaking the stereotype: The case of online gaming. Cyberpsychology & Behavior, 6(1), 81–91.

Irvine, M. (2008). Survey: Nearly every American kid plays video games. Usatoday.com. http:/ /usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/gaming/2008-09-16-american-kids-gamers_N.htm

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Chapter Four

Mood Management

In the past, a considerable amount of attention has been dedicated to mood management in communication literature (Bryant & Zillmann, 1984; Zill- mann, 1988a; Zillmann, 1988b). Traditionally, the mood management para- digm suggests that people consume entertainment media in order to maintain a favorable mood such that people try to maximize the duration and intensity of good moods while minimizing the duration and intensity of bad moods (Zillmann, 1988a; Zillmann, 2000). In other words, a person in a positive mood will choose media that will prolong that mood state. Meanwhile, a person in a negative mood will choose media that repairs that mood. For example, someone who is feeling happy might select to watch a happy movie or post on social media while avoiding a sad documentary in order to max- imize his or her positive mood. Conversely, someone who is sad might avoid engaging on social media and instead play a video game to feel productive and competent to repair his or her mood.

Based on existing literature, Zillmann suggests that there are two ways selective exposure, or avoiding certain information while deliberately con- suming other information, is used to manage moods:

1. Material is selected that is the opposite valence of the current mood. This would be used to get out of a negative mood.

2. Content is selected that is more gratifying than the current state. This would be used when a mood is positive but could be improved.

As such, critical to mood management theory is selective exposure theory. Zillmann and Bryant (2013) posit that human beings are constantly sur- rounded by stimuli, so much so that a human being is not capable of process- ing all of the stimuli at once. Human beings direct their attention toward

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certain stimuli and not others. Selective exposure then is individuals’ per- ceived ability to control the stimuli around them. Rather than having to decide what to focus on, people create scenarios in which they are only exposed to content they have a predisposition toward. A typical example of this is someone with conservative (or liberal) political beliefs avoiding media messages that conflict with their beliefs by reading/avoiding certain news outlets. Zillmann and Bryant (2013) further suggest that selective exposure can require either very little effort or a large degree of effort. It may be as simple as turning the channel on the television or it might require complete avoidance of certain media platforms. Ultimately, by avoiding or approach- ing certain messages that fit user preferences, people can alter their moods.

Indeed, mood management theory relies on the notion that environmental factors impact moods and affects (Zillmann, 1988b). As such, the environ- ment must be malleable to the extent that individuals can alter their environ- ments through content selection. For example, the individual can change his or her environment by selecting a romantic comedy over a drama in order to fit his or her current mood state. This alteration of environment to fit mood becomes habitual such that when someone is in a bad mood he or she might be accustomed to putting on a program that is comforting and has proven to be helpful in the past (Zillmann, 1988b). For example, when one is sad, he or she might put on an episode of Seinfeld as it helps that person relax and laugh. Fundamentally, this describes a feedback system. The actual mood state is compared to the desired mood state and media is selected. The impact of that media selection is then referenced in order to make future and/or habitual media selections.

Despite the usefulness of mood management in understanding media con- sumption, two issues that have arisen from this line of inquiry are: explana- tions of non-hedonic media consumption and the distinction between mood and emotion.

Moods and emotions are closely related concepts, but have some impor- tant differences.

Emotions:

• Emotions are episodic (Hamm, Schupp, & Weike, 2003) and moods are general mental states that last longer than emotions (Gray & Watson, 2007).

• Emotions tend to be directional in that they are the result of a certain stimulus (Hamm et al., 2003).

• Emotions are also impacted by cognitive factors (Scherer, 2003). Different appraisals made by participants are shown to predict discrete emotions (Ortony, 1990).

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• Similarly, emotions vary in terms of valence, function, and action tenden- cy (Shen & Bigsby, 2010). In other words, emotions are positive or nega- tive, emotions help people adapt to certain stimuli, and emotions result in a certain type of behavior. For example, when someone is afraid, the emotion is negative, its function is to prevent harm, and it encourages revision and reassessment. Meanwhile, someone who is happy is in a positive state in which he or she will attempt to prolong the feeling through self-rewards.

Moods:

• Moods are broad, and are not directed at one object (Gray & Watson, 2007).

• Moods are more frequent than emotions; in fact, true raw emotions are quite rare but performed emotions are common (Carver & Scheier, 2014; Gray & Watson, 2007).

• Moods tend to be the aggregate of multiple experiences (Davidson, 1994).

In summary, moods are general, longer, and not directed at any one thing. Emotions are short and specifically directed at a stimulus. Even though moods and emotions are distinct it is important to understand their differ- ences at the onset and how these difference play into how emotions or moods are managed.

In terms of emotions specifically, Shen and Bigsby (2010) provide a detailed list of discrete emotions and their corresponding action tendencies. This list is not comprehensive but indicative of some of the mood manage- ment capabilities of video games.

• When a person is surprised he or she wants to orient him- or herself adequately. A familiar or casual video game might allow a player to re- duce this feeling of surprise. This can be accomplished through predict- able and orienting feedback as well as easily understood rules.

• When a person is angry he or she wants to remove the obstacle that is making him or her angry. Many games place players in competition so they are allowed to kill other characters or otherwise remove obstacles. If the game is too difficult for the player then it might enhance this anger, as the player would not be able to remove the obstacle. Again, this can be accomplished through game rules and feedback.

• When someone is afraid he or she wants protection from the fear. Video games, as a virtual environment, can provide a safe space without penalty for missteps, or a magic circle.

• When someone feels guilt, he or she implements self-sanctions and strives to reclaim a standard. Maintaining a standard is nearly always a reflection

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of a feedback system. As such, games can aid in repairing feelings of guilt, especially if the games allow altruistic actions.

• When someone is happy he or she wants to bask in it and bond with others. Video games, through character interaction and multiplayer modes allow players to prolong and expand their happiness levels.

Meanwhile, mood management theory does an excellent job explaining the use of certain media; however, it tends to focus on positively valenced con- tent. Consider movies like No Country for Old Men and books like The Road. Both are bleak, brutal, and not necessarily pleasurable. However, No Country for Old Men won an Academy Award for best picture and The Road won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. Similarly, within the last year, the news stories that dominated the headlines and broadcasts were the scandals in the NFL, the Ebola outbreak, and the missing Malyasian Airlines flight. These were all sad stories yet many were consuming this content. Mood management theory does not necessarily explain the widespread appeal of this sad and possibly upsetting content.

In order to explore this phenomenon, that people are drawn to negatively valenced content, Oliver (2008) conducted a series of studies examining the consumption of sad movies. In the first study, the prevailing mood state of each participant was assessed then each participant was asked to choose which movie they would prefer to watch from a series of genres. Those who were in a concerned or sympathetic mood were more likely to select a sad movie while those who were not in sad moods preferred comedy movies. In the second study, participants were placed in a hypothetical scenario that promoted a certain mood state. Afterward, the participants ranked their pref- erences for different movies based on that mood. Those in the concerned or sympathetic mood conditions preferred sad movies while those in the happy condition preferred comedies. The third study replicated study two but re- vealed that those in a concerned or sympathetic mood state preferred sad movies as well as dramas and romantic films.

In another study exploring mood management as related to non-hedonic media consumption, people renting movies from a video store were asked what their moods were on their way into the store and then reported which movies they rented upon leaving (Strizhakova & Krcmar, 2007). Findings revealed that different emotions were connected to different movie selec- tions. Those who were angry or bored did not select dramas. Those who were aroused selected action movies not dramas. Those who were anxious chose horror movies and those who were sad selected serious films. A similar pattern emerged in a study using mood induction on college students (Green- wood, 2010). Notably, gender appeared to have an impact on these selec- tions. Women tended to prefer romantic movies while men preferred action movies and sad men showed a preference for dark comedies (Greenwood,

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2010). An eight-week study of adolescents with depressive disorders re- vealed that boys were more likely to use media to manage a negative mood state (Dillman Carpentier et al., 2008) and men tended to distract themselves with immersive content more than women (Knobloch-Westerwick, 2007). In the context of news content that may not be strictly pleasurable, Zillmann (2000) suggests that non-hedonic content provides informational utility. This means that people endure unpleasant content in order to acquire information. Thus, non-hedonic media consumption is more deliberate and planned than consumption of hedonic content.

Extrapolating this to video games, this logic may help explain why certain video games are popular even though intuition might indicate that they would not be. At first, it might seem odd that a video game would be popular if it was extremely difficult or if the game focused too much on story. But people might like hard video games if the game provides quality feedback and confers a degree of accomplishment. Also, someone might feel very immersed in a video game story because they feel represented by the charac- ter in the game.

Recently a handful of scholars examined how video games can be used for mood management (Oliver et al., 2015). More specifically, the scholars explored how video games, a medium typically associated with “play” and therefore hedonic gratification, might actually be able to provide experiences beyond hedonic gratification. In the first study, participants were asked to recall a particularly fun or a particularly meaningful video game they had played. This revealed that game attributes related to game play were more closely associated with enjoyment while game attributes related to character and story were more closely associated with a meaningful game experience. In light of self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), this study found that different elements of a game satisfy different psychological needs. The needs as identified by self-determination theory are competence, autonomy, and relatedness. Quality game play was associated with autonomy and com- petence. Quality story and characters was associated with feelings of related- ness. The study interpreted this to mean that, even though many games are viewed as hedonic media, video games can provide more profound experi- ences based on how the game is designed and which attributes are empha- sized. A few games that are perhaps emblematic of the meaningful content are: Heavy Rain, The Last of Us, and Final Fantasy VII. Each of these games focuses heavily on narrative and character development. Notably, these ele- ments are typically emphasized by the games’ rules and feedback.

Another study examined how the connection to a character in a video game impacts the enjoyment of a video game. Again, participants were asked to recall a particularly fun or a particularly meaningful video game that they had played (Bowman, Rogers, & Sherrick, 2013). As expected, different relationships with the game’s character were associated with different mani-

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festations of entertainment. Specifically, when players felt like they had a large degree of control over the character there was increased hedonic enjoy- ment of the game. Increased feelings of responsibility for a character’s well- being were associated with an increased likelihood of having a meaningful experience with that game. This indicates that strong feelings of self-presen- tation in a game can help predict how that game can be used to manage moods. If players are aiming to elicit a more contemplative and less hedonic mood then self-presentation is a key element. The player needs to place him- or herself into the game and experience it firsthand.

In a final study, participants were asked to write a short review of a game that was particularly meaningful or particularly fun (Rogers et al., 2015). These texts were analyzed for common themes. Again, descriptions of fun games tended to focus on aspects of game play while meaningful game descriptions focused on insights into the human condition. For example, fun games were described as challenging, required strategy, or featured realistic game play. On the other hand, meaningful games allowed for connection to characters in the game and difficult moral choices. Thus, different video games can help manage moods when players are looking for a fun experience or a meaningful experience.

While there is not empirical evidence of this, this chapter posits that quality feedback will predict competence, quality rules will predict autono- my, and quality self-presentation will predict feelings of relatedness. As such, these key elements of a video game may fulfill psychological needs that allow players to manage their moods effectively.

REFERENCES

Bowman, N., Rogers, R., & Sherrick, B. (2013). In control or in their shoes? How character attachment differentially influences video game enjoyment and appreciation. Presented at the annual conference of the Broadcast Education Association, Las Vegas, NV.

Bryant, J., & Zillmann, D. (1984). Using television to alleviate boredom and stress: Selective exposure as a function of induced excitational states. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 28(1), 1–20.

Carver, C., & Scheier, M. (2014). The experience of emotions during goal pursuit. Internation- al Handbook of Emotions in Education, 56.

Davidson, R. J. (1994). On emotion, mood and related affective constructs. In The nature of emotion: Fundamental questions, ed. Paul Ekman and Richard J. Davidson. New York: Oxford University Press.

Dillman Carpentier, F. R., Brown, J. D., Bertocci, M., Silk, J. S., Forbes, E. E., & Dahl, R. E. (2008). Sad kids, sad media? Applying mood management theory to depressed adolescents’ use of media. Media Psychology 11(1), 143–166.

Gray, E. K., & Watson, D. (2007). Assessing positive and negative affect via self-report. Handbook of Emotion Elicitation and Assessment, 171–183.

Greenwood, D. (2010). Of sad men and dark comedies: Mood and gender effects on entertain- ment media preferences. Mass Communication & Society, 13(3), 232–249.

Hamm, A. O., Schupp, H. T., & Weike, A. I. (2003). Motivational organization of emotions: Autonomic changes, cortical responses, and reflex modulation. In R. J. Davidson, K. R.

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Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (eds.), The Handbook of Affective Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Knobloch-Westerwick, S. (2007). Gender differences in selective media use for mood manage- ment and mood adjustment. Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 51(1), 73–92.

Oliver, M. B. (2008). Tender affective states as predictors of entertainment preference. Journal of Communication, 58, 40–61.

Oliver, M., Bowman, N., Woolley, J., Rogers, R., Sherrick, B., & Chung, M.Y. (2015). Video games as meaningful entertainment experiences. Psychology of Popular Media Culture.

Ortony, A. (1990). The cognitive structure of emotions. Cambridge University Press. Rogers, R., Woolley, J., Oliver, M., Bowman, N., Sherrick, B. & Chung, M.Y. (2015). Fun

versus Meaningful Video Game Experiences: A Qualitative Analysis of User Responses. Presented at the annual conference of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, San Francisco, CA.

Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68.

Scherer, K. R. (2003). Introduction: Cognitive components of emotion. In R. J. Davidson, K. R. Scherer, & H. H. Goldsmith (Eds.), The Handbook of Affective Sciences. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 563–571.

Shen, L., & Bigsby, E. (2010). Behavioral activation/inhibition systems and emotions: A test of valence vs. action tendency hypotheses. Communication Monographs, 77, 1–26.

Strizhakova, Y., & Krcmar, M. (2007). Mood management and video rental choices. Media Psychology 10(1), 91–112.

Watson, D. (2000). Mood and Temperament. New York: Guilford Press. Zillmann, D. (1988a). Mood management through communication choices. American Behav-

ioral Scientist, 31(3), 327–340. Zillmann, D. (1988b). Mood management: Using entertainment to full advantage. In L. Dono-

hew, H. E. Sypher, & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Communication, social cognition, and affect (pp. 147–171). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Zillmann, D. (2000). Mood management in the context of selective exposure theory. In M. F. Roloff (Ed.), Communication yearbook 23 (pp. 103–123). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Zillmann, D., & Bryant, J. (Eds.). (2013). Selective exposure to communication. New York: Routledge.

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Chapter Five

History

As mentioned in the education chapter, in one study a participant stated that he learned more about history from the Call of Duty video games than he had in any course he had taken (Rogers, 2012). While it has been established that video games can impact the education of history (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, 2005; Lenhart et al., 2008), this sentiment is worth further exploration beyond education. Specifically, this chapter will focus on how video games can effectively portray and recreate history for a variety of benefits.

A video game can place an individual into a historical context. Gee (2008) calls this placement into a historical context, embodied thinking or the “projective stance.” Within this “projective stance” the player assumes the role of a character within the game space. In doing so, the player assumes the goals of that character. This is akin to the Proteus effect and the psychologi- cal merger discussed earlier in this book (Klimmt, Hefner, & Vorderer, 2009; Lewis, Weber, & Bowman, 2008; Peña, Hancock, & Merola, 2009; Yee & Bailenson, 2007). Further Gee states, “As a player, you must—on the basis of what you learn about the game’s story and the game’s virtual world— attribute certain mental states (beliefs, values, goals, feelings, attitudes, and so forth) to the virtual character” (2008, p. 258). These attributes then orient the player in that virtual space such that the virtual world and the character’s attributes complement one another. Gee uses the example of the video game Thief to illustrate this. By playing this game the player embodies the main character and thus obtains the goals and skills of a thief. Based on these parameters, some goals are easier or more difficult to attain. Since the thief is good at hiding, the virtual world is conducive to hiding, such that the charac- ter and the world are complementary and exist synergistically. In other words, the world is built to work with or work against the skills of the character/player. Gee is describing how video games can present content in

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consequential ways based on self-presentation through the character in the virtual world.

The projective stance, in the context of historical video games, is an important notion. Hypothetically, imagine a game that illustrates the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s. The game allows the players to embody a variety of characters: a protestor, a politician, Martin Luther King Jr., or Malcolm X. Based on which character the player selects, the player would have different goals as well as different strengths and weak- nesses. This would give players a varied and in-depth perspective of histori- cal events based on how the game’s self-presentation orients the player with- in history. For example, if players selected the Martin Luther King Jr. charac- ter, they would acquire skills such as being persuasive speakers and they would have peaceful goals. Meanwhile, if players selected the Malcolm X character, they would have violent methods of achieving goals. These differ- ences would impact how the player is experiencing history as recreated in the game.

Continuing the design of a hypothetical game that portrays the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s, the game could show the diffi- culty of and persistence needed for using peaceful means of protest. Thus, the virtual space makes the game’s goals more easily achieved through vio- lence, or there are many opportunities for violence that reward the player but work against broad goals. This presentation of the virtual world, in conjunc- tion with the characters included, would allow players to experience the civil rights movement in the United States in the 1960s from a valuable, and challenging, perspective.

The historical experience in video games has been called a living history interaction such that video games sit at the nexus of performance, digital media, and history (Magelssen, 2008). Magelssen (2008), through an exam- ple using the Old Sturbridge Village—a living history museum presenting 1830s New England—argues that games allow performance of the virtual past and this helps to clearly establish specifics or details of history. One can observe the way the world functioned at that time as opposed to just hearing it described or reading about it. For example, if a player walks around a virtual version of Old Sturbridge Village he or she can see the flow of people through the city, the details painted on the signs, the patterns of weather, and the expressions on people’s faces. This allows for a much richer experience than simply reading a passage in a book.

Besides the historical details and nuances that can be represented by a video game, the video game can offer freedom to the player such that he or she can roam the streets following his or her interests, not dictated by less flexible media. If a player were interested in blacksmithing, he or she could have followed the blacksmith through a daily, monthly, or even yearly rou-

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tine. In this vein, the game would satisfy dynamic heterogeneity, or the pursuit and test of different hypotheses, as described by Ariely (2000).

Moreover, like the hypothetical game described above, some games allow players to become specific characters in history. Velvet Assassin has players assume the role of real-life World War II Special Operations Executive (SOE), Violette Szabo. Similarly, in The Saboteur, players use a character based on the real-life William Grover-Williams, another SOE operative in Nazi-occupied France. While both are fictionalized games and designed for entertainment, this allows the player to embody a historical figure and expe- rience historical events in the specific context of a key figure.

While self-presentation is an important factor to consider when discussing video games and history, it is key to note that not all video games have characters for the player to become, or more specifically, characters in a historical context for the player to experience history through the eyes of. For example, in American Civil War: Gettysburg players control entire Union or Confederate forces from a God’s eye view. Players do not assume the role of a specific character but control a wide range of characters at once in battles like Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge. This is more akin to a player moving pieces around a chess board as opposed to the player becoming a piece on the chess board. This sort of presentation, wherein the player as- sumes a God’s eye view, is effective for showing details of specific battles but perhaps not of specific historic individuals.

Games like Call of Duty 2 allow players to reenact World War II battles from multiple perspectives. Among those featured are: The Russian 13th Guard Rifle Division’s fight at Stalingrad, the British 7th Armoured Division in the Second Battle of El Alamein and the Battle of Caen, and the American 2nd Ranger Battalion during the D-Day invasion at Pointe du Hoc. Beyond the presentation of historical events and actual regiments represented at these events, the equipment that players use is rendered to be historically accurate. In fact, some developers go through a large degree of hands-on research to accurately present the sound and feel of the weapons (Plunkett, 2010). The virtual equipment used in these games is designed to replicate the experience of using it as well as having it used against the player. A player can actively experience a virtual version of the Normandy invasion instead of passively experiencing it.

The research and time dedicated to accurate historical representations in video games can be astounding. For the video game LA Noire, the developers used old photographs to recreate 1940s Los Angeles (Berstein & Nosowitz, 2011). These photographs not only allowed the game developers to repro- duce the architecture of the time but also the conditions of the buildings, construction sites, traffic patterns, and pedestrian congestion. The historical pictures used during game development depicted a real estate boom, which ended up influencing some of the missions/storylines in the game. “As a

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result, gamers will be immersed in the most accurate version of 1940s Los Angeles ever created” (Berstein & Nosowitz, 2011). Meanwhile the Assas- sin’s Creed series attempts to recreate various historical settings such as Masyaf, Jerusalem, Acre, and Damascus during the twelfth century; Venice, Florence, Forli, and San Gimignano, during the fifteenth century renaissance; Colonial America in the eighteenth century and Paris during the French Revolution in the eighteenth century. Video game recreations of history can be so comprehensive that they are used for purposes other than the game. For example, the video game Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 was used in a History Channel special in order to recreate scenarios from the D-Day inva- sion in World War II (Sinclair, 2005).

Fullerton (2008) refers to these sorts of games as “documentary games” (p. 215). That is, video games that use a documentary style. Fullerton’s piece argues that viewing a simulation is not the same as being inside the simula- tion and video games offer this opportunity. In Medal of Honor: Rising Sun players get to experience a simulation of the attack on Pearl Harbor in the first mission. Fullerton suggests that many of these games take liberties with historical accuracy in order to present the event in a specific way that the game creators wish to emphasize. For example, Waco Resurrection is based on the shootout between law enforcement and the Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, at the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas. The standoff lasted over a month and more than 75 people died (Leppard & Wynick, 2013). On the game’s website, the game is described as follows:

Revisiting the 1993 Waco, Texas, episode, gamers enter the mind and form of a resurrected David Koresh through custom headgear, a voice-activated, hard- plastic 3D skin. Each player enters the network as a Koresh and must defend the Branch Davidian compound against internal intrigue, skeptical civilians, rival Koresh and the inexorable advance of government agents. Ensnared in the custom "Koresh skin", players are bombarded with a soundstream of government “psy-ops”, FBI negotiators, the voice of God and the persistent clamor of battle. Players voice messianic texts drawn from the Book of Reve- lation, wield a variety of weapons from the Mount Carmel cache and influence the behavior of both followers and opponents by radiating a charismatic aura.

Fullerton (2008) suggests that Waco Resurrection does not necessarily re- create the events of that standoff but instead uses elements of the game to force players to think about their perspective on the event. Indeed, the game is further described on its website:

Waco Resurrection re-examines the clash of worldviews inherent in the 1993 conflict by asking players to assume the role of a resurrected "cult" leader. It addresses the multi-layered dynamics of a 51-day media-event that served to mobilize the militia movement and radicalize Timothy McVeigh. The game combines elements of subjective documentary with new interactive technolo-

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History 59

gies to create a visceral gaming experience in which to reconsider the phenom- enal possibilities inherent in ideological conflict.

In other words, the game designers use rules to manipulate a player’s experi- ence of a historical event in order to create a meaningful experience for the player.

Another game in this category is Super Columbine Massacre RPG! (Ful- lerton, 2008). The game recreates the events of the Columbine High School shooting on April 20, 1999. Players assume the roles of the shooters, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold. Although many current video games strive for realism in game play and in graphics, Super Columbine Massacre RPG! primarily uses cartoonish, pixelated sprites. In response to criticisms, the designer of the game, Danny Ledonne, issued a statement on the game’s website where he claimed that his purpose in making the game was to deepen and refine the understanding of the Columbine shooting. Beyond that, the game includes artifacts from the event. Clips of press conferences, real photographs of and lines from the killers’ writings are included throughout. Ultimately, the game is a reflection of that day and allows players to think about and engage with the event in a unique way (Fullerton, 2008). The implication then is that the game should be offensive. If we are to believe the designer, the game is not intended to simply cash in on a tragedy, instead, its mission is to facilitate understanding of, or at least thought about, the trage- dy.

JFK: Reloaded is another game in this tradition. The game recreates the JFK assassination. Players take on the role of the assassin, Lee Harvey Os- wald, and are scored based on how accurately they can recreate the actual shooting. As Fullerton (2008) argues, many historical games take liberties with history but JFK: Reloaded forces the player to get history right. The stated purpose of this game is to “bring history to life” and test the validity of the Warren Commission, the investigation into JFK’s assassination (Press Association, 2004). In fact, the game’s purported use is to crowdsource to see all of the different possibilities and “disprove, once and for all, any notion that someone else was involved in the assassination of President Kennedy” (Press Association, 2004). Allowing players to virtually assassinate the presi- dent of the United States could be difficult for some to tolerate but upon further inspection, this game may be able to provide closure that other media, such as the Zapruder film, could not.

In 9-11 Survivor, players find themselves in a burning rendering of the World Trade Center. Outcomes of the game might be dying in the fire, jumping from the building, or escaping to safety. The game designers stated that they made the game to illustrate the devastation of the day and remove the distance between the player and the event (Mirapaul, 2003). While media and photographs were used to accurately recreate the scene, these media do

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not require the player to be in the burning building (Mirapaul, 2003). Many people were profoundly impacted by the World Trade Center attack, but the truth is that many others were not directly impacted. This game allows those with a degree of separation from the event to generate experiences more closely tied to the event.

Fullerton (2008) says that these games put the player in the path of histo- ry—a valuable although contentious feature. These video games in particular have been the subject of much controversy. Super Columbine Massacre RPG! has been called “insensitive” and “deplorable” (Vargas, 2006). The game was even pulled from a game festival due to its controversial content (Kuchera, 2007). JFK: Reloaded has been called despicable (Press Associa- tion, 2004) and sickening (Tuohey, 2004). 9-11 Survivor was criticized for exploiting a tragedy and lacking moral decency (Mirapaul, 2003). In some ways, these criticisms validate the games’ stated purposes. Reliving these events should not be easy and enjoyable. To recreate these events is to recreate tragedy, heartbreak, and violence. As a result, if the games did not evoke negative emotions, they would not meet the stated goals of the devel- opers. In other words, the feedback used in these games relates to the emo- tional experience. In these games, the goal is to engage the player in history. These games are not necessarily about “winning,” but instead about present- ing a stimulus in order to elicit certain responses. In this way, these games extend feedback beyond the game space and into the space of the player’s mental state. This is especially true of a game like 9-11 Survivor, where the player cannot “win.” Instead the player is asked to respond to and consider a series of events presented by the developers.

These video game criticisms are quite common; however, exempt from these criticisms are war games. Games depicting war, like the Call of Duty series, are commercially popular and receive little negative attention like the games mentioned above. The harshest piece of criticism found was in an academic source, not a popular press source (Campbell, 2008). In this criti- cism, it is argued that video games simulate past events like World War II but sanitize them (Campbell, 2008). Campbell (2008) indicates that, in video game versions of history, heroism becomes commonplace and players be- lieve that they understand combat based on these misrepresentations. Ulti- mately, Campbell suggests that video games have turned World War II into a nostalgic form of play. This is a likely explanation of why war games have received less criticism than games that do not “sanitize” history—games the deliberately leave history intact. This sanitization is achieved through the programming of rules and feedback. In this context, when the rules and feedback do not effectively contest a player’s thoughts and feelings, they might be considered sanitized.

Another double standard that emerges is the comparison between video games and movies that portray historical events. Extremely Loud and Incred-

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ibly Close, a film about 9/11, and JFK, a movie about JFK’s assassination, were both nominated for Academy Awards for Best Picture. United 93, a movie about one of the planes involved in the 9/11 attacks, won many indus- try awards. Elephant and Bowling for Columbine, movies addressing the Columbine massacre, were also nominated for numerous awards. What is the reason for this disparity in criticism? This book argues that the disparity is due largely to the fact that game content is interactive and that the player is often placed in the role of a controversial figure.

In summary, what a video game says about history is a confluence of many factors (Perry, 2009). Factors that are critical to this statement are: who the player becomes in history or self-presentation, how the player is oriented in history or feedback/interactivity, and how the player is constrained or rules. The implications of these games may not be readily apparent in this chapter, but how history is presented and experienced can alter the perspec- tive one has on history. This is particularly relevant for events rife with social implications.

REFERENCES

Ariely, D. (2000). Controlling the information flow: Effects on consumers' decision making and preferences. Journal of Consumer Research, 27(2), 233–248.

Berstein, J. & Nosowitz, D. (2011). How L.A. Noire rebuilt 1940s Los Angeles using vintage extreme aerial photography. Popsci.com. Http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2011- 05/using-extreme-aerial-photography-1920s-rockstar-rebuilt-1940s-los-angeles-la-noire

Campbell, J. (2008). Just less than total war: simulating World War II as ludic nostalgia. In Z. Whalen & l. N. Taylor, (eds.). (2008). Playing the past: history and nostalgia in video games (183–200). Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

Egenfeldt-Nielsen, S. (2005). Beyond edutainment: Exploring the educational potential of computer games. IT University of Copenhagen, Department of Innovation.

Fullerton, T. (2008). Documentary games: Putting the player in the path of history. In Z. Whalen & L. N. Taylor, (Eds.). (2008). Playing the past: history and nostalgia in video games (215–238). Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

Gee, J. (2008). Video games and embodiment. Games and Culture. 3, 253. Klimmt, C., Hefner, D., & Vorderer, P. (2009). The video game experience as “true” identifica-

tion: A theory of enjoyable alterations of players' self-perception. Communication Theory, 19(4), 351–373.

Kuchera, B. (2007). Super Columbine Massacre RPG pulled from Slamdance competition; the creator speaks with Opposable Thumbs. Arcs Technica. Http://arstechnica.com/gaming/ 2007/01/6534/

Lenhart, A., Kahne, J., Middaugh, E., Macgill, A. R., Evans, C., & Vitak, J. (2008). Teens, video games, and civics: Teens' gaming experiences are diverse and include significant social interaction and civic engagement. Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Leppard, B. & Wynick, A. (2013). Waco siege 20 years on: Picture timeline of Texas massacre which killed 76 men, women and children. Mirror.co.uk. Http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/ world-news/waco-siege-20-years-on-1838748

Lewis, M. L., Weber, R. È., & Bowman, N. D. (2008). They may be pixels, but they're MY pixels:” Developing a metric of character attachment in role-playing video games. Cyberp- sychology & Behavior, 11(4), 515–518.

Magelssen, S. (2008). Performing the (virtual) past: online character interpretation as living history at Old Sturbridge Village. In Z. Whalen & L. N. Taylor, (Eds.). (2008). Playing the

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past: history and nostalgia in video games (201–214). Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

Mirapaul, M. (2003). Online games grab grim reality. Nytimes.com. Http://www.nytimes.com/ 2003/09/17/arts/online-games-grab-grim-reality.html

Peña, J., Hancock, J. T., & Merola, N. A. (2009). The priming effects of avatars in virtual settings. Communication Research, 36(6), 838–856.

Perry, N. A. (2009). War and Video Games. University of Rhode Island. Plunkett, L (2010). Miniguns in the desert: How video game guns are made. Kotaku.com. Http:/

/kotaku.com/5625175/miniguns-in-the-desert-how-video-game-guns-are-made Press Association (2004). JFK shooting game “despicable.” The guardian.com. Http://

www.theguardian.com/technology/2004/nov/22/usnews.games Rogers, R. (2012). The virtual locker room: Hate speech and online gaming. Journal of New

Media and Culture, 8(1). Sinclair, B. (2005). History Channel takes up Brothers in Arms. Gamespot.com. Http://

www.gamespot.com/articles/history-channel-takes-up-brothers-in-arms/1100-6140685/ Tuohey, J. (2004). JFK Reloaded game causes controversy. Pcworld.com. Http://

www.pcworld.com/article/118717/article.html?Null Vargas, J. A. (2006). Shock, anger over Columbine video game. Washingtonpost.com. Http://

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/19/AR2006051901979.html Yee, N., & Bailenson, J. (2007). The Proteus effect: The effect of transformed self-representa-

tion on behavior. Human communication research, 33(3), 271–290.

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Chapter Six

Moral Questions

Similarly to placing players into milestone historical events, video games can also present moral questions to players that they may not readily encounter in the physical world. Broadly, morals are a set of guidelines one uses to guide his or her behavior (Joeckel, Bowman, & Dogruel, 2012). Many video games include moral dilemmas as cornerstones of game play. Consider these exam- ples of moral questions in commercial video games (Goulter, 2011):

• In Bioshock, players encounter little girls in the fictional world of Rapture. These girls have a precious resource that helps the player proceed in the game. The player has two options: kill the little girls and get more of the resource immediately or spare the little girls’ lives and get only a fraction of that resource instantly. In this fashion, the player must make a short- term sacrifice in order to follow moral guidelines.

• Grand Theft Auto IV tells the story of an Eastern European immigrant in the United States, Niko Bellic. Bellic is a veteran of an unnamed war in which he witnessed many atrocities. His military unit was attacked and Bellic was the only survivor. It is revealed that another member of his unit, Darko Brevic, betrayed the unit and had them all killed. Toward the climax of the game, Bellic confronts Brevic. Brevic is a broken man with a severe drug addiction. The player is given the opportunity to kill Brevic or spare his life. This decision impacts the ending of the game that the player will encounter.

• In Final Fantasy VI, players come across two characters hanging perilous- ly from a cliff and they can only save one. Who the player chooses to save impacts game play for the remainder of the game.

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• In the undercover spy video game, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, the player must choose between killing a member of a terrorist cell which results in blown cover or killing a close friend which results in maintaining cover.

• In Fallout 3, the player comes across a slave camp known as The Pitt. Many in the town are suffering from an incurable disease. Toward the climax of the mission, players are asked to steal the key ingredient to creating a cure. However, it is revealed that the key to the cure is a human baby. The player must choose whether or not to kidnap the baby in order to come up with a possible cure; asking: is it worth sacrificing the freedom of the one for the good of the many?

Beyond these events, which are arguably supplemental, many video games, such as Infamous: Second Son, Fallout 3, Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect use a “morality meter.” In these games, players start at a neutral point in terms of being “good” or “bad.” If players behave morally then the meter starts to tip in favor of a stereotypical hero or toward “good.” If players behave immorally then the meter tips toward a renegade or rebel type of character, or “bad.” For example, in Infamous: Second Son, the player often battles enemy soldiers. If the player uses lethal force and kills enemies and civilians, that is considered immoral and the gauge tips in that direction. If the player subdues the enemy without killing him or her, this is considered moral and the gauge tips in the other direction. Notably, the immediate outcome is the same in either case: The enemy is incapacitated but the feedback is intended to make the player feel that they are doing “good” or “bad.”

Morally complex video games or games that use morality as a narrative theme and gameplay device are fairly common. One video game company, Telltale Games, uses complex moral decisions as a primary video game mechanic. On their website they describe their games as: “adventure games focused on story and characters. . . driven by the choices that you make: we see you as the final collaborator in telling the story of the game.” One of their games, The Walking Dead, won more than 90 game of the year awards in 2012 despite it being more of an “interactive drama” than a video game (Welsh, 2012). The game forces players into complex, morally ambiguous scenarios such as choosing to help one character over another or performing mercy killings. For key decisions in the game, summary screens share statis- tics among the game’s community showing how many people chose which options. Surprisingly, more often than not, people chose the moral, rather than the immoral, option. According to the games’ website, these moral choices include:

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• When one erratic character suffers from a heart attack, players have the choice to help resuscitate him or kill him off. Sixty-nine percent of the players tried to resuscitate him despite the risk his survival posed.

• Cannibals capture the main character and his group. Upon escape the player has the choice to kill or spare one of the cannibals/captors and 82 percent chose to spare him.

• The main character is bitten by a zombie, which will turn him into a zombie eventually and put the rest of the group in peril. The player has the option to be honest with the rest of the group of survivors about the bite or to hide the bite from the group. Eighty percent of players chose to be honest with the group.

• There were times when the stats were more evenly distributed. For exam- ple, when given the opportunity to steal supplies, 55 percent of players did so.

This raises an interesting question: When video games allow players to do deplorable things, how are those decisions made and what are the implica- tions of those decisions? Might the opportunity to make a moral decision— even a negative one—provide some social value to the player? What follows is a review of literature on morality and media consumption.

Character morality has been theorized to play a major role in media enjoyment. Indeed, disposition theory suggests that audience members enjoy content more when a “good guy” is rewarded and a “bad guy” is punished (Raney, 2015; Zillmann, 1996). In other words, audience members enjoy content that relies on notions of justice and morality (Raney, 2006; Zillmann, 1991). Zillmann (1996) argues that early in the process of media consump- tion, like the start of a movie, audience members judge whether or not a character is moral. The audience member will have a positive or negative disposition toward that character and will likely root for the “good guy” and against the “bad guy.” Based on how the story ends, the audience member will feel a certain way about the media content. In this fashion, Zillman (2000) refers to audience members ‘‘untiring moral monitors’’ constantly assessing how characters should and should not be acting based on the audi- ence members’ moral beliefs. Comparably, Raney (2015) argues that percep- tions of morality regulate how much a person likes a character, reacts to the character’s challenges, and the story ending.

Not surprisingly, the morals that one person views as salient can help predict what sort of content he or she consumes (Bowman, Joeckel, & Do- gruel, 2012); meaning that most people select media content that matches their moral beliefs. Notably, different groups can have different moral beliefs (Tamborini et al., 2013). For example, political liberals tend to value morals related to harm/care and fairness/reciprocity, while political conservatives value harm/care, fairness/reciprocity, in-group/loyalty, authority/respect, and

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purity/sanctity (Haidt & Graham, 2007). Similarly, differences in moral sali- ence have been demonstrated between nationalities with video games. One study examined differences between American and German adolescents in a virtual environment when confronted with violations of morality (Joeckel, Bowman, & Dogruel, 2013). The results showed that the German partici- pants were less likely to violate a moral when that moral was salient. Howev- er, the American adolescents appeared to violate these morals randomly. A similar study was performed with elderly Americans and elderly Germans (Dogruel, Joeckel, & Bowman, 2013). The German participants found more of the moral modules less salient than their American counterparts and there- fore were more likely to violate a moral scenario. In these cases, morality salience varied based on age and nationality. Differences among other demo- graphic groups should be expected as well.

Moral judgments have mostly been explained through reasoning, but peo- ple often rely on their intuition when making a moral judgment (Graham, Haidt, & Nosek, 2009; Haidt, 2001). Empirical research supports this as the salience of specific morals predicted perceptions of character morality, and then perceived character morality predicted less appeal of a narrative when a “bad guy” received a reward (Tamborini et al., 2013). In other words, if an audience member’s moral salience predicted how he or she felt about a character, then how he or she felt about a character impacted perceptions of how that character was treated. Meanwhile, Tamborini’s (2011) Model of Intuitive Morality and Exemplars (MIME), suggests that exposure to media and an individual’s cultural environment impact the salience of certain moral modules. This, in turn can lead to either automatic appraisal of morals or a rationalized appraisal of morals. The MIME accounts for both short and long-term effects that may result from repeated exposure to certain media content. Increased moral salience leads to fewer violations of that moral while decreased moral salience leads to satisficing or compromising morals (Joeckel et al., 2012). This suggests that if a game cues moral salience then morals are part of the decision-making process within the game. If the game does not cue moral salience then the easiest option is selected, not necessarily the moral one.

While many video games include violence, theft, and other antisocial actions, players of video games might actually be playing according to the feel of the game rather than thinking about the moral implications of their choices (Hartmann, 2011). People are compelled to follow their moral intui- tions, but within a video game space those morals might not be relevant (Joeckel, et al., 2012). Thus, concern over moral violations in video games might be overblown (Joeckel et al., 2012). In other words, a video game might emphasize high scores instead of morals. In that game, there should be fewer moral choices from players than if it emphasized story.

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Another possible explanation of these antisocial behaviors in games is that players are morally disengaged from the actions in the game. People find ways to morally disengage from stimuli they find unpleasant (Bandura, 1999; Moore, Detert, Klebe Treviño, Baker, & Mayer, 2012). Raney (2004, 2015) suggests that becoming morally disengaged with entertainment media can be pleasurable for some. Further, moral disengagement may be necessary to enjoy certain media that include immoral behaviors that would otherwise upset audience members. For example, Quentin Tarantino and Martin Scor- cese movies are ultra-violent and include many immoral activities. In order to enjoy these movies, and many people do according to reviews, audience members may need to participate in moral disengagement.

In violent video games, players often might engage in moral management in order to enjoy the game (Klimmt, Schmid, Nosper, Hartmann, & Vorderer, 2006). Rather than focusing on violence, players focus on the fact that the game is not “real” and focus on winning a competition. In this way, video games might actually cue moral disengagement (Hartmann & Vorderer, 2010). If a game’s story justifies violence or if the game play requires acts of violence to progress, then a player can morally disengage from the acts he or she is committing within the game. Another study supports this proposition. When someone was more familiar with a violent video game or viewed it as “just a game” they did not have as much negative effect when committing acts of violence in the game (Hartmann & Vorderer, 2010).

Importantly, many video games do not pose moral questions regardless of their content. For example, in Space Invaders, the player kills legions of enemies but it is not likely to increase moral salience because the graphics are rudimentary, the plot is science fiction, and the game play is engaging. Blowing up alien space ships does not conjure up ambiguous ethics. Instead, pursuing the high score is highlighted. When graphical fidelity is increased in video games and the narrative calls attention to the players’ actions, morality will likely become much more salient. For example, Spec Ops: The Line is a first-person military shooter designed to challenge and examine acts of vio- lence. As such, it should be expected that players are engaging with Spec Ops: The Line on a deeper level than pure entertainment. Instead, players might be having meaningful experiences with this game when they involve moral decisions (Oliver et al., 2015).

Finally, moral choices in video games could actually have a noteworthy impact on players. When people playing a video game committed acts of violence that were not justified, they felt guilty (Hartmann, Toz, & Brandon, 2010). This guilt can lead to increased moral sensitivity (Grizzard, Tambori- ni, Lewis, Wang, & Prabhu, 2014). Thus, constructs of the game can actually induce moral responses.

These moral outcomes seem to be the interaction of many different con- cepts: game narrative, game play, the Proteus effect, and personal feelings.

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Chapter 668

As a result, it is very difficult to diagnose and explore. Furthermore, much of the literature detailed above runs in opposition to the Computers as Social Actors (CASA) paradigm (Reeves & Nass, 1996). Under the CASA para- digm, computers—and the interactions therein—are treated like real people. Young (2013) similarly argues against the justification for immoral action in video games. Specifically, Young states that there is a double standard for justifying immoral video game content. For example, one might kill many people in a video game without giving it much thought but one would be very hesitant to commit a taboo act such as pedophilia in a video game. This paradox does not make sense to Young. However, this disparity might be explained through the notion that the morality salience of pedophilia is not as easily subdued as the morality salience of violence.

Also, many of the moral choices in video games have been called “ludi- crous” such that they are more or less inconsequential and have no real impact on the game (Sheridan, 2014). In Fable, the player is asked to kill his or her sister in order to create a powerful weapon but this decision takes place after the game’s final battle, removing the need for a more powerful weapon. In Bioshock Infinite players are given the opportunity to abuse/ degrade a mixed race couple or abstain from doing so but the outcome is the same regardless of the choice; therefore the moral choice is inconsequential in terms of the game play and narrative progress.

Given the debate surrounding the complexity of morality in video games, this book suggests that observing the rules, feedback, and self-presentation of a video game will highlight the issue more clearly. First, moral codes are understood as rules. The type of moral a game asks a player to breach is determined by the game rules and will differ in salience depending on the audience member. Beyond that, game rules, by definition, either allow for moral transgressions or not. If moral transgressions are allowed then the players’ reaction to moral transgressions or moral compliance will be driven by the type of feedback the player receives for upholding or breaking moral codes. In that vein, feedback can emphasize narrative or game play in order to enforce moral decisions. Lastly, the more a player feels connected to the character, the more he or she will feel moral salience for that character. Indeed, Lewis, Weber, and Bowman (2008) found that players tend to feel responsible for their characters when they feel connected to them. This should include making ethical decisions that comply with the character’s/ player’s perspective and interests.

Video games get a lot of attention for allowing players to perform immo- ral actions, among other things (McKernan, 2013). Yet there may be value in allowing players a safe virtual space to perform these behaviors. Similarly, games that allow immoral behaviors sell well—at the time this was written a majority of the games on the best seller list allowed immoral behaviors—

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suggesting that exploring complex moral questions is something that video game players enjoy and will spend money on.

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Dogruel, L., Joeckel, S., & Bowman, N. D. (2013). Elderly people and morality in virtual worlds: A cross-cultural analysis of elderly people’s morality in interactive media. New Media & Society, 15(2), 276–293.

Goulter, T. (2011). Gaming's most difficult decisions. Gamesradar.com. http:// www.gamesradar.com/gamings-most-difficult-decisions/?page=3

Graham, J., Haidt, J., & Nosek, B. A. (2009). Liberals and conservatives rely on different sets of moral foundations. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 96(5), 1029.

Grizzard, M., Tamborini, R., Lewis, R. J., Wang, L., & Prabhu, S. (2014). Being bad in a video game can make us morally sensitive. Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, 17(8), 499–504.

Haidt, J. (2001). The emotional dog and its rational tail: A social intuitionist approach to moral judgment. Psychological Review, 108, 814–834.

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Joeckel, S., Bowman, N. D., & Dogruel, L. (2013). The Influence of Adolescents’ Moral Salience on Actions and Entertainment Experience in Interactive Media. Journal of Chil- dren and Media, 7(4), 480–506.

Klimmt, C., Schmid, H., Nosper, A., Hartmann, T., & Vorderer, P. (2006). How players manage moral concerns to make video game violence enjoyable. Communications, 31(3), 309–328.

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McKernan, B. (2013). The Morality of Play Video Game Coverage in The New York Times From 1980 to 2010. Games and Culture, 8(5), 307–329.

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Oliver, M., Bowman, N., Woolley, J., Rogers, R., Sherrick, B. & Chung, M. Y. (in press). Video games as meaningful entertainment experiences. Psychology of Popular Media Cul- ture.

Raney, A. A. (2004). Expanding disposition theory: Reconsidering character liking, moral evaluations, and enjoyment. Communication Theory, 14(4), 348–369.

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