The Psychology of Superheroes. Robin Rosenberg grew up with superhero comics.
Later she shared them with her children, and after becoming a clinical psychologist, she studied them through the lens of psychology and discovered that “superhero stories are about morality and loyalty, about self-doubt and conviction of beliefs. I also saw that, like any good fiction, the sagas of superheroes bring us out of ourselves and connect us with something larger than ourselves, something more universal.” Rosenberg published “We Need a Hero” in the current Smithsonian Magazine The article inspired me to read The Psychology of Superheroes a collection of essays that Rosenberg edited in 2008 on what makes these caped crusaders tick. Sometimes it seems that superheroes can’t get no satisfaction, but is that accurate? Not according to the opening essay in the collection, “The Positive Psychology of Superheroes,” by Christopher Peterson and Nansook Park.
Good and evil are usually clearly drawn in superhero stories, but not always. Gaming Has Already Grown Up. Fun has become a dirty word.
Both David Cage and Warren Spector--two prominent developers who have never been shy to express their opinions--spoke at length during separate D.I.C.E. sessions about the need for gaming to finally grow up. Emotional experiences that deal with relatable situations are paramount to raising this medium to a more substantial plateau, they argued, urging developers to push themselves to create mature and diverse games.
But as gaming has grown and evolved through the years, a variety of interesting experiences have surfaced, making their cries for improvement ring hollow. Their cries for improvement ring hollow. Spector can no longer hold his tongue while the industry is flooded with mindless power fantasies. Cage and Spector (the creative minds behind Heavy Rain and Deus Ex, respectively) are two passionate creators whose cautionary words should be taken seriously. Without pushing beyond mere diversion, gaming will always be stuck in the cultural ghetto. Video Games and the Human Condition. We all play games for different reasons.
For some of us it is an escape from the drudgery of mundane life, a chance to explore other worlds and become heroes in another world; one we can control. One we can feel like we made a difference in. For others it's about relieving stress after the end of a long work day. Sometimes it's just about being social and hopping online with our friends and catching up while we shoot at other people in a World War Two simulation.
No matter the reason we play, we all enjoy the same hobby and take whatever chance we have to play, even if it's just for a few minutes on the morning commute using our cell phones. Games like Silent Hill and Heavy Rain put players into situations where they feel like they are making "human" choices but these games are few and far in between. Few games have the "soul" that Silent Hill does This was something that came to mind recently while I was re-watching (for the millionth time) 28 Days Later. Why We Play: How Our Desire For Games Shapes Our World - Features. Gamers have spent countless hours saving princesses, dodging bullets, and dismembering Grecian monsters.
What drives us to keep coming back to these experiences? Researchers around the world have spent decades measuring the effects games have on our society: how they encourage or discourage violence, inspire creativity, or nurture laziness. However, people rarely ask why we play games in the first place. What drives us to collect coins, snipe aliens, or scale the walls of ancient tombs until three in the morning?
Psychologists and sociologists are only now beginning to understand why the human ability to play is so powerful. Three invisible needsGamers often throw around the term “escapism” when talking about their hobby, but this is a hollow explanation for what actually motivates us to play games. “We all have basic psychological needs,” explains Rigby, who detailed gaming’s intrinsic allure in his book Glued to Games: How Videogames Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound. The Two Ways You Become Immersed in Video Games. I think that this is really interesting.
To respond to the material in one of the other posts, I think that there's value in both kinds of immersion. Personal immersion is not better than impersonal immersion. They are two different modes of immersion, each with their own qualities of engagement, play, and fun. As other examples of impersonal immersion besides Sonic, Mario, or similar games, I would add RPGs. These games work with a complex form of impersonal immersion, but the effect is the same: one is taken along with the story of a group of characters, taken along for a ride which allows very limited degrees of player choice in order to provide very developed forms to pursue in a game.
On the other hand, I agree that personal immersion is unique to games as well, though not just to video games; roleplay has the same potential, though the environment is often as much narrated as procedural.