Gamer as ParticipantObserver

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Gamer as Participant-Observer

• Jordan Olischefski
• Grant MacEwan College

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• How it all began
• first virtual experience with ColecoVision
• Batman handheld video game
• NES (Nintendo Entertainment System)

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• How it all began
• Fascination becomes an obsession
• video games become a priority
• fixation on fantasy characters, burning
  anticipation to get home from school and play
• most games designed for 1 or 2 players
• heavy emotional involvement, peer comparison,
  etc.

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• Branching out
• creating media
• - gamer fanzine, written and illustrated by hand
  art, reviews, news, cheats, etc.
• creating spaces
• - GameMaker software
• - Duke Nukem level design
• - The Sims
• - Mario Paint

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• Gaming as a social experience
• conversation with peers
• bonding activity (Paperboy with Mom, slumber
  parties, gaming competitions, shared
  anticipation)
• participation in online forums
• games decide friends, friends decide games
• brand loyalty Sega vs. Nintendo Nintendo for
  life!!

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• 3D environments

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• Push toward realism
• enhanced hardware capability narrows the gap
  between actual and artificial experience,
  maximizing perceptual fidelity
• revolutionary control mechanisms

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• Push toward realism
• social realism is becoming as important as
  perceptual realism
• MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing
  game) World of Warcraft, Second Life
• AI systems are increasingly complex, however
  playing a computer opponent is much different
  from playing a real one
• attention, vigilance, physiological engagement
  are crucial in live play

With the role playing games a lot of the things
you tend to do in groups there are some online
where you play with other people who are part of
your party, so there is planning where you have
to take down a high level dragon or something and
you need 40 people to do it s10
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• Self goes virtual
• creating characters - a personal touch
• Get your GamerTag on a leaderboard
• achievement points your online rep
• virtual hockey rekindling an old passion

If I didnt play soccer I wouldnt be as good in
the video game and if I didnt play the video
game then I wouldnt be as good at soccer. It
kinda helps both of them out. Its cool. - s28
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Katamari Damacy
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Video games enter into dreams

• Lucidity, bizarreness, yes.
• Aggression, sometimes.
• Recall, no.
• nightmares very rare
• 3rd person
• Ive just noticed that sometimes Im just there
  as a hovering spirit watching things go on and I
  dont really have a role I dont even pop up in
  my dreams, its just like Im watching a movie
  I feel emotion definitely regardless of whether
  or not Im the person involved s16

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• Gamer rage?
• mad at cheapness
• frustrated by the challenge
• this frustration can be misdirected, but is
  usually momentary
• some are better at controlling their emotions
  than others
• When I was young youd throw your controller and
  it kind of manifested itself like that and now I
  deal with it differently depending on the game
  Ill cry out, goal scored on me, just cry out and
  try to get back at it but you get so frustrated
  that you end up stopping. s16

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• Mortal Kombat Kontroversy
• a misnomer no one actually dies
• curiousity, novelty, thrill, excess?
• unbridled rage

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• The interview
• absorption, bodily sense, time
• Youve probably seen people play video games and
  theyre moving their whole body along with the
  controller, with the screen, I think there is
  that where youre put in the game and youre
  obviously more concerned with the movements on
  the screen than with your own sense of being, so
  yeah I would definitely say that the focus shifts
  to movement on the game and within the game
  s16
• People will say things to me and I just dont
  respond, or it will take me longer to notice that
  Im tired or hungry or have to pee or whatever,
  all I can say is that you get the blinders on,
  like Im really focused on what Im doing in the
  game
• and it totally outweighs whats going on around
  you s16

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• Studying a lifelong infatuation
• I havent grown out of video games, rather my
  fascination now runs deeper
• emotional investment in video games continues
  nostalgia, anticipation
• children and teens are not the only ones playing,
  and this trend will continue
• interests in gaming and psychology intersect
  study of gamer dreams, mental immersion,
  experience of time while playing, consciousness
  itself
• video games continue to be a hobby a reward for
  accomplishing work

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Thank you!