Lost in the Game

Have you ever dreamt of becoming somebody else? How appealing is the idea of turning into Lara Croft, the dream girl with the perfect body, or a medieval assassin? Video games provide us with the illusion of being the real hero. It is not Indiana Jones jumping from a cliff and catching the edge at the last minute, but you.

AUP student Sofia Pimenova shared her impressions from the gaming process, “I like games which allow you to play as several characters, allowing you to enhance certain aspects of your personality. One day you are the town’s hero, and another day you are burning it to the ground. It empowers you on the level of God, well virtually, of course.”

In the 2000s the gaming industries attracted their customers by offering them the opportunity to embody a pre-set character.Nowadays, users are increasingly becoming personally involved in creating the characters they play.

Video games are not just entertainment; they also have a strong psychological impact. In The Ambiguity of Play, professor Brian Sutton-Smith, a researcher who studied gaming from a psychological perspective writes, “During the game, people experience strong positive emotions.” Video games are constructed to enable people to fulfill their craziest desires and reward them for creativity. For Vitaly Kechik, a video game developer and software architect for Dice Services, that can become a problem, “If the person tries to fulfill his desires through the game, whether they are noble or vicious, he must understand them in full, as well as their consequences.”

People tend to suppress their habits and natural behavior according to social norms. On the contrary, games enable players to act in any way they want, and some virtual universes even reward them for cruelty and anger. Abdulillah Al-Guthami, a former AUP student, explains, “What’s the point of driving around in an old Ford, when through pressing a couple of buttons you can have a military jet that can explode any car on the highway?”

“MY DIGITAL ME IS ALWAYS PERFECT.”

In some cases, gamers can fully engage with the character from the other side of the screen and absorb some of the features of their virtual personality, which blurs the fine line between illusion and reality. Al-Guthami noticed a similar type of pattern in his relationship with video games, “Sometimes, when I play GTA for a long time, I start to notice that my way of driving changes: I attempt to break the rules, neglect the speed limit, or catch myself thinking that I should hit the car of a slow rider, in the way I do it in the game.” Kechik is particularly concerned about this complication, “The problem is, that when the person receives a dose of dopamine after the game, he tends to bring his habits into the real society.”

Kechik highlights that “video games allow you not just to engage mentally with the character but also to literally visualize yourself in action.” The gaming industries spotted theattachment of players to their virtual character and decided to exploit this vulnerability. They understood that for many of their customers the maximum visual resemblance with the game character is a vital aspect of the game. If the avatar visually resembles the player, the victories would feel sweeter, making them crave more of this pleasant feeling. For Pimenova this is important, “I believe people look for a visual resemblance with their avatar. It makes the game more appealing. If there is an opportunity to choose a character, I try to create if not the identical version of myself then, at least, how I would like to see myself specifically in one game or another.”

According to the GSA (Gaming Standard Association), since the option to customize your character was introduced into the gaming industry, the gaming market has drastically expanded to 134.9 billion dollars in market value in 2018, a 10.9 percent increase from 2017. The developers of Fall Out, for example, introduced the ability to adjust every feature of your character’s appearance at any moment of the game. If a person had a haircut in real life, they could immediately give the same haircut digitally to their character for the maximum resemblance. The manual for the game states, “If all you want to do is to change your hair, including your facial hair, you need to head to the barber,” just like in real life. By adjusting every facial and bodily feature manually, the player can create an almost identical visual representation of themselves or any other desired person.

Pimenova says, “In the game, I’m not just imitating my real appearance, but rather upgrading it by getting rid of the features that can influence my feeling of insecurity: height, age, hair, body shape. My digital me is always perfect.” Whatever the player envisions in his head can be reflected on his avatar. Beyond the visual resemblance, there is also a part of the identification processes in which gamers may start to associate their personality and behavior with the character. Igor Kuznetsov, a Russian businessman and avid gamer, explains, “For the game to be interesting, I need to be close with my avatar. I need to understand how he acts and thinks and I need to have the feeling that I would have done the same thing.” Kechik highlights that games offer people the alternative of being whoever they want without a judgmental look from others, “They can fully disclose themselves, through the absence of limitations caused by morality, law or personal responsibilities.”

In January 2019, Stanford University published research that “peeks” into the brain of gamers. Stanford’s scientists noticed that gamers’ neurons function differently from non-gamers’: the areas responsible for motivation and striving for new goals are much more stimulated.

According to Addictions.com, “Escape as a coping mechanism is one of the key components of an addiction.” Through the constant repetition of gameplay in virtual reality, gamers escape from their everyday failures. Eventually, they gain the desired points that replace the lack of satisfaction with their achievements in real life and sink them further into the fantasy world of gaming.

“THROUGH THE CONSTANT REPETITION OF GAMEPLAY IN VIRTUAL REALITY, GAMERS ESCAPE FROM THEIR EVERYDAY FAILURES.”

Gaming has come a long way from primitive arcade games to full-fledged virtual worlds where the player is able to make an extraordinary number of choices from every aspect of their appearance to their behavior. Whether we choose to insert ourselves into a game or to build a radically different personality, the question is raised of how we can distinguish between our two selves. Will we live here or beyond the screen?

By Kristina Kuznetcova