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collectiveunconciousofficial · 8 years ago

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Video Games for the Soul

Humans naturally make choices based on their true self, or who they believe they are in an ideal world. People utilize video games as a form of escapism to distract from unpleasant situations, create a community, and as a place to recreate one’s ideal self, or to create what they consider the ideal human visually. In an article posted on http://www.psychologyofgames.com is a blog post, Titled The Psychology of Video Game Avatars, where the author Jamie Madigan quotes Nick Yee, a former research scientist, who currently works for Ubisoft saying, “Studies have shown that, in general, people create slightly idealized avatars based on their actual selves.” Within most, if not all games, there is the ability to project oneself on whatever character is controlled. Video games are a large part of identity, specifically that of youth. There is a deep psychological basis for the creation of the soul, going back to the ancient Greeks and Romans, who projected themselves when they created the image of their gods as they were idealized versions of humans. As a modern society, we have utilized this through novels, movies, and video games.

The most visible representation of the ability to recreate one's soul within a game is the character creator, you create the player’s looks, stats, abilities, and emotions. When you play a character that you have created it is almost always somewhat like yourself. The choices you make determine whether the character is liked by the NPC’s (non-playable characters), inevitably the choices made are your own, not the characters.

A Jungian psychologist named James Hillman is represented in a dissertation called Games as Theater for Soul: An Archetypal Psychology Perspective of Virtual Games, the lead author being Savett (2014), where they utilize his four-step process of soul making (p. 103-106). Starting with Personifying which is “the spontaneous experiencing, envisioning and speaking of the configurations of existence as psyche presences”, viewing yourself or recreating your soul within something else. Then Pathologizing, which is “the psyche’s autonomous ability to create illness, morbidity, disorder, abnormality, and suffering in any aspect of its behavior and to experience and imagine life through this deformed and afflicted perspective” (Savett, 2014, p.104) the game becomes a window for cultural symptoms. It becomes the fall from the real world sometimes illustrating symptoms of depression and anxiety. Next is Psychologizing, which is how the subject begins to re-imagine themselves and how the apparent will move from the unapparent, the transportation into the virtual world. Finally, Dehumanizing is where the person shifts away from an ego-centered focus of the soul and “embraces a more encompassing and transcendent expression of soul.” (Savett, 2014, p. 106.) It’s the final shift from real society into the virtual society one creates within the game.

The image below shows Hillman's ideas and is located on page 103 of the dissertation.

I personally have experienced these steps within a game. I like to joke that my favorite game is “Character Creator”. Most games start with the creation of the character, in which I always try to make one that is attractive. I then become immersed and play out the character’s backstory in my head, (some times this can transfer to art I specifically draw of this character) whether they are a hero or a villain, and how they came to the situation they are placed in during the intro to the game. It eventually ends with me playing the character as if they were me and the choices I would make, without much thought.

I look at the basic things when creating a character like nose and eye shape, but I will also install many mods or modifications. These “mods” are fan made changes to the game to further its success and are usually aesthetic in nature. I have installed over 100 mods, from various creators on the website http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/? . Almost all the mods that I installed were detail oriented, changing the meshes for the face, skin textures and even hair with physics. For example, I installed over 600 hair styles from which to choose, most of them from the same mod author which can only show their dedication to the game. Mods don’t only change a character's appearance, but there are many mods solely for the purpose of making the landscape more beautiful through the re-texturing of the grass, rocks and buildings. Below is a recording of me creating a character in Elder Scrolls V, Skyrim. It's a little over 18 minutes. I created a character specifically for this article, so actually kept it rather short. In this game I’ve spent over an hour designing one character.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hshBEjvCtOM

After I made this video I assumed it would get no foot traffic on YouTube because it was made solely for evidence purposes, has 16 views as I type this! If anything it shows people's enthusiasm for this game even though it's 6 years old. (which is old for a video game as the companies that make said games will release a new one at least every year) This also shows that there is no boundary for the escape, it can even come from other people's experiences in the game, which is part of why gaming channels on YouTube are so successful, most having millions of subscribers with the ability to make a living solely off their videos.

Hilman’s transformation described above commonly influences people's real and social lives. Cosplay (the act of dressing as a character for a large gathering of people who share similar interests) is a large part of the video game community. People will recreate whole suits of armor from a specific game, reinforcing the want or need to be within the game. There is also a large amount of art made by fans of the game throughout the internet. It spans from concept art of the games to fan made characters to whole books of fan-fiction.

A gathering of info done by Charles Sendlor in 2010 on his blog found that at the time he collected the stories there where 3,213,946 total submissions to https://www.fanfiction.net/ .This number represents the number of stories submitted within 5 days, from June 25, 2010 to June 30, 2010. This is a huge number of stories made within such a short period of time. It shows the dedication of fans in internet communities. There is so much content on the internet based on video games that is created by its fan base: conversations (both argumentative and in friendship), music, literature and art. This however can be viewed as a bad thing by those who have not experienced one of these groups of people. It is viewed by those outside of this community as weird, obsessive, and unhealthy. It can breed an unhealthy obsession, but that can be shown within any topic of interest, like those who really love a certain TV show or type of food to the point where that becomes unhealthy. There are many things that people abuse and video games are not excluded from that topic. Too much of a good thing becomes a bad thing. However, done in moderation, society needs to view it as something normal, a pastime. It is the same as playing sports for fun or watching TV or simply reading. Video games are for enjoyment, and the engaging societies that surround them are just a bonus for those who participate.

Many things can enhance and create a person’s identity, school and home being the most influential factors. X. Liu describes in her dissertation, The Influence of Video Games on 21st Century Youth Identity, her interaction with video games at a young age and how they shaped her identity and how she made and kept friends. She references a study done in 1995 by Kellner that deduced that people's identity was influenced by media culture that included books, newspapers, magazines, movies, radio, video games and the internet. Those materials provided the resources and materials to re-shape personal identity and social identity. (Liu, 2013, p. 4). Video games have an inherent ability to impact the youths that play them, “video games provide youths with new platforms to create a new personal identity. Second, through the interaction between players and avatars, players’ personal identity and their avatar's identity are merged into one combined identity.” (Liu, 2013, p. 12). These games are a key developmental stimulant in those that choose them as their choice entertainment. However, there is also an inherent problem within, video games are not in understood by the general society. Liu herself recounts in the intro of her dissertation that her mom became displeased with her daughters continued waste of time gaming. Later in life Liu’s “parents tried to persuade [her] to stop playing video games by saying [she] should spend more time learning.” (Liu, 2013, p. 3). She remembered that if she had stopped she would have lost a lot of friends and the fun she had talking with them about games.

There are many people in today’s society who would agree with Liu’s mom. They don’t see the pleasure and enjoyment people find within the gaming communities and only see the “waste of time” that video games cause. Video games are not inherently evil, even though that's what the general social stigma would have you believe. They are an enjoyment for all ages and a developmental guide to identity and friendships.

I have experienced such discomfort and alienation from classmates when I have revealed my participation in the gaming community. During junior year, I opened up to my AP Lit class about the depression that it can cause when I realize that the game was not real and that I can never actually go to the game world. We were reviewing a TED talk about video games and the brain, and I thought it would be good to give my two cents. I was met with stares and a snort or two. It’s very discouraging to share something you love with people and the problems it can cause and be met with those reactions. Clearly, my experience was not shared or understood by my classmates where some of them I assumed to be my friends. I was either wrong that they were not my friends or this topic is greatly suppressed and not talked about as much as it should be.

Escapism is the idea of seeking out distraction to avoid any unpleasant situations, usually through entertainment or fantasy. Gordon Calleja, author of Digital Games and Escapism, views games as inherently escapist. “They [games] are the shining proponents of cutting edge virtuality, embodying the alluring unreality”, and they are the “opposite of seriousness and work and somehow set apart from the ordinary, everyday life.” (Calleja, 2010, p. 335). Gordon relays a term coined by Huizinga in 1995 in Homo Ludens, Magic circle. The magic circle is the “spatial, temporal, and psychological boundary between the games and the real world.” (Calleja, 2010, p. 340) That’s the modern definition anyway. Huizinga's original term is related to more than just games but also to many social concepts and rules. The magic circle is a way for gamers to separate themselves from the world and immerse themselves in the game and vice versa. Escapism proposes movement, and although it is not a physical movement like those of refugees fleeing a war-torn country to escape, it is an escape of the mind. The player transports themselves into a world where they can be whoever they want and experience a temporary relief of current burdens. It’s a place to go and immerse themselves in another world. Even if the world is something tragic, there is the ability to be both attached and detached from the story, taking mostly its benefits. Many would see this virtual willing suspension of reality to be an unhealthy coping mechanism. However, those same opponents are commonly looking at Facebook or playing Candy Crush. In many ways, we all use various tools to escape and video games is only one tool that when done in moderation, is fine and should be seen as such.However, people who use games solely to escape and cope can suffer from some type of psychological problem, the highly common issues being high stress and low self-esteem. Daniel Kardefelt-Winther, in his study titled The moderating role of psychosocial well-being on the relationship between escapism and excessive online gaming, determined that that the subjects who experienced more heightened escapism also suffered from more negative outcomes and higher levels of stress and low self-esteem. (Kardefelt-Winther, 2014, p. 7-8).

The chart above visualizes data that Kardefelt-Winther gathers. It shows those who start off with high, average, and low stress, and how utilizing escapism increased or decreased the amount of negative outcomes. It shows that those who started with high stress actually got more stressed and that those who suffer from high levels of stress may find that video games are not an effective means of stress management. It also does not account for stress caused by a lack of boundaries and ability to manage time and energy. Of course those who are stressed about school and waste time playing video games instead of doing their necessary work will not experience a decrease in stress.

However, I don’t think this study proves that video games cannot be used in moderation along with things that a doctor could recommend to relieve stress. There are specific indie games made to evoke relaxation and meditation, many being simple games with minimalistic themes that have soothing music behind it. There is a fad that has been going on for the past year or so that is games that are [Blank] Simulator 2k16 or whatever year is relevant. These games range from Truck Simulator to Goat Simulator, many being games that can be played repeatedly with infinite possibilities that can either calm you down, or allow stress relief through destruction of basic object to blow off steam. There are many games on the internet that have the specific intent to reduce stress through immersion.

Further the study shows that moderate or low levels of initial stress were not as negatively impacted. Right now, as I have written this paper, I have taken many “gaming” breaks to relieve stress and clear my mind. I consider myself to suffer from moderately low stress so video games help me and do not negatively affect me like they do others who suffer from stress that should be treated with medication or therapy.

I do feel like I need to address the theory that video games can create violence or can encourage violent behavior. There are many who believe that video games have a direct relationship to violent outburst but in reality the violence is mostly caused by previous mental issues or trauma. “Real violence and video game violence are not the same thing. The vast majority of people who play video games do not commit violent crimes or engage in violent acts. If they did, the 70 million copies of GTA:V that have been sold globally would have thrust the world into chaos.” (Erik Kain, 2016). This point is the most important, if there was a direct relationship with violence and video games for all who played them, they would have been outlawed long ago. “So long as you're not a sociopath, which video games cannot create, you aren't going to have an easy time killing. Even soldiers, in war, struggle with the act.”(Erik Kain, 2016). This quote directly relays the point that all killing is a struggle and playing one game where an unreal animated avatar dies is not the same as taking a human life, nor will it create the urge to kill in real life.

The amount of mass killings led by those who so happen to play video games is not a large number in fact “the number of people who commit mass shootings is so small that this data point is uninformative. Moreover, the vast majority of people who regularly play violent video games will refrain from engaging in any real physical violence — let alone commit mass murder.” (Sean Rife, 2017) Those who play video games are usually a bit reserved, they can find just talking to people stressful so being confrontational is a bit of a stretch for the motive being gaming alone. This evolution of video games to something that has more graphic content is why game ratings were invented. If it's rated M it means mature and you must be 18 or over for anyone to legally sell it to you. So if it's parents who believe that these games can harm their children then maybe they should stop buying them to give to their kids as there is no why they could access it on their own. Further down in Rife’s article, Violent video games do not cause real-world aggression, he discusses the fact that even though video game sales have increased in sales, realism, and violence, violence in western countries has decreased significantly since the time of monochrome pixelated games. Sean Rife, the author, is Assistant Professor of Psychology at Murray State University which causes me to believe that what he has said is backed up by research, it’s also helpful that he focuses his studies on technology and its relationship with people and theirs with the technology. Which obviously this relationship is only going to grow in size as technology advances, everyone will have to use it one way or another, well except the Amish of course.

There are always outside sources that cause aggressiveness. I feel it's never just games, though they may contribute to the issues if utilized incorrectly. So many people claim that video games are the sole cause of violent outbursts when it's mentioned after a shooting, but that's simply not true. The main problem is always something at home or school that are the main problems, a bully or a abusive parent is all it takes to push someone over the edge enough to commit such an act. If the child is isolated or punished frequently for being different, say the stereotype of all boys playing sports and the father being disappointed their son is not interested, it can lead to intense emotional issues. If anything those people go to video games to try and “escape” but are not successful because the help they need really can only come from outside sources.

For too long I have read and heard arguments like this, “The current conditions easily set up children to begin thinking like soldiers and even justify killing.”(Teodora Stoica, 2016). There is no reason to blame games that so many love for something so gruesome as a mass murder, it's a very extreme comparison. One that is made too often as it can be harmful to those who play games recreationally, lowering morale and confidence but also because of anger as the things we love are trashed without research that backs up the assumption. I personally feel victimized not only because I would call myself a “gamer” but also because I am part of the small percentage of females in the gaming community.

The image above is a DS (left) and Gameboy Advances (right).

Video games have had a huge impact on my life and I don’t see that ending. It started when my brother and I received a DS, Gameboy, and a copy of Pokémon Red. It’s how my brother learned to read and how I was introduced to video games. We used those game systems along with our fathers PS2 and the SSX snowboarding game. I have fond memories of my character having a hot pink snowsuit, bat wings, a glowing gold halo, and pigtails. My parents monitored our screen time and helped me learn to manage recreation and responsibility. They are also divorced now and those memories of my childhood are of fun times and video games definitely served as an escapism when our family dynamic changed.

The general opinion of video games should change. There should not be a stigma from enjoying such a simple thing, especially if that stigma comes from the parents of the children who want to enjoy them. Video games can have a positive influence on children, building their personality and character, but also their multitasking and perception skills. It has help shape and build mine, influencing my art and ideas.

All in all, there are a million games to play, games made for all types of people made by all types of people. This is a booming and expanding industry with a whole generation of people who love games, furthering them from just a game to an experience. Moving from computers to holograms to virtual reality. No one should be persecuted for the occasional escape to a better world than ours. The game is changing and it is easy to discount the industry but easier to join in as player 2.

Bibliography

Calleja, G. (2010). Digital Games and Escapism. Games And Culture,5(4), 335-353.

Kain, E. (2016). No, For The Millionth Time, Video Games Don't Cause Real World Violence. Forbes.

Kardefelt-Winther, D. (2014). The moderating role of psychosocial well-being on the relationship between escapism and excessive online gaming. Computers in Human Behavior, 38, 68-74.

Liu, X., & Sanford, Kathy. (2013). The Influence of Video Games on 21st Century Youth Identity, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Madigan, J. (2013). The Psychology of Video Game Avatars. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF VIDEO GAMES.

Savett, S., Kipnis, Aaron, Howard, Jeffrey, & Koehn, Allen. (2014). Games as Theater for Soul: An Archetypal Psychology Perspective of Virtual Games, ProQuest Dissertations and Theses.

Sean, R. (2017). Violent video games do not cause real-world aggression. Learn Liberty.

Sendlor, C. (2010). FanFiction.Net story totals. Fan Fiction Statistics - FFN Research

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