Beyond perception

I was just having a read of Sutton-Smith's model for psychological experience during games. Written in 1986, he denotes visual scanning, auditory discriminations, motor responses, concentration, and perceptual patterns of learning, are the primary cognitive actions we undertake during play. After having a look at these and comparing it to my own experience of play... I've gotta say, he's nailed it. However, I think the psychological requirements of players have extended beyond anything he would've been able to see back then.

Visual scanning has gone to a whole new level on current gen systems. Rather than just a simple scan of the screen, as in the case of the old Atari games, players are called upon to manage and react to a significant amount of information. First person shooter games often display several dozen enemies that the player must account for at any one time. These games also usually take place within larger contexts, such as barren battlefields or even interplanetary wars (eg. Halo). In addition to the frantic flashes of light and managing of things currently on a screen, players are also given radars and sometimes communication windows to go beyond just what can be seen from the player point of view. Moreover, the first person perspective boosts the perceptive requirement of the player to supercomputer levels.

Auditory discriminations have also been extended like visual scanning, and more thoroughly exploited in current games. The creation of the music game, for instance, requires players to have heightened reactive auditory awareness. Not only are we reacting to sound effects or drums or little game beeps, but we are now required to ponder volumes of spoken dialogue rivaling the contents of novels.

Motor responses have been taken to a whole new place with the creation of gesture-based gaming. No doubt the Wii has had something to do with this (good 'ol Nintendo). Rather than just the tapping of A to kill the bugs in Greenhouse Game And Watch, players, quite literally, physically respond to something on screen. In the case of my game idea, players would need to constantly physically block attacks and attempt their own with the movement of their whole bodies, rather than just their thumbs and trigger fingers.

Concentration... probably isn't strong enough of a word anymore. You can concentrate in some games and still fail to complete them. I think a more appropriate term would be something like "trance" or "religious activity". The amount of information and the instantaneous reaction time requirements presented in some current games is far too high for you to just "concentrate". Try playing Through the Fire and the Flames in Guitar Hero 3 on Expert while just "concentrating". Try beating Samurai Goroh on very hard mode in F-Zero GX without going into a trance.

Finally... perception patterns in learning has by and large become superseded. We aren't just coming to know the nuisances of the games we play. What started as a marketing strategy has now become a requirement for developers: players need to be able to live in the game world. The replacement term should be immersion. Players now crave to be immersed in their game experience. They want to feel included, but not just on a surface level. They want to be drenched in the lore and the backstory of the games (eg. Guild Wars). They want to be able to pick up and play and find their characters have permanence to their development (eg. WOW, Oblivion). They want to be taken away by the narrative emotionally and... strangely sometimes physically (eg. Final Fantasy VII, Mass Effect).

Who knows how much further along the psyche of players will be taken? I'm sure Sutton-Smith didn't see the MMORPG or the Wii coming. It's exciting to think about where this industry can and will end up.


Psychological Model from: Toys as Culture, New York: Gardner Press, 1986