Online survey data were collected from 30,000 users of Massively Multi-User Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) over a three year period to explore users' demographics, motivations, and derived experiences. Not only do MMORPGs appeal to a broad age range (M-age = 26.57, range = 11-68), but the appeal is strong (on aver-age 22 hours of usage per week) across users of all ages (r = -.04). An exploratory factor analysis revealed a five factor model of user motivations-Achievement, Relationship, Immersion, Escapism, and Manipulation-illustrating the multifaceted appeal of these online environments. Male players were significantly more likely to be driven by the Achievement and Manipulation factors, while female players were significantly more likely to be driven by the Relationship factor. Also, the data indicated that users derived meaningful relationships and salient emotional experiences, as well as real-life leadership skills from these virtual environments. MMORPGs are not simply a pastime for teenagers, but a valuable research venue and platform where millions of users inter-act and collaborate using real-time 3D avatars on a daily basis. Read more...

Identification is regarded as an important aspect of beneficial online interaction. In addition to providing the individual with potential psychological benefits, identification with an online self or avatar can also increase individual and social understanding and tolerance of difference. The ability to create a character, or avatar, that can be identified with is the initial, and arguably the most important, step in the process of identification. However, this process has changed significantly with the advent and development of visually oriented games. Through participant-observation conducted in World of Warcraft and textual analysis of online forums associated with the game, this paper investigates the ways in which visual elements of online games affect the process of identifying with an online self. Ultimately, it argues that although interacting in a virtual environment where everything is immediately visible can ease the identification process, limits on character appearance, movement, and interaction imposed by visually rendering the game could simultaneously compromise this benefit. Read more...

Modern video games represent highly advanced virtual reality simulations and often contain virtual violence. In a significant amount of young males, playing video games is a quotidian activity, making it an almost natural behavior. Recordings of brain activation with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) during gameplay may reflect neuronal correlates of real-life behavior. We recorded 13 experienced gamers (18-26 years; average 14 hrs/week playing) while playing a violent first-person shooter game (a violent computer game played in self-perspective) by means of distortion and dephasing reduced fMRI (3 T; single-shot triple-echo echo-planar imaging [EPI]). Content analysis of the video and sound with 100 ms time resolution achieved relevant behavioral variables. These variables explained significant signal variance across large distributed networks. Occurrence of violent scenes revealed significant neuronal correlates in an event-related design. Activation of dorsal and deactivation of rostral anterior cingulate and amygdala characterized the mid-frontal pattern related to virtual violence. Statistics and effect sizes can be considered large at these areas. Optimized imaging strategies allowed for single-subject and for single-trial analysis with good image quality at basal brain structures. We propose that virtual environments can be used to study neuronal processes involved in semi-naturalistic behavior as determined by content analysis. Importantly, the activation pattern reflects brain-environment interactions rather than stimulus responses as observed in classical experimental designs. We relate our findings to the general discussion on social effects of playing first-person shooter games. Read more...

The relationship was examined between exposure to and preference for violent electronic games and aggressive norms as well as hostile attributional style. Following a pilot study to sample widely used electronic games varying in violent content, 231 eighth-grade adolescents in Germany reported their use of and attraction to violent electronic games. They also completed measures of hostile attributional style and endorsement of aggressive norms. There were significant gender differences in usage and attraction to violent electronic games, with boys scoring higher than girls. Significant relationships were found between attraction to violent electronic games and the acceptance of norms condoning physical aggression. Violent electronic games were linked indirectly to hostile attributional style through aggressive norms. The findings are discussed with respect to North American research on the aggression-enhancing effect of violent electronic games. Read more...

This article proposes a theoretical explanation for the popularity of violent video games among adolescent male gamers. The author uses theories about media and emotion as well as theories about emotion as a process to develop a model for the unfolding of emotion in violent video games. It is argued that violent video games provide a gratifying context for the experience of emotions. The fact that gamers are largely in control of the game implies that they can voluntarily select the emotional situations they confront. This freedom is attractive for adolescents who are in the midst of constructing an identity. For them, the violent game is a safe, private laboratory where they can experience different emotions, including those that arc controversial in ordinary life. Gamers may deliberately select emotions that sustain dominant masculine identity (e.g., anger), as well as emotions that are at odds with dominant masculinity (e.g., fear). Read more...

It has been widely acknowledged in the areas of human memory and cognition that behaviour and emotion are essentially grounded by autobiographic knowledge. In this paper we propose an overall framework of human autobiographic memory for modelling believable virtual characters in narrative story-telling systems and role-playing computer games. We first lay out the background research of autobiographic memory in Psychology, Cognitive Science and Artificial Intelligence. Our autobiographic agent framework is then detailed with features supporting other cognitive processes which have been extensively modelled in the design of believable virtual characters (e.g. goal structure, emotion, attention, memory schema and reactive behaviour-based control at a lower level). Finally we list directions for future research at the end of the paper. Read more...