Psychology of Video Games Podcast

My guest experts and I discuss how moral choices in video games are different from other media and what makes them so difficult. We also discuss some of our favorite and most compelling choices from games.

Empathy --the ability to understand and share the emotions of others-- is a powerful tool for those wanting to create games where the goal is to get players to think differently and have powerful emotional experiences. It can be used to great effect and probably plays a big part in more games than you realize.

But leveraging empathy in games has its own risks and pitfalls. Designers who do so need to be aware of these so that they can successfully create the outcomes they want and so that players aren't abused or exposed to undue distress.

Fortunately, my guest expert on this episode, Kelli Dunlap PsyD, is here to help us explore and understand this psychological concept.

Special ALL HAWAII EDITION! To give me a little breathing room after finishing up my book manuscript, here are two complete interviews I did while researching the recent loot box podcast episode. One is the full interview with Representative Chris Lee, and the other is with Ed White, who has provided testimony during hearings on the topic.

What is the relationship between loot boxes and problematic gambling? Should loot boxes be considered a form of gambling? In this episode I talk with Chris Lee, a politician, and David Zendle, a researcher, who are both very interested in the answers to those questions.

How do game developers make virtual items as collectible as physical objects?

I talk with Dr. Anthony Bean and several of his collaborators on a book about psychology and the Legend of Zelda.

I talk with Dr. Richard Landers, an expert researcher on gamification and game-based assessments. We discuss some of the psychology behind why gamification does (and does not) work, as well as why it's so difficult to do it well. We also talk about the use of actual games to assess people's skills and abilities. Is it possible to create, for example, a game that measures people' general mental ability?

I talk in this episode with my guest expert, Megan Connell PsyD, who uses Dungeons & Dragons in group therapy with remarkable results and runs a weekly D&D game with psychology nerds on Twitch. We also discuss what lessons psychology has for helping other people at the table --possibly including yourself-- and how to find and get along with a new gaming group.

Say it's time to download a new game for your phone or tablet. What, out of the billions of choices out there, will you choose? Psychology pretty consistently tells us that when we have too many choices we look for strategies and heuristics for making those decisions easier. And what's more, much of this might happen with little to no conscious thought. Our brains have evolved to become really good at applying these kinds of decision-making rules and we tend to apply them automatically or let them be guided by gut instinct and emotion. In short, we develop an affinity for certain types of mobile games, and then we let that affinity drive our decision about what to play next.

But how does this process work, and what are the different aspects of games that we develop affinity for? Can game designers measure these kinds of stated or internal preferences and use that information to market games to us or even decide what kinds of games to make? What are the potential costs and benefits of this kind of approach to the industry and to players? These are the kinds of questions that I will discuss with my guest expert on this episode of the podcast.

Video games often get kind of a short shrift when it comes to how valuable they are considered, versus a being a waste of time. Yet an argument can be made that they teach and reinforce valuable skills that psychologists have found to be important for success in work and life in general. Games can teach you how to persist through obstacles, for example, or how to cooperate with people towards a common goal. They can drive learning and creative thinking.

These are the kinds of topics I will discuss with this week's guest expert, Jonathan D. Harrison.

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