The Appeal of Video Games

People spend incredible amounts of time playing video games. “People spend three billion hours a week playing video games” (Science Daily). In fact, video games constitute one of the most popular forms of entertainment in today’s society. In addition, consumers spend unbelievable amounts of money to purchase games and game consoles. Research has focused on investigating the harmful effects of video games and ignored the “simple question of why people want to play them”. (Science Daily). Psychologists are just beginning to understand this mystery. Research in the field has begun to investigate what needs are fulfilled by playing video games. People play video games to fulfill three major psychological needs; these needs are competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

Playing video games makes people feel a sense of competence. “Competence is to seek out control or feel mastery over a situation” (Game Informer Magazine). Early video games such as Galaga, Pong, and Donkey Kong had built in mastery system levels. Beginning levels were fairly simple allowing gamers to adjust themselves to the game. As gamers became better, or more competent at the game, the game would gradually get harder forcing players to get better and better. The reason why players would continue getting better and playing longer in order to do so was because there was a form of balance. This balance was very important because no one wants to play a game that is to difficult to the point were they actually got angry. Also a game can eventually get boring if it gets to easy. “Developers of early arcade video games sought to avoid either boredom or game difficulty to hold the interest and loyalty of the player” (Przbylski & Riqby). Video games fulfi...

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...psychological needs. The need for competence is accomplished as players feel a sense of progression through difficult levels in games. Autonomy is satisfied through the option of choice in a game. People are allowed to customize their games to their preferences. Video games also allow gamers to feel related to others and experience social interactions and feel connected to fellow gamers. Video games often get a bad reputation because of the amount of time and money spent on them. However, playing video games can fulfill certain psychological needs. Hopefully in the future, gamers will be able to select games based on certain unfulfilled psychological needs. Perhaps there will be games for depression, pent up energy, fear and phobias, and broken relationships. These games will help to distract people from their problems and help relax them in positive ways.