Novelty or variety make life interesting, fun and engaging. Video games give you the opportunity to do something new. With more than 1 million games available, there are endless new gaming experiences. You don't have to research video game research for a long time to realize that dopamine plays a key role in their attractiveness.
Dopamine is a neurotransmitter in the brain that is activated when people participate in something fun and enjoyable, such as video games. Some research has shown that dopamine levels increase when children play video games and, therefore, want to continue playing to receive this “dopamine hit”. People are attracted to video by including social aspects such as competition, cooperation and communication. Competition is a key concept in most social video game activities, since its purpose is to ensure the player's self-gratification.
It is considered by Vorderer et al. This is due to the emotional stimulus caused by a player's reaction to winning or losing in a competitive situation. Social competence is defined as “a process that is developed through competitive actions carried out by individuals or social entities in order to maintain their own interests at the disadvantage of others (p.) While people and artificial intelligence are included in social competence, there is an important difference that divides them. In a report published by Mandryk et al.
This idea was further supported by a survey by Weibel et al. He reported that the players chose to involve another person in a social competition through a computer (p. The presence of leaderboards encourages competition between players in many online games). The statistics are then organized, ranked and published for all players to see.
This feature encourages competition by showing players their consistent progress in the game, as well as the people they play with. By doing this, players want to continuously play and compete in the game to be even better and to stay ahead of other players. In the online games I play, such as Battlefield and Call of Duty, I definitely check the leaderboards after every game I play to find out how much better I want to do in the future. These psychological needs for competence, autonomy and relationship are real and exist with or without video games on stage.
In addition, there has recently been a shift in focus in the world of games, where people have been interested in using games for a purpose other than entertainment. In almost every video game, a reward system is run that gives the game its purpose. Just as you wouldn't allow your child to eat unlimited ice cream, just because it makes them feel good, you need to limit video game time so that this dopamine effect doesn't become overwhelming. As long as video game developers continue to include these methods in video games, the fan base will always be excellent and will grow continuously.
Just as I mentioned how I try to observe when my children are most attracted to video games, researchers have done the same research on a large scale. If we look at what video games look like now, they are mainly played on real game consoles with a relatively complex direction and are more like movies that people themselves can control. The inclusion of reward systems, social interaction and control functions is what makes people play video games. However, it's helpful for parents to understand the role of dopamine in their children's brains when playing video games.
Attempting to meet these needs through video games doesn't nearly provide the richness, meaning and growth that the real world can provide. This system has been used by people long before it was applied to video games, such as sports, pinball and table games. I can't imagine a video game being successful without the inclusion of all three functions. .
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