| When I was an undergraduate at the University of Calgary, one of the classes I took was in behavioural psychology. Among other concepts, we were taught the basic principles of learning that Pavlov described. (Remember him? He was the Russian guy with the salivating dogs.) Part of the course included seeing how those techniques could be applied, and how effective they were.
We were each assigned our own rat and were responsible for taking good care of them: twice-a-day feedings and clean water regularly. I dubbed my rat Rufus.
Three times per week I’d collect Rufus from his home and place him in a tricked-out training cage. Mounted on the wall of the cage was a speaker, a light and some levers. Over the course of a few weeks, I taught Rufus some complex behaviours. I wouldn’t say he was brilliant, but he started to learn the sequence of tricks immediately, and by the end of our time together, he knew how to execute the following: push lever No. 1 three times to turn on a light; then push lever No. 2 two times to cause a tone to come out of a speaker; then wait for no less than five seconds and no longer than 20 seconds before pushing lever No. 2 another two times to result in a different tone from the speaker; then push lever No. 3 one time.
Our professor claimed that in using techniques like this, people were no different than rats, and he could modify our behaviours just as easily given some simple risk/reward cycles. None of us believed him, but I’ve come to realize that video games prove how similar I am to cute little Rufus.
It certainly explains why it is so easy to lose track of time while playing video games. I’m constantly putting off going to bed in favour of getting through the next level, beating the next enemy or solving the latest puzzle. It makes for some slow-starting mornings.
But I’m not as bad as some gamers. In 2002, two men – one in South Korea and one in Taiwan – died within a month of each other after marathon online gaming sessions. Last August, another South Korean man died after 50 hours of non-stop gaming, having eshewed food and sleep. Cause of death in these cases was established as heart failure stemming from exhaustion.
The problem is serious enough that Chinese officials who oversee the online game industry will be introducing a system to limit the number of consecutive hours gamers can play. Play more than three hours and your character’s abilities are halved. Play for more than five hours and your avatar gets reduced to the lowest level. To restore your character, you must wait a minimum of five hours before returning to play.
Games of all types are designed around rewarding some behaviours while punishing others. Roll doubles three times and get sent to jail, but roll a four and you can build on Boardwalk. Haven’t we all spent late nights playing Monopoly or some version of Hearts or even poker? It comes down to risk and reward, but you can’t win if you don’t play.
REVIEWS
· Dragon Quest VIII: Journey of the Cursed King (publisher: Square Enix; platform: PS2; rating: teen).
This edition of the Dragon Quest series shows why Square Enix is the king of the RPG (role-playing game) format. The storyline is engaging and has just the right amount of weirdness, and the game is easy to learn but difficult enough to keep you from getting bored. You are the Hero, and with the help of your companions you try to save a kingdom from an evil wizard. It’s light-hearted, it doesn’t take itself too seriously, it’s well-designed and it looks great.
· Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects (publisher: EA; platform: DS, GC, PS2, PSP, Xbox; rating: teen).
This game allows you to play as all of your favourite Marvel characters, including (of course) the Imperfects, and like the Marvel comics, the whole story is told through the use of concurrent threads, so you jump back and forth to find out what’s happening to various characters. There are some problems with the actual mechanics of the fighting, and while the characters look great, the environments are an afterthought, but this is quick, arcade-style action that is easy to pick up and loads of fun.
· Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves (publisher: Sony; platform: PS2; rating: everyone 10+).
Sly Cooper is a racoon embodying the iconic ’50s thief – charming, witty and honourable, like David Niven’s Phantom from the Pink Panther films. This latest chapter in his exploits is a platformer, so you’ll be jumping and climbing to complete your jobs, but controlling Sly is not difficult, so new players can pick this up with relative ease. Portraying the different segments of the game as episodes is a clever presentation method, but the true gimmick here is the 3D glasses that come packaged with the game. You can play without wearing them (I couldn’t really judge how successful the 3D effect was), which is a good thing, because the red-and-greens gave me a headache. |
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