AATP Interactive

Can a Computer Game Make You Cry?

A recent online survey of 535 gamers by Bowen research explored how important the range of emotions was to the success of any particular game. The results are interesting. What role does emotion play? Over a third of the participants report that games are quite an emotional experience. 8% think they're tremendously emotional, 29% quite a bit.

When asked what art forms speak the most to us, games don't rank at the top. Ranked 1 to 6, where 1 is the most emotional, the order was: movies, music, books, video/PC games, paintings/artwork, and last cars. Heavy gamers have more of a feeling for movies. Lighter and younger gamers are more moved by music.

The surveyor believed that massive multiplayer online games (MMOs) would top the list, but role playing games (RPGs) were clearly the runaway winner and by far the most emotional genre of videogames. Interaction with computer characters seems richer (at this stage of development) than interacting with people in MMOs.

Here are the genres in order of the percentage of gamers who ranked them as emotionally powerful:

Role playing games 78%
First person shooters 52%
Action 49%
Adventure 48%
Fighting 39%
Sports 34%
MMOs 32%
Racing 31%
Real time strategy 24%
General strategy/puzzle 15%
Flight simulators 8%
Flying 8%

Among individual titles, a role playing game, Final Fantasy, is far and away the richest emotionally (the number of mentions is shown).
Final Fantasy series, 104
Resident Evil series, 27
Halo, 15
Silent Hill series, 11
Metal Gear Solid, 11
Madden (football), 9

The survey also differentiated the type of game and the various emotions that individuals felt. Some examples are:

Action games, the biggest genre, drew these comments: "Action games can lead to a state of frustration, panic, exhaustion, exhuberance, and suspense. Then, anger, spitefulness, relief and worry kick in." As an example, "In Max Payne you could see the anger and sadness in his life due to the loss of his family."

Role playing games: People get real cranked up. "You see life and death and magical things occur." Players get involved with the characters due to the depth of the story (that "rival novels"), cut scenes, "sweeping" musical scores – and of course the dozens and dozens of hours of play.

The death of Aeries in Final Fantasy VII, where she's thrust through with a sword, appears to be a defining moment for our industry. It was mentioned in the study time and time again. Many cried, and couldn't forget it. People spent months trying to revive her, appealing to Square Enix for a repreive.

Gamers said about Aeries' death: "I couldn't play the game for like a week after that, because I was so depressed." "Friends still talk about their surprise, shock and denial when they reached that point in the game." A father was playing the game with his two young sons, and apparently Aeries' death was too much for them: "For months, we couldn't even listen to the musical theme … without one of the boys bursting into tears."

Adventure games have some of the feelings of RPGs, but not the depth. They have "the thrill of discovery. The tension of surviving." Some adventure games, like Sam and Max Hit the Road, and much of the older LucasArts work, is "flat-out hilarious." Myst had extraordinary "moments of peaceful beauty."

First person shooters, as you might imagine, are "violent, get your rage and blood pumping." You feel "the ruthlessness of being the hunter, the fear of being the hunted…" Again intense, but narrow. These games, as one said, send "that chill down the back of my neck." And, don't forget the competition.

Massive multiplayer online games evoke emotions chiefly due to interaction with other real people. If someone kindly takes time to help you with a spell, or is a lying cheat, you have an emotional reaction.

Horror games, well, yes, they can scare the living daylights out of you.

Sports games give the purest form of competition. Playing ESPN Hockey 2004 with his best friend, "We were tied 2-2 going into triple overtime when I scored the winning goal with 6 seconds remaining. I jumped off my bed and screamed YEEEEEEESSSSS!!!! Then we both took a deep breath and admitted it was a great battle and one of the best 45 minutes ever spent."

Fighting games, like sports, are about "losing, struggling, winning." They also "help solve rage issues."

Real time strategy games are really more about thinking. Still, they offer a rich world, "it's like having a fantasy novel read to you inbetween the action." "You identify with the struggles of your people." These too can be humorous.

Fighting/strategy puzzle and flight simulators don't evoke much emotion.

Most Emotional Game Scene

A article in Wired, describes how Aerith's death in Final Fantasy VII was "a sort of watershed moment for the gaming industry," Bowen argues, because in their written notes on the surveys, many gamers singled it out as the first time a game caused them genuine heartache. It was described as "nearly Wagnerian in its sadness. As Aerith collapses, a ball of life force emerges from her body and falls slowly away, each bounce triggering the opening notes of her funeral melody. No wonder teenagers are now lining up to watch symphonies perform music from the game. It's that heart-piercing."

Clearly, while games have an enormous affective component to them, most of the individuls polled felt that films, music and books were more emotionally affective than games (in that order of preference). Yet 63 percent predicted that games would eventually equal, or even surpass, traditional media.

Here is a video of Aerith's death scene in Final Fantasy VII

FDA Requires Electronic Drug Labels

Drug makers will be required to submit any new or updated labels in a digital format under a new drug label protocol FDA officials announced today. Currently, there is no central source with up-to-date label information, although most drug makers post labels on their Web sites and the information is included on the FDA Web site.

The new protocol, which is the first stage of the FDA's larger effort to update drug labels, will require drug makers to submit digital versions of all existing labels to the agency within the next year. The National Library of Medicine will compile the digital labels into an online public archive, called Daily Med, and the FDA will also be launching a Web site containing the drug label information, as well as information about medical devices and other products the agency regulates.

This electronic format is supposed to make it easier for consumers and health-care providers to access drug product information that's already found in the FDA-approved package inserts for all approved medications in the United States.

The government expects to have labels for most of the available prescription drugs posted on the Web site of the National Library of Medicine -- http://dailymed.nlm.nih.gov -- within a year.