Disclaimer: I am not a neuro scientist, psychologist, or psychiatrist or have any formal training in psychology.
I think that the appeal of games is based on the neurochemical receptors that are triggered through the actions of the game. My current feeling came about when someone posted to facebook about the work of Helen Fisher; a dating and love anthropologist. She has done work connecting neurochemical receptors in the brain to four temperaments. When I read these temperaments they seemed suspiciously similar to Bartle’s temperaments for MUD and MMO’s. When I looked further into her research I found that she had identified specific neurochemical receptors that seemed to correlate with Bartle’s model. While this gives new meaning to the phrase “I love games,” I think it also opens the door to look for additional neurochemicals and to see how the drive for satiation of these chemicals could be used to make games more appealing to players.
I roughly find that the association of neurchemicals and temperaments breaks-down to something like this:
-killer (testosterone) (maybe with no-epinephrine)
- social dominance, less social sensitivity, attention to detail, intense focus.
When you look at the basic actions of a ‘killer’ personality they tend taunt and seek dominance over other players. You also see in highly competitive environments similar sorts of actions. Players in highly competitive games get increased focus.
-socialize(estrogen/oxytocin)
-verbal fluency,empathy, drive for social attachment, imagination
when you look at these socializers you tend to see that these neuchemicals support traits that seem to be more in-line with role-playing. Later when we look at achievers we will see they also are socially active however it doesn’t seem to support role-playing but More number crunching.
-explorer (dopamine and no-epinephrine)
-thrill, boredom susceptibility, impulsiveness, enthusiasm
These qualities do seem to be harder to track since these people would be playing games for a shorter amount of time moving from different game to different game. you do see these people because there are always people who are looking for new an unique experiences.
-achiever (serotonin)
-sustained attention, low novelty seeking, figural and numeric creativity
Basically these qualities seem to be helpful in the top MMO players who make ‘builds’ and execute raids. it is also associated with sociability, extroversion and low anxeity. (This makes me question if drugs like antidepressants or MAOIs could be sued in the treatment of MMO addition)
Here is the data that Helen Fisher has on her site that lead me to this conclusion:
http://www.helenfisher.com/downloads/articles/APATempDimen-8.ppt
I’m not going to say that the types of games you play determine the type of girlfriend you want to have (or type of boyfriend as the case may be). The real strength of this data is in trying to find a way for games to create scenarios where all these neurochemcials have the potential to be stimulates so that players will always find an experience that is satisfying. This correlation is also helpful for looking for more neurochemicals that could show why certain games are popular or how to tap previouly unknown markets.
It is important to note that people have ALL of these receptors in their brain. People are not a ‘killer’ or a ‘socializer’; they are all of these things. However there is a theory called drive theory that states people try to reach satiation of certain behaviors. My guess is that a ‘killer’ is someone who doesn't get enough, or has a higher tolerance of testosterone in their system and seeks to supplement it with their gaming activity. I have no proof of this; but it is not an implausible theory. This would imply that different cultures or people in different living/working conditions would want to have different types of games and/or there would be a correlation between your relatives and the games you liked (although that would be hard to prove it was a biological predisposition as opposed to an environmental one).
I wonder if there is additional information on these topics that I haven’t seen.
