Does the aesthetic inclination of your favorite game affect your play style and mood? My college buddy Nick Douglas
(you may know him from Gawker or Valleywag) thinks so. He's not a much
of a gamer, but he played a little Counterstrike back in college:
But during school breaks, I’d play Counterstrike... and everyone I met was an asshole. Everyone who played poorly
was called an idiot, and everyone who played well was accused of
hacking. Playing the game didn’t feel like work, the way long-term
games like World of Warcraft feel, but some players treated it like
work, and it could be emotionally draining putting up with the abuse.
And like I said, I never learned how to play.
Now, Nick's got a brand new bag called Team Fortress 2. He thinks the jokey, cartoonish nature of Team Fortress 2's graphics encourages players to, well, play nice:
But on Team Fortress 2 the players are friendly, jokey, encouraging
toward newbies. And because of that, I’m learning. I’m getting along
with players. I found favorite servers that I visit often. Even when my
team’s losing, we have a sense of humor about it. I just cracked up
tonight during my usual 100 deaths. (Granted, now I’m able to kill one
or two guys with each life.)
Nick's
theory is a virtual application of what's come to be known as the
"broken windows theory". The idea is that the aesthetic quality of the
environments in which we live affects our behavior. Here's an Atlantic Monthly article from 1982:
"Consider
a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired,
the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually,
they may even break into the building, and if it's unoccupied, perhaps
become sqatters or light fires inside.Read More...
