Video Games and Society: A Short Reflection

By generating more than $800 million in the first day of sales, the recently released video game Grand Theft Auto V (GTA V) is highly successful commercially. This comes as no surprise as the game series’ predecessors also generated high revenues and GTA V was extensively marketed through media campaigns.

 

People playing GTA V have to fulfill different missions in the fictional City of Los Santos. Thereby, these missions are most often only accomplishable through violent actions like stealing cars, shooting police officers or getting information by torturing other people. The overwhelming graphics and the huge open and interactive world of Los Santos add to the video game’s realistic environment.

Since a couple of years, I fulfill my duty as a military psychologist assisting military personnel (mainly recruits) in need of psychological counseling. In this context, it occurs to me that video games play an increasing part in the life of twenty-year old males and are co-occurring with social or psychological problems. During conversations, the recruits frequently tell me of spending three or more hours a day on video gaming. A small proportion also shows addictive behavior and the corresponding withdrawal symptoms related to excessive video gaming.  At the same time, most of these recruits report reduced participation in real world social activities (e.g., being members of a clubs, political participation). Taking into account the very selective population my observations are based on, and the risk of over-interpretation, I would like to reflect shortly on the consequences of video gaming for society.

Starting with the consequences for real world contact due to an extensive consumption of video games, people may have reduced social experiences. Research related to social psychology consistently showed that social contact is a powerful mechanism to reduce stereotypes, prejudice and discrimination among different individuals, groups and organizations in society. Therefore, diminished social contact and a societal tendency for individualism and self-realization may are related to video games confronting people with increasingly realistic open world scenarios. Additionally, there still exists an unsolved debate about the causes and effects of violent contents in video games.

However, there are also positive aspects of video games. People who experience difficulties in real world interactions can be offered a less stressful and demanding online alternative. Many video games are designed exactly to address these integrative aspects of online interactions, as the game’s challenges can only be solved cooperatively. Further, realistic video games combined with integrative online features are the result of an interconnected and globalized society. Hence, video gaming may develop skills and capabilities required for being successful in such an environment.

I am surprised by how silent research in various disciplines is when it comes to the analysis of societal consequences related to video gaming. In this context, a public discourse among the various stakeholders (e.g., families, clubs, organizations, game developers, employers, researchers) and their responsibilities related to video games is needed.

Mindsets

A few days ago I watched a news contribution on a manipulated scientific medical study about a pill. It turns out that several employees of a pharmaceutical company where involved in the construction and completion of this study without disclosing this fact. The manipulation of the data led to positive outcomes of the study, helping to make this pill very popular and thus very lucrative. In this particular study some criminal intention was clearly at play. But many of these medical studies are financed by pharmaceutical companies, says the expert on the news report. This got me thinking about the influence of conflict of interest on the outcome of studies.

In a documentary on fracking I recently watched, I found a similar pattern. The people involved in making money or allowing this technique of oil production, conducted studies showing that this way of flowing oil is harmless to humans and nature. The NGOs concerned with the destruction of the environment found converse results. How can this be? Both parties have a big motivation to prove their arguments. Both parties have a specific mindset when constructing their study. This leads to a frame of thinking and a way of perceiving the world. I think every scientist should have a look at their basic motivation of research and their underlying assumptions of how the world works or ought to work in their eyes. It is very hard to fight one’s own frame of thinking, but by making these implicit assumptions explicit and communicating them, others can better understand your where you are coming from. If obvious conflict of interest is given as is the case in the example of the manipulated study and in my opinion also in the case of financing, I think it will prevent a scientist from performing rigorous research and should be excluded from the carrying out the study.

This is my mind frame and my motivation for this article: I am a psychologist and stakeholder theory enthusiast and think that explicating and communicating thoughts and assumptions helps to find common grounds. Further, I think the world is not black or white but should be looked at nuanced. Further we are working on a paper on mindsets and basic assumptions of different theories, which got me to pay more attention on this issue. So in this sense: Q.E.D.
 

Vanessa McSorley

 

 

Caring about the customer

 

 

In stakeholder management customers are regarded as primary stakeholders of the firm but also many a firm not pursuing general stakeholder management, does think it should be customer oriented. “Usability”, “ergonomics” and “human centred design” are no longer exceptions in strategic considerations. The customers are moving toward the core focus of business, which I think is a good development, because traditional customer orientation is not enough. A deeper and more honest relationship to the people who are buying your goods is necessary. As I see it, the primary focus should not be on how to sell more of a company’s products, but on what the person buying the product really wants (also resulting in selling more products).

I would like to illustrate this think shift: Many people like to eat healthy food. A snack company spots this customer need, puts some milk into the product and praises it as being a healthy snack, even though most nutritionists would assess the product to be of the contrary (heavily sugared and fatty). So just by recognizing and addressing the consumer need doesn’t make a customer centred firm. Another example: Consumers like the look of dark red meat (not grayish meat) because they have built the mental shortcut (heuristic) that intense color in food is a sign of freshness. This is why market research study participants would prefer the dark red meat to a grayish meat product. A company that follows what the consumer actually wants, will not sell the consumer a meat that was treated with a gas that keeps it red (but doesn’t keep it fresh), it will sell the consumer fresh meat. This is not only a shift in strategy, this will have wide implications for a company’s daily business in distribution, packaging, communication and so on.

 

We use these mental shortcuts (here: intense color equals fresh food) because they mostly lead us to making good decisions (read publications by Gerd Gigerenzer for more on this topic). Shortcuts make life easier; especially in this fast paced, information-overloaded environment. These heuristics are good because they are often based on experience and implicit knowledge. But the shortcut only works if it is not tampered with by others. Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist, wrote several books on persuasion, summarizing his findings based on many experiments he had made in his research on e.g. selling tactics. But he states “Just because a given [powerful psychological] principle is successful does not mean we are ethically entitled to commission its persuasive power to create change.” I think this misusing psychological mechanisms such as heuristics is not only unethical it is also a strategy that won’t lead to sustainable business success. A company that shares its purpose (the “why” of a company) with its customers and therefore wants the same thing, will be able to engage the people they call their customers and conquer the challenges (such as resource scarcity) together in an innovative way, and of course sell their products.

 

Vanessa McSorley