Paper Abstract - Jeroen Jansz

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ABSTRACT

Why is Violent Appealing to Male Gamers?

Jeroen Jansz

Boys like to play games, in particular the ones focused on violence and action. In this paper I will address the question why many boys and young men become involved in and enjoy violent portrayals and actions in computer games. As a matter of fact, most of them avoid graphic vary life, and many will even turn away in disgust.

The first part of the paper reports parts of our recent study among 296 young gamers. The large majority of the participants who answered our questionnaire posted on games site was of male gender (214). Almost all respondents were young, that is, between 13 and 25 years of age (mean age 20). Gaming was their favourite pass-time, although surfing on the internet came close. Reading was the least mentioned leisure activity. When asked about their favourite type of game, most chose violent games (36%). Sport and adventure games came next (both 24%), and simulation games were fourth in line (15%). In order to understand why they played, and why many of them played so long, we invited them to answer 36 scaled items about their motives for gaming. As expected, many enjoyed gaming for its competition. But, a slightly larger group said they were motivated by their curiosity about the game's content. In addition, we could distinguish three other motives in the answers supplied: Being in control of the action, social reasons, and identification with characters.

The second part of the paper will concentrate on the prominent position of violence. After all, our study fits nicely with the results of many other studies from varied fields, such as, psychology, anthropology, and cultural studies: men like violent content in entertainment fare, including computer games. But, the theoretical explanation of the attractiveness of violent games has received less attention in the scientific literature. I therefore aim to contribute to our theoretical understanding of the appeal of violence. My focus is on the interplay of emotion and identity. The fact that players of violent games experience joy rather than disgust signals, according to emotion theory, that an important concern is met. I will argue that this concern is identity related: violence in the virtual reality of a game enables the exploration of aspects of identification then can never be enacted in day to day interaction.

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