March 19, 2007
So, does this apply to Mario Kart as well?Reuters reports that a study conducted by German researchers concludes that those who play racing games are more likely to drive in a risky manner and have more accidents than those who don't. From the study:
Driving actions in these games often include competitive and reckless driving, speeding and crashing into other cars or pedestrians, or performing risky stunts with the vehicle. In short, most actions in racing games imply a very high risk of having an accident or severe crash in a highly realistic virtual road traffic environment.
Said Joerg Kubitzki of the Allianz Center for Technology, which took part in the study:
Risk-acceptance is one of the most prominent and important factors in the discussion of the origin of accidents caused by young drivers... The question of age restrictions, legally or voluntary, should be discussed not only for 'shooter' games but also for this kind of games, which have an impact on traffic safety.
Comments
They thought of that. They made a point that the driving simulator had a completely different interface than the game and that it had previously been shown to have an 89% correlation with actual driving safety. That souns pretty solid to me. It seems like you're dismissing the study because you don't like the conclusion.
If I've been on a gaming binge, it *does* change the way I perceive the world, in the short term. If I've been playing Burnout, the way I look at traffic is actually different from usual - I tend look much more for openings and opportunities to "get ahead" than I otherwise do. I extreme cases, I have to make a conscious effort to drive more "low-risk" than I feel like.
Similarly, if I go outside shortly after an extended GTA session, I start scanning the roads for fast cars to jack. I really don't think it's all that controversial - it's no different from playing Tetris for two hours immediately before going to sleep. In that case, you'll start seeing falling blocks when you close your eyes.
Does that mean we should ban driving games, or put age limits on them? Absolutely not. If you're old enough to be given responsibility for a motor vehicle, you're old enough to be responsible for your own actions in general (although, for the same reason, I've never understood the low [compared to European standards] age requirement for a US driver's license). If there is a problem, there are other ways to address it. For instance, where I live, there are programs to increase awareness of the consequences of traffic accidents. They target young people primarily, and consist of having severely injured people give talks about how their lives changed after losing the use of, say, their legs. Usually, the cripples involved were themselves young and reckless drivers who took one chance too many.
Thing is, being an aggressive driver does not neccesarily mean they are dangerous, it still leaves the challenge of teaching a driver when to be aggressive and when not to be, Once again, I'm sure no-one ever drive fast after watching 'Days of Thunder', just like no-one ever walks around dressed like a Klingon at a Star Trek convention.... oh wait.
Media obviously has an impact on people, but you cannot blame one stimuli above others unless you have a lot more evidence. I'd like to have seen more tests done across more media, it's already been proved scientifically that loud, fast music has precisely the same effect as this, and I don't doubt that watching the F1 racing or a racing movie would too.
Who were the street racers depicted in American Graffiti or Rebel without a Cause emulating, after all, there were no computer games at all when those films were made?
This assumption that young adults only started acting up when computer games appeared is starting to go beyond silly and into the downright 'head in the sand' attitude.
I have a friend who says the same thing. Good thing he played it, too, because I was in the car with him at the time.
"Now… you show me a study where people who play driving games have a higher incidence of traffic violations and accidents than people who don’t play the games, and we’ll talk."
The study did show that those who were big fans of racing games tended to also be big risk takers, be involved in more accidents, etc. It didn't try to prove one caused the other though.
In a game you have an abstracted controller that you use to steer a device on a screen.
In real driving you have an abstracted controller that you use to steer a device that you see through a screen.
The difference is small enough that it may have some effect on risk-assessment. After all, if you play enough games you start to get used to cutting it close to other cars, after all there is little punishment for hitting them. Subconsciously I believe this may have an effect.
I actually have a personal story that somewhat proves the point. When I was learning to drive (at 15), I was also playing Ridge Racer alot. I noticed, at that time, that it was having a slight effect on my driving skill. Since I hadn't driven before, separating what it was like to drive a real car and one on the screen was more difficult than if I had never played Ridge Racer before. I found myself speeding and taking corners a bit too fast, because that's just what I was used to.
Oh, wait... I still do that :)
It also says, "The researchers then studied 68 men and found those who played even one racing game took more risks afterward in traffic situations on a computer simulator than those who played another type of game". Which to me reads as, "If you play racing games, you are more likely to drive aggressively in a racing game".
/shrug
I wonder if professional racing drivers are more likely to make risky or dangerous manoeuvres on the road. Take rally drivers, for instance. These people make a living out of pushing a car to its limits and knowing how to slide blind between trees sideways on the red line. In a storm. They are going to be better judges of what's going to happen to the road and how they can control the vehicle. (OK, so rally may not be a perfect example as civvy driving involves traffic, but you get the point.)
However, the "it's only a game" factor still stands. Play Burnout for a bit. Go on. Just for, say, ten minutes. You take stupid risks because that is what the game is *about*. Now, in those ten minutes, how many times was your car destroyed? Now, why don't you drive like that in real life?
*It also makes sense to me that other things carry over, because I've done them myself. Shoot-em-up fans may be better with spatial awareness and accuracy when taken to a firing range. War gamers may look out over a vista and instinctively see choke points and potential sniper nests. After a game of Pro Skater the urban landscape seems more angular and open.
The differences in reaction time when confronted by real world risky situations?
Men: 0.14 seconds (1.34 vs. 1.20)
Women: -0.05s (women were actually better drivers after playing a racing game...)
Did I say that we should outlaw them? No, I agreed that an affinity for speed is the most likely culprit. Settle down, fella.
Personally, I'd be more worried about why they were play NFS rather than keeping their eye on the road ;)
I drive very well in real life. Cautious, defensive, alert, etc. Never had a ticket or been in an accident (not as a driver, anyway).
When I play racing games, however, I am extremely aggressive, combative, dangerous, etc... because it's a game, and that's how you win.
No where in the study do they test whether driving recklessly in a game (even a "realistic simulation") has anything to do with driving recklessly in real life... because the subjects KNOW IT'S A GAME! (Duh).
Driving hyper-aggressively in games = rewarded with money, cars, game progress, etc.
Driving hyper-aggressively in RL = rewarded with traffic violations, license suspensions, and possibly death.
My brain comprehends this. I'm being optimistic and presuming that most people have a basic understanding of this difficult concept of "reality vs not-reality too"...
Now... you show me a study where people who play driving games have a higher incidence of traffic violations and accidents than people who don't play the games, and we'll talk.
Unless they are suggesting banning 17 year olds and over from driving games, how does this make sense?
"a limitation of our studies is that we only used games with road-traffic (street-racing) settings. Many racing games (e.g. Formula 1 [SCEE]) only let players drive around dedicated racing circuits without traffic and, thus, do not allow players to break traffic rules."
I believe we've seen articles recently on just how much we can "respect" or even trust the opinions of current German politicians and authority figures. Whether they are stories reported here at GP or elsewhere. After all, a country whose legal systems thinks that it is acceptable to have a teenager removed, by force, from their family's custody and placed into a mental institution simply because the teen was homeschooled isn't a country with a legal system of any intelligence.
nightwng2000
NW2K Software
Hell, I still remember the first time my friends and I got on a freeway after playing Burnout for the first time. We kept looking at areas of congestion and talking about what sort of multipliers we'd get if we could just hit that semi in the right spot. :)
ultimately for me, yes racing games DID make me want to risk more driving. But as stated before, this doesn't mean it's true for all or most or many. Maybe others are just already reckless and want to practice in game .Maybe I was at a reckless time in my life and just used games as an excuse to try things like 40 mph handbrake turns. I say there is def some truth in the study, but of course it comes down to chicken or the egg for many.
Am I reading this wrong, or has he just pointed out that racing games have that "showing the consequences" thing that JT et al claim shooters don't, so nullifying the argument?
/b
yeah but so what? what are they going to do, ban them?
Boy do these researchers help the world by confusing the words correlation and causation... -_-
"Something that is not mentioned in this article is that they used a driving simulator to test they’re theory instaid of a real car."
This is far the most important detail, which makes results all but unexpected. Everyone who plays cars simulators will confirm that if a person used to arcade driving games like Need for Speed starts playing some realistic simulator (like Grand Prix Legends, or anything from SimBin), they will most certainly crash at every corner - they didn't had ro waste their time and money on stupid research. And yet they applied their results to real-life driving behaviour. Isn't that the same as equalizing FPS gamers with murderers? I fear to think what's next Germans will do in their increasingly popular anti-game hysteria? Perhaps finding out that it was "violent" video game "Pacman" (to my knowledge, the only game where you need to literally devour your opponents whole to survive) which attracted Armin Meiwes to cannibalism? I'm not a vegetarian, but it's still far more plausible to say it was the society which tolerates meat-eating which makes people curious to taste human flesh, and that there would be no cannibals if people wouldn't eat meat to begin with. I think German gamers should stop expecting that things will calm down and must start fighting for their rights actively and right NOW.
And this wasn't just one incident mind you there were several other similar incidents before that in fact they started as soon as he started playing NFS:MW hardcore. I'm not saying theres a sure-fire correlation here but I do think the adrenaline rush you get from playing racing games does have some effect. It's sorta like going to a NASCAR race and watching the races and getting all excited from the race and then hopping in your car and driving off, you tend to drive more aggressively.
Yeah, in retrospect, this study actually doesn't show much more than the fact that some drivers like speed more than others, which is hardly a revelation. I'd still be pretty convinced that playing games like NFS does effect your driving in the short term afterwards, but no more than, for example, watching a racing movie or the like.
"But the study would probably convince some grant committee to further research on the topic and therefore make more reliable research methods possible."
Ding, Ding! Funding for $1,000, Alex!
This study shows nothing. But it does use enough extremely loaded language in both the conclusion and introduction that will lead activist groups to give them more money - hence the "This is a starting point" idea you came up with.
The difference between a "video game joystick," and a "computer keyboard" interface on a computer screen is IN NO WAY large enough to discount transference. Not even slightly. Now, if they had a simulator, or even real traffic course to drive on, then there'd be something. But they dismiss a potentially fatal flaw to the study without even a moment's time.
Fiction can be fun, especially when it's paying the bills.
True, the researchers put subjects in a driving simulator which they know is artificial. but given the exploratory nature of the study, it's only a starting point. the authors had made that point in the article. I'm not sure how studies get approval or how they get funded. But the study would probably convince some grant committee to further research on the topic and therefore make more reliable research methods possible.
On the subject of virtual reality, (ask Stephane Bouchard, universite du quebec en outaouais). if people believed that the world they're seeing is real or if their subconscious believe it so. then the problem of artificiality would be resolved. in short they would behave as if they were in the real world.
(the article can be found on www.tweakers.net but its in dutch)
Also on a side note: people that like driving fast cars will likely like racing games.
in fact, they took the drivers who had played racing games, waited 5 minutes and then put them in the driving simulator. which by any means is NOT a real car (driving environment).
A driving simulator does not make the driver feel his mortality like a real car on the road would do. if you crash in the simulator you reset and start again. if you crash in real life you'll probably regret it, that is if your not dead to begin with.
by putting the gamers in the simulator they removed the instinctive factor that every driver gets. A real driver wants to protect himself and his car from harm. thats what you think. but instinctively that person knows that if something happens he'll be in danger, thats where a person starts to act different and will try to preserve himself. only people that can override this instinctive feeling will actually take those risks. I for example who play racing games and drive a car don't start to get reckless on the road. I recently was playing a videogame (NFS most wanted) and had to drive shortly after that, and if anything, I was more carefull, maybe to carefull.
in short, this research project does not mean anything, they where taken from a racing game to what is essentially a driving game. even though the environment might look the same, subconsiously you know you are not in danger of anything and thats where your basic survival instincts shut down, or at least are lowerd. the only thing you drive on at that moment is your mood (which was set by the playing of a racing video game, because the thought of this is still fresh and going trough your mind) and your knowlage of how your suppost to drive a car.
"The researchers first questioned 198 men and women."
No hard facts here, the answers could be dependent on the way the question was formulated, where they multiple choice questions?
"The researchers then studied 68 men and found those who played even one racing game took more risks afterward in traffic situations on a computer simulator than those who played another type of game."
Not questioning their conclusion, but 68 is not much of a sample group, in percentages 1 person stands for 1.47 % and with 68 people out of millions you hardly get a good representation of the average person. Also, what was the age of the subjects? Younger people are naturally inclined to take more risks.
"Then the researchers had 83 men play either a racing game or another type of game, and found that those who played the racing game reported more thoughts and feelings associated with risk-taking than the others."
Again 83 is better, but still not enough. Also: how many of the 83 played the racing game? if it is just 10 and the rest were playing platformgames or non-violent games the results won't mean much.
( I did not have time to read the report so please correct me if i'm wrong).
Also, I sometimes have plenty thoughts about risk-taking but that does not mean I actually take more risks in real-life.
As well because most of us are mechanically inclined we aren't overly worried about breaking/wearing out things that we can afford, hence why we straight pipe vehicles, and burn out our tires whenever the roads are good.
Anyway, most of the stuff that I mentioned above is performed by people that either don't play games or don't play racing games. So that tells you that despite the fact that these "scientists" might think they're correct about video games, they aren't.
Study 1 - shows correlation (as mentioned, not causation) between "self-reported" indicators and playing racing video games. Meaning, participants were asked questions such as “I like to participate in street races”. The reliability of these indicators is highly suspect however, as they asked very few questions per indicator (3 questions per 3 indicators, with the indicators being "competitive behavior", "need to impress", and "cautious behavior"). Generally, for self-reported metrics to be considered to correlate with real behavior, a larger set of carefully selected questions would be used based on some established theory. That does not seem to be the case in this study, as although they cite particular previous work, they do not use the same approach as that work.
Study 3 - they use the Vienna Risk-Taking Test. This involves a participant watching a high-risk maneuver on a computer screen as if they are sitting behind the driver's seat of a car (the video is of a real-world driving scenario). The participants are shown the scenario without interacting, and then interact by pushing a key to indicate when they wish to abandon the high-risk maneuver. The longer a participant waits, the more risky their behavior. A concern with their approach, however, is that any correlation between this test and "accident free/accident prone" drivers previously shown was done in isolation - participants took this test and nothing else. In this case, they are confounding variables by asking participants to play a game for 20 minutes and then immediately take the test. Strong arguments can be made for the similarity of playing a racing game and interacting with the Vienna Test, as both are "virtual" views of a driving situation (albeit one of real-world footage) and pose no "real" risk to the participant - no one is going to actually die taking extra risk in the Vienna Test (well, probably not - weird things happen in research sometimes...)
An overall comment - I found some of the language in the authors' intro and conclusion suspiciously loaded. It seems as if their agenda is to support the general statement that "playing racing games can cause unsafe driving behaviors" and they wave their hands a lot to support this, even though none of their evidence can say this. At best, it can say "German males between about 18-30 years of age who play a racing game for 20 minutes and then immediately drive a car may engage in more risky driving behaviors."
Luckily I have a Ford and if I even tried it'd blow up. This feeling only lasted for 10 minutes or so though.
Other than that, I'm a naturally aggressive person, thus an aggressive driver, so I lean towards aggressive games, including aggressive driving games.
The two have a link between them, for sure, but they didn't touch the right one.
But then again I play shooting games obsessively and I have yet to feel the impulse to shoot someone in real life.
Oh and I play fighting games and have never gotten in a fight.
Though after playing Okami, I did feed a cute little squirrel by my house. So yeah...I guess games CAN make you do stuff.
I mean, I'm not saying that girls don't play video games, I certainly do, but jeez. Lets look at the facts.
I've heard stories about it, Fast and the Furious Tokyo Drift.
From what i heard, after the movie, these young kids tried to do drifts in their cars in the parking lots.
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I agree with the point that a simulated environment is NOTHING like a true real world environment.
i haven't read the study yet
That is awesome. I will have to remember that phrase.
Skipping all other comments and reading the study itself, at a guess I'd say they used all men in an attempt to cut down the number of variables.
1. THat's why they had the control groups play other exciting games: in order to focus specifically on the racing content. Having people come back over the course of several weeks is the opposite of practical. You do easier tests firsts, then continue studies if they're promising. They include suggestions for further studies at the end of this one.
2. THat's why they made a point of the (very strong) correlation between performance on the vienna risk-taking assessment.
3. They didn't onyl use men, but only men seemed to show the predicted effect.
It seems most of the poster here are raising objections that the study addressed or just that it wasn't comprehensive enough, which is reason to do more comprehensive studies, but not to dismiss this one.
1. If you're playing a hihgly enjoyable racing game, or any fast-paced game, really, you're likely to experience an adrenaline rush. If you're then put into a situation where you're supposed to react calmly then of course you'll be more likely to do some rash. A more practical study would be to have these people play the games for a few weeks, then administer the test on a fresh day.
2. People are more likely to take risks in a virtual setting than in a real one. A more accurate experiment would be to put them on the road, or even on a closed-course, and see what happens.
3. Why did they only use men? Is there any reason for this other than to enforce stereotypes about gamers?
Study 1: This I believe was the best of the three. However, I don't see any indication of a control group, meaning a group of subjects not exposed to the dependent variable (in the case of these three studies, the games). Without it, we can't be sure if racing games actually do have an effect on driving more agressively or if it's mostly a conicidence. And like others here have pointed out, the study at best shows correlation, not causation.
Study 2: Not very found of this study. First, it focuses on word association, and similar studies that have used this have been declared inconclusive by the courts here in the States. Second, the standards in the study were made from the ground up by the researchers, so their reliability is dubious at best. They even admit this:
"Because no homonym measure existed for the accessibility of
risk-promoting cognitions in German, we had to construct this
measure (and, thus, no validity or reliability coefficients are available
for it at present)."
Finally, I still don't find mention of a control group. Do they just not mention them or something?
Study 3: A lot like Study 2, except instead of using their own standards, the researchers use something called the Vienna Risk-Taking Test. The problem is, instead of using racing games, this method entails videotaped driving situations and pressing particular buttons on a keyboard. Even the researchers admit it's not the same as playing Burnout or NFS.
Lastly, I'd like to point out that since the researchers knew about the study all along, they may have subconciously influenced the results (raising eyebrows, tone of voice, etc.). This might (note, I said "might") lead to a self-fufilling prophecy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Observer-expectancy_effect), which is anathema to the intergrity of any psychological study.
Conclusion: I skimmed the documents a little, so I could be wrong. From what I've read, however, these studies don't seem to prove any relationship, let alone a causal. Don't get me wrong, I think this subject is interesting, and it merits further research. However, it does not justify government censorship, which is what this Joerg Kubitzki seemed to be proposing.