Video games as a force for good or bad?
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Video games as a force for good or bad? Let new government-backed research decide
Tuesday, 29 August, 2023It is time to end the decades-old good versus bad ‘ping-pong’ debate around video games and let robust scientific research analyse their actual behavioural impact, positives and all – that is the message from Dr Pete Etchells, Professor of Psychology and Science Communication at Bath Spa University.
Given the recent announcement of the government’s new Video Games Research Framework which has been created to support academics and key industry players gain a deeper understanding of the topic, Pete explains why the need for unbiased analysis is ever more important:
"Even though we’ve moved past the most strongly negative characterisations of video games and become more accustomed to them, they’re still viewed with a certain level of suspicion. And we’re still presented with a seemingly endless cycle of scare stories in the news about their detrimental effects.
“I’m a firm believer in the huge potential of video games as a force for good in our lives, and I’ve written before about the benefits they can have – their ability to connect us and to allow us to explore and understand our emotions and attitudes. Nevertheless, the broad-level discussion about their impact seems to be at an impasse: games are becoming ever more popular, while commenters are often stuck in a simplistic back and forth about whether they are good or bad for us.
“Part of the reason for this is that despite their ubiquity, our scientific understanding of what video games can do for us remains relatively – and surprisingly – sparse. Much like the public conversation, the academic study of gaming has often focused on the negative aspects of play, or has been a reaction to those societal concerns... It is only recently, with the advent of more robust studies that adhere to open science principles that we’ve largely been able to put that topic to rest.”
Traditionally, due to the trend in focussing on the perceived negative aspects of gaming, psychological scientists have been less successful in moving the public debate about games forward in a way that would emphasise its benefits and minimise the harms - but could change be on the horizon with the aid of the government’s new framework?
Pete continued: “If we want to make meaningful inroads into understanding the effects of video games, we need access to objective, real-world industry data, and while there have been some admirable efforts to obtain this, for the most part it’s still outside the reach of most researchers.
“This is why the government’s publication of a new video games research framework earlier this year is so important. Identifying a need for a stronger research evidence base, the Department for Culture, Media and Sport has engaged extensively with researchers, games industry representatives and other agencies to develop a set of best-practice guidelines to push for more high-quality research in the future. In a way, it’s a blueprint for thinking about how we could leverage the right sort of data to answer more meaningful and useful questions about how video games affect us. That starts with the basics of how we go about categorising different forms of game play in the first place.
“The framework also lists a whole raft of priority research questions. How, for instance, do new and emerging video-game technologies affect the subjective experiences of players? What might this look like in terms of influencing our ability to relate to other people in a more compassionate way?
“We don’t have the answers to these sorts of questions yet, but my hope is that the framework will give us the tools we need to approach them in a rational and sensible manner. If we truly care about understanding the impact – positive and negative – that video games can have on us, now is the time to start taking them with the seriousness that they deserve.”