12 October 2015

Placebo Effect Works in Video Games Too

Even in virtual worlds, life is what you make of it. A study has found that gamers have more fun when they think a video game has been updated with fancy new features – even when that’s not true. A professor of human-computer interaction at the University of York, UK, wondered if the placebo effect translates into the world of video games after watching a TV programme about how a sugar pill had improved cyclists’ performance. To test their idea, researchers asked 21 people to play two rounds of Don’t Starve, an adventure game in which the player must collect objects using a map in order to survive. In the first round, the researchers told the players that the map would be randomly generated.
 

In the second, they said it would be controlled by an adaptive AI that could change the map based on the player’s skill level. After each round, the players filled out a survey. In fact, neither game used AI – both versions of the game were identically random. But when players thought that they were playing with AI, they rated the game as more immersive and more entertaining. Some thought the game was harder with AI, others found it easier – but no one found it equally challenging. A different experimental design, with 40 new subjects, confirmed the effect. This time, half of the players were put in a control group and told that the game was random, while the other half thought the game had built-in AI.

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