1. I’m on the theme of empathy because I’m interested in how emotional engagement works in games as opposed to non-participatory media, and empathy with the emotions expressed is what comes to mind when talking about emotional engagement with art. But is that too limiting a view of emotional engagement? What other kinds of emotional responses come up when we’re perceiving art?

2. When it comes to empathy specifically, are we talking about empathizing with the emotions of the characters, if there are any, or with the emotions of the artist or designer?

3. If we are talking about characters, what about a character makes us able or unable to empathize with it? Is our ability to engage with game characters different from our ability to engage with literary characters, and if so, why?

4. Does empathy with an avatar character work differently than empathy with an NPC?

5. If differences like this do exist, that may imply that we experience sudden shifts in style of emotional engagement when switching from gameplay to cutscene. If this is true, how does that affect our emotional experience of a game as a whole?

“(2) The “Heads in the Sand” Objection

‘The consequences of machines thinking would be too dreadful. Let us hope and believe that they cannot do so.’

This argument is seldom expressed quite so openly as in the form above. But it affects most of us who think about it at all. We like to believe that Man is in some subtle way superior to the rest of creation. It is best if he can be shown to be necessarily superior, for then there is no danger of him losing his commanding position. The popularity of the theological argument is clearly connected with this feeling. It is likely to be quite strong in intellectual people, since they value the power of thinking more highly than others, and are more inclined to base their belief in the superiority of Man on this power.

I do not think that this argument is sufficiently substantial to require refutation. Consolation would be more appropriate: perhaps this should be sought in the transmigration of souls.”

– Alan M. Turing, On Computing Machinery and Intelligence, 1950

“Preliminary Evaluation of the Interactive Drama Façade“, by Rachel Knickmeyer and Michael Mateas.

“Empathy: Its Ultimate and Proximate Bases”, by Stephanie D. Preston and Frans B. M. de Waal.

Earlier this week I linked to an article from The New York Times, written by the sort of Times writer who says things like “to use the vernacular, I almost lost it.” Seth Schiesel, the monocle-popping writer in question, feels that emotional involvement in videogames is limited compared to other media, and that this limitation may be inherent. He suggests that the most powerful affective reactions to art come from what he calls “emotional surprise,” and that in a medium where the audience’s choice determines the outcome, this surprise is impossible.

I agree with some parts of this thesis, and I think it is important to consider what the addition of agency does to the nature of emotional engagement. What hardly ever seems to be remembered in these sweeping considerations of videogames as a medium, however, is the extent to which all games restrict the player’s choices. Even in the broadest sandbox, the mechanics of the game determine what scenarios can possibly arise, and learning the possibilities and impossibilities of a given game can indeed be surprising. What’s more, plenty of games have rigid narratives that can startle the player in the same way as stories in other media; Aeris’s ever-shocking death in Final Fantasy VII, for example. So I don’t think emotional surprise is what is at issue here. Nor do I think it’s that artistically impressive in and of itself, for that matter.

I do agree that the range of emotions that arise from actions for which you are personally responsible is very different from that which arises from observation alone. I don’t know yet what the characteristics of those two ranges are, or how much overlap there is. But the suggestion that the distanced, observational emotions of the latter are by necessity deeper than the personal, responsibility-driven emotions of the former – well, I think that requires a whole hell of a lot more justification than Schiesel provides.

Still, there’s plenty of anecdotal evidence for people responding with greater emotional fervor to movies, books, music, and the like than to videogames. What I think is really interesting about this is the apparent paradox of the more involved medium resulting in calmer emotions, while the more distanced media result in stronger emotions. Schiesel writes as though it’s normal for a golf game to be a more detached experience than a symphony, but I think that sounds completely insane. Probably true, but insane. Why do we respond more strongly to the recreated, abstracted feelings of an artist than to spontaneous feelings about our own successes and failures?

“Emotionally involving the audience is easy. Anybody can do it blindfolded, get a little kitten and have some guy wring its neck.”
– George Lucas

Even Games That Have Everything Are Still Missing Something, by Seth Schiesel for The New York Times.

More on this later!