I am a gamer. I played Atari as a kid – loved Pitfall! – but also spent every Saturday morning at the bowling alley. When my league finished their rounds, I either played arcade games or wandered over to the commissary and Baskin Robbins for a few free tasters. In those days (I have no idea if bowling is still a thing), military base life centered around the bowling alley, the swimming pool/lake, and the commissary and exchange.
My favorite arcade game was Centipede. I still remember the sharp sting of the rollerball as your pinky got caught in it. Fun fact: My first ever computer was a Mac laptop hand me down with an actual rollerball for the mouse. I loved that computer.
When I was 13, my dad retired from the Navy and we moved from Connecticut to Wisconsin. While bowling still featured a little bit, it was no longer the center of our social world and gaming fell to the wayside for me.
Enter 2008 and my now husband. I lived in Long Beach, CA (LBC baby!), having moved there from NYC for a little less hectic lifestyle. I met Paul at a dive bar, as one does. We didn’t date for a year after we first met, partially because I called him a player (he’s not, and our mutual friends said he was), and partially because he is English and he left the States once his assignment in the States ended.
Anyway, we started dating in December 2008 when he was back for a visit. A very good friend of ours, Haydee, introduced us to World of Warcraft. Because Paul was bouncing around the world, we used WoW to date and chatted through the in-game voice chat. It was amazing. It gave us something to do together and kept us connected for the year we dated long distance. I became a gamer for real.
After we got married, WoW lost its shine and we moved on to other games, like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Borderlands, Black Desert Online (BDO) and Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWOTOR).
When I sat down to figure out what inspired me to write this book, one of the things that popped up were the games I play and played. I’ve played other games I haven’t listed here, but the listed few are the ones I found the strongest resonance with. They all feature a rich story, strong world-building, and lore that immerses you in their world (BDO doesn’t have a strong storyline, but the toons are pretty).
All of which neatly correlates to some fun psychology studies being done.
Gaming & What it Says About Your Personality
I recently watched a Youtube video by Daryl Talks Games (https://youtu.be/gvjVP56r0BA) and in it he describes research done by Quantic Foundry and Dr. Yee on the personality traits of gamers. What Dr. Yee & team did was analyze the types of games videogamers played and then mapped on to that the personality type (using the Big Five) of the gamer in question. And what they found are these correlation groups:
A little bit of background on the 3 of the Big Five presented here:
- Extraversion is just that – someone who gets energy out of social interactions. They may suck at social interactions, but they still get something out of it.
- Conscientiousness relates to efficiency and organization.
- Openness relates to inventive or curious personalities, aka people more likely to be creative.
Keep in mind people don’t fall into one box. We are all special snowflakes based on genetics, experiences, and likes and dislikes. But what I found interesting is that I am the Immersion/Creativity kind of player. I like games for story, fantasy and discovery. I am creative in my other hobbies as well, so this broad categorization works for me. Mostly – I’m not a fan of change.
T;DLR: While I pick games based on what I like to play, they tend to be the games that fit with my creativity and fantasy side -> which fits with the book I’m writing – fantasy and mystery -> which fits with the psychology of gamers done in 2015 by Dr. Yee. Basically, I’m a generic gamer/creative type…and I’m totally fine with that.
Oh, and obviously, writing does get in the way of all of my gaming. It’s sometimes really hard choosing between my hobbies and my writing. Lately, writing has been winning, but that’s because I have a goal of polishing and publishing my current WIP, The Deep Space Between, this year. I still play, of course, but not for hours like I did before.
PS. If you haven’t played SWOTOR and you love amazing stories, play it. The original 6 stories are so good, so deep, and just so much fun.