Need for Closure and Gaming

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percent off by going to ridge.com and use the coupon code daryl at checkout remember father's day is coming fast and this might be the perfect way to show dad how much you care massive appreciate you to the ridge wallet for sponsoring and with that said let's start the show in 2001 researchers created a scenario where a radio would play in all the rooms of a college dormitory the fictitious broadcast informed residents that a female student named magda had reported to the police that at a party she was well let's say tickled by a man named merrick who was on a short leave from military service to do a disgusting act like tickling is obviously shocking and since the students didn't know this was a completely fabricated story you can imagine how they reacted but you'll be interested to know that around half of them took merrick's aside and actually defended him despite the claims why would this be the case how could anyone possibly side with this monster and what were the researchers trying to prove you know one of the biggest conflicts i have as a gamer is the struggle between wanting to spend my time knocking down games off my backlog that have a conclusion and ending a defined finish versus wanting to spend my time on games with no ending for every moment i could be pursuing the finale of my first playthrough of xenoblade chronicles there was a strong chance i might be working on my neutral game in guilty gear for every opportunity i could spend trying to finish up a few shorter indie games that i'm sure i'd like it's a coin flip on if i end up doing that or getting my daily rewards in mtg arena this little conflict has plagued me for a while and even after writing this video i don't think i'll ever be fully cured of it but this got me thinking why do we prefer doing one or the other what does a game having a proper ending mean for player preference is there some underlying psychological trait that decides whether we are more drawn to complete narratives or games that never formally say goodbye well you're smart clearly i wouldn't be asking this if i didn't have the answer but you're probably more interested in that dormitory study right still thinking about that i know that was kind of the point here's what i didn't tell you about that fictional radio broadcast half of the rooms heard the headline presenting the apre accusations and then immediately went into the full story and the other half of the dorms only heard the headline followed by a full story right after this and a rock song once the song had finished then that half of the rooms heard the full story a story by the way where the students heard from merrick who explained that he did have intercourse with magda but that it was consensual he also admitted that she used to be his girlfriend and that they had a serious argument during the party his opinion was that magda accused him out of revenge now whether or not you or i personally believe merrick or magda's story is irrelevant because american magda don't really exist the takeaway here is the student reactions because what the researchers found was that the half who heard the accusations in the headline and then had to wait through the musical interruption were far more certain that merrick had in fact attacked the girl attributed more responsibility to him and made more punitive judgments than the students who heard the story without the song interrupting the real question here now is why would this interruption cause this effect to begin with we all have something called a need for closure or nfc something psychologist arie krumlansky and donner webster did a lot of work on back in the 90s need for closure is exactly what it sounds like it's a desire for certainty finality a need we all have at least in some capacity to aid us in making decisions forming opinions and resolving the unclear or ambiguous and speaking of unclear this is how the students felt upon the broadcast being interrupted and likely how you felt upon me leaving you with a cliffhanger at the beginning that's one reason headlines work is one reason clickbait works and one reason it seems that most of you seem to prefer games with proper endings i asked you guys this in two polls one on twitter where i have a pretty modest following and one on youtube where i have a larger following never hurts to have a bigger sample size but in both cases even in the second when i clarify i don't just mean in competitive games simply games that don't have a proper ending people still strongly prefer games that do end of course i do think we have to take this poll with a grain of salt because i feel if someone like corey gaming put this poll out b would get picked a lot more since they cover competitive games more frequently and i generally cover more story based titles but where i really found a lot of value in both polls was the comments a few common responses for you here one was goal setting a game with an end has a defined long-term goal which competitive games and sandbox games don't really have sure they have smaller goals like new items getting that new house built helping a friend get a set of armor or simply trying to increase your online ranking but with no ultimate structured goal many find it tough to remain motivated another was that competitive games specifically demand you to fully understand the meta to actually get to the point of winning regularly and for many that is stressful it doesn't always allow you to play at your own pace and still enjoy yourself i saw a lot of it's satisfying to complete a game which echoes the whole zygonic effect we've talked about before we don't like to leave things unfinished and when a game doesn't define when it's finished we might feel less inclined to spend time on it others feel that an ending is unnecessary especially if the gameplay loop is just that good emergent gameplay many would argue removes the necessity for a proper final challenge some folks like me certainly see the appeal in both types of game and feel their time is split pretty evenly and others find that an ending gives them direction because in sandbox type games they struggle to make their own fun intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation is a big part of this as well and honestly deserves his own video obviously there are a myriad of reasons why someone may prefer a game having a proper conclusion over not and vice versa so as always with these videos there are exceptions and multiple factors at play but a big one in this topic i would confidently argue is need for closure i'd like to tell you a little story if you'll indulge me back in 2009 i was a freshman in high school and coming off the heels of finishing final fantasy 10 for the first time i made the decision to go do something i had never done before buy a new game on launch day i picked up final fantasy 13 from my local gamestop there was a lot i quite enjoyed about it the soundtrack was stunning the setting was overwhelming alive with an inconceivable intricacy this dude had a chocobo living in his afro 14 year old me was absolutely in love with lightning and my god this game was gorgeous even today something about those old 360 ps3 graphics felt right it felt like the perfect medium stake between the game's visuals being raw and a little overcooked the combat wasn't as kind to me as tens was but nonetheless i had a delightful time with it i was enchanted by the story even if i didn't fully understand what was happening but then i looked up and almost two years had passed it sat on my shelf unfinished and i just never came back to it i probably got to like chapter four maybe and just fell off some friends complained that it was too narrow that vanilla was too annoying and that as far as final fantasy games go it was mid people didn't say mid back in 2009 but that was the jest i think the phrase i heard was poo cheese hell even my old geometry teacher who played the game around the time my friends and i did was like yeah it's not bad but i really hope it opens up soon and because of that i eventually sold my copy only to then pick up another copy again my senior year for much cheaper i booted it up got to about chapter 5 and then went to college then that old copy back home was lost in a flood and i was back to square one over the years this cycle sort of repeated itself over and over without me ever really making any progress on the game i would think about 13 toss around buying a copy then instead just settle on listening to the soundtrack while i studied or worked sometimes i would watch the trailer for it to remember how it felt being excited about it way back in the day sequels came out life went on and the chasm between myself and that whimsical world and its characters grew even wider and yet i continued to avoid spoilers hoping to one day finish what at this point felt like a conversation with an old friend i wondered what happened to lightning why she was returning what it meant to be able to see what this vision was about if saaz would ever find his son and if snow would ever be reunited with sarah i didn't have closure at least not until this year in january i finally finished final fantasy 13 and it was emotional for me to have that book finally close after all these years the game itself was fine there were definitely aspects of it that were poo cheese like that difficulty spike and that paradigm shift animation being mandatory but the story was good the characters were great and the ending no exaggeration may be my favorite ending to a game ever or at least in that conversation i sat with this ending for a few days definitely cried a little bit upon seeing the credits roll and soaked up the knowledge that i had just finished a personal journey spanning appropriately 13 years closer to like 12 and a half but just just [ __ ] let me have this a week later i thought hey let's just watch the trailer for 13.2 what's this sequel looking like and immediately that ending i was so fond of just got absolutely ricocheted out of existence to set up a new plot i paused the trailer closed the laptop went to the kitchen opened the oven and screamed into it no god why to the top of my lungs i'm dramatizing but i refused to let my head cannon be tampered with this was the end of final fantasy 13 and i will hear absolutely no retorts in the comments section so why was i so upset about this am why why am am i so upset about this well you see need foreclosure manifests in two major ways seizing and freezing confession some of you may have picked up on it i still haven't actually answered why the students in the dorm study made more harsh judgments if there was an interruption i said being foreclosure but i wasn't being specific enough in short they froze upon what little information they had here's what that means kruglanski and webster proposed that we process information in two ways seizing which is us taking in information and freezing which is settling on a conclusion or opinion once we feel we have seized enough when i was absorbing all the first part of 13 learning about the characters in the world repeatedly revisiting the game and listening to the soundtrack over the years that was me seizing information and seeking a closure i froze last january once i felt satisfied with the story the speed at which we stop seizing information and decide to freeze on an answer depends on our own personal level of need for closure nfc is of course heavily influenced by our personalities which we'll get to but also by time pressure in conditions that make the processing of information difficult aversive or laborious games with endings give us the promise of closure whereas games without them provide no such luxury you can seize all you want but at some point you will probably have to decide when you've seen enough this is why some people report that sandboxes or sims get boring people like to freeze they like finality and when the game doesn't decide when that takes place all that's left is the opportunity for us to get bored or impatience at some point seizing becomes more laborious or difficult as the game shows you less and less new content becomes less rewarding you'd really like to move on to a newer game soon or you've simply reached a point where you aren't improving anymore this is where many people cash in their chips and freeze freezing often happens late game but it also certainly happens early in competitive games especially you might find yourself landing on the conclusion that you simply aren't ever going to be good enough to have fun pretty early on if you're getting horn swaggled and online ranked out the gate and seizing continual ls is aversive of course you'd be tempted to freeze early it's exactly what i did back in 2009 all of the talk of 13 being mediocre in combination with the fact that it was a little grindy and i wanted to play some other stuff caused me to freeze on the thought that it probably wasn't worth my time to someone's point earlier if a game allows you to approach it at your own pace and you're enjoying the game itself along the way seizing is delightful you'll feel no pressure to freeze on an answer or an opinion you'll have a lower nfc you'll want to keep soaking up the information the game is giving you until you can finally arrive at the credits and gather your thoughts which is the ideal scenario in what i eventually had for 13 once enough time had passed years later i felt i could take my time with it the pressure to freeze went away my need for closure dropped it was still there because i wanted a sense of finality but it was low enough that i could unfreeze from my previous hasty conclusion and start seizing again i knew that there was closure to be found but i wasn't desperate to get it which is a stark contrast to my initial experience with the game where i jumped into a conclusion from being too impatient or too distracted to dig for a well-earned opinion this is exactly what happened to the students in the dorm study by the way when the story by nature was upsetting and they had to wait for the song to finish to get more details their nfc rose and they consistently froze on an incomplete conclusion simply so that they would have closure despite later hearing evidence to the contrary sometimes we have such a high nfc that we refuse to move on from the conclusion that we have even in the face of new information and believe it or not this is the same mechanism that led me to react the way i did to 13 2. i was frozen on this beautiful ending that took me 13 years to get to i'll be damned if you think i'm spending another 100 plus hours to tarnish that glorious closure that i've worked so hard for at this point for me seizing information is extremely aversive smash cut to 26 years later and i'll have a video about how i finished 13 2 and lightning returns but i bring up the 13 examples because i want to make very clear that freezing is not a good or bad thing inherently it can make you jump the gun and dismiss a game that you might have enjoyed but it may also keep you from draining hours of your life on post game stuff or games with no ending that you really don't want to be on anymore closure is how your mind says that's enough we have what we need let's move on and it's for these reasons that i do think most people heavily favor games with ends a credit roll marks a clear point where the game bestows upon you the right to have some final thoughts about it a good story will feed you just enough information along the way that you'll want to seize more and more of that story in pursuit of answers though the same could be said of games with no defined ending with your information sponges and all games will give you plenty to sees right you want to know how good you are versus other players around the world you can find out you want to know what your dream mansion will look like you can build it and see you want to know more about that villager go talk to them you want to know if these cards will work well together go test it games are built to interest you regardless of if they are built to end but i think for most people the finality of an ending acts as a convenient freezing point a hearty well i'd better head out before it overstays this welcome and makes you be rude by telling it you're ready for it to leave deciding where we freeze on our road to closure is not easy it's affected by several variables as we've discussed so when a game makes that decision for us it takes a ton of the burden off our shoulders at least for most of us we need to talk about those that don't prefer a game end that odd little handful of you that actually much prefer that you decide when you've seen enough out of a game because although our need for closure does depend on what we're doing we also have a general tendency to be either low or high in that need depending on our personality some of us need less closure on average than others and in a 2006 study on leisure activities researchers found that those generally lower in nfc were significantly more engaged in pubs and parties social activities and sports whereas those higher in nfc spent more time in structured predictable leisure activities like shopping and going to the movies our trait level need for closure is by nature a large factor in our activity preference much like movies games with structured endings are much more predictable than games that give you the keys which is why those that strongly crave closure might be a little put off by them and for those exact same reasons those low in trait nfc will likely get quite a bit out of these endless games sports social activities these are not events that guarantee closure in any form you can lose a happy ending isn't guaranteed and you won't find the same structure in other people that you might find in a game that's been meticulously stitched together to keep you invested and because of this high nfc people will generally enjoy these things less than those with a low nfc fighters sports games online shooters multiplayer anything will mostly be the preference of someone who is largely unconcerned with closure with the low nfc there is a low need to freeze they can sit back and learn the meta all day they have no problem with seizing over and over and over in their sandbox or in their mmo without ever really feeling such a strong inclination to search for finality you ever wonder why some people even bother with post game stuff you ever wonder why speed running nuzlocke's pvp or randomizer challenges exist obviously these things are inherently fun for a great many people but one reason you may not get it is because you've frozen on the game as you remember it you have no interest in doing more because you've got your sense of finality maybe you're a high nfc individual maybe the folks this really appeals to are in no rush to freeze and just want to keep on seizing they don't feel the same need to be done that you do does that make sense and listen this is not a heavily polarized split high nfc people likely enjoy both types of games as do low nfc people but this may explain why you prefer one or the other again there are a ton of factors at play however i doubt need for closure would ever be something you'd think about in game preference and if that's true then my job here is done researchers actually went back and replicated the results of the dorm study and also found that those who had a high trait nfc were even quicker to make punitive judgments so need foreclosure is absolutely a factor in our decision making and thought patterns and i bet a significant factor in how we spend our time gaming in case you're curious how they measured one's nfc or are curious about your own nfc you can take the survey they use here i've posted the link in the description but no matter where you fall on the nfc scale i hope our little chat today has given you some clarity on why you might view games the way you do endings are a good thing they mark the final stop on a journey and reassure you that your time will not be fruitless and whether you depend on them for closure you make your own closure or it takes you 13 years to finish that journey never forget to enjoy the ride [Music] hey thanks so much for watching i had a tremendous time making this one and i hope you had a tremendous time watching it it was nice to finally find a way to work final fantasy 13 into a video as always a huge thanks to my lovely patreon supporters especially this month's featured patrons assad hussein billy morris chris williamson sanja tyler teichler red 192 paul saxberg and bonjour 158 if you'd like to join the patreon squad and nab a load of benefits for only one dollar a month you can do exactly that click the orange link on screen to find out more thanks again for watching like the video share the video subscribe and let me know down below the most closure a game has ever given you and as always please have yourself a damn good one [Music]

Channel: Daryl Talks Games

Views: 251,303

Keywords: Daryl Talks Games, Psych of Play, Game Design, Video Game Design, video game psychology, psychology of video games, Video Essay, Gaming Essay, Psychology of Gaming, Psychology of Games, Final Fantasy XIII, Final Fantasy 13, 2022, Final Fantasy XIII 2022, FInal Fantasy Psych of Play, Psych of Play Final Fantasy, Daryl Talks Games Final Fantasy, Closure, Need for closure, psychology need for closure, Psych of play closure, Need for closure psych of play

Id: a_N3zW8m4Fg

Length: 23min 8sec (1388 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 04 2022