Virtual and real worlds collide in gamers' minds

Sigh.....

After all, it's not like skewing your sample would run any risk of skewing the results, now would it?

"An initial investigation... centred on interviews with 42 gamers... all of whom claimed to have either dealt with real-world problems by reaching for a joystick, or to have seen game graphics in the real world."

Not:

"An initial investigation... centred on interviews with 42 randomly selected gamers"

In other news:

"An initial investigation... centred on interviews with 42 confirmed voters... indicated that voting by members of the general public was approaching 100%."

And that's quite apart from the never-ending world championship 'Let's take the #$%^ out of the surveryors', or any question as to whether there was any gain to those interviewed who confirmed they demonstrated what the research was looking for, as opposed to those interviewed who did not.

Heck, even an afternoon off class for further interviews might work.

Please note: I do not intend any direct negative nasturtiums in respect of the researchers.

Never mind. Ignore me. I'm probably having a bad day.

Really?

They lost their minds well before starting to play video games.

Full Report now availiable

Thanks to our pals at the Daily Mail blowing all this out of proportion, and misrepresenting the report, you can read the full thing, and a rebuttal from the authors right now;

http://spong.com/article/25386/Exclusive-Video-Games-Violence-Prof-Slams-Daily-Mail-and-Metro-for-Biased-Reporting

http://media.spong.com/g/games-transfer-phenomena.pdf

Not really new

I remember many years ago playing Doom to much. I was coming out of a lift (in real life, I mean) and someone made some grunting noise and I froze, expecting it was one of the monsters that always made a grunt before pouncing you.

That's probably the closest thing I've been to what is being described in the article.

similar effect under sleep deprivation

When I was about 13 or 14 in the mid 80s, and spending a lot of time hacking around on the CP/M-based RM380Zs at school, I was woken early one morning in a very bleary and half-awake-half-asleep (pretty much semi-delirious) state by my cat meowing at me to be fed. I remember saying "Hello" to the cat, and thinking to myself "Ah, he doesn't recognize 'hello' as a built-in command, so he'll be looking to see if it's the name of a command file on the floppy disk"...... It took me a few seconds and the follow-on thought "Wait a minute, how would I change the floppy if it's on a different disk" before the cognitive dissonance woke me up enough to realise I was thinking nonsense from a different context.

Hm

I had something like this, sorta, happen once. I had just bought the first Neverwinter Nights and spent more than a little bit of time playing it. That night, my dreams had snippets of the background noises and voices in it.

Then again, I've known people to have this happen with songs and movies, so ...

A few years ago I remember driving home from work and catching a grey speck moving in the corner of my eye, initially thinking it was a graphic bug artefact in the redraw.

It was just a bird flying away from a tree beside the road.

I call bullshit. I know nobody who has mentioned any of these things, other than whilst day dreaming to themselves, but then when I day dream I'm often piloting a giant robot while romancing a cute idol. Also I'm part of a generation that's been playing games for a good 20 years.

Denial is futile

Only those in denial fail to see the obvious.

Doesn't

every gaming site have a "Signs you've been playing to much X" thread?

Not just games

I once spent an entire day fighting with Excel, trying to get it to do exactly what I needed but hitting constant obstacles. That evening, tired and sick to death of Excel, I was making a sandwich and dropped a slice of bread on the kitchen floor. For a second I was mentally searching for an Undo so I could go back to the state before it was dropped. This was how I'd been making slow progress with my spreadsheet problems all day. Then there was a moment of 'disconnected shock' as I realised I had no undo because it was physical stuff, not screen stuff!

too much counterstrike

When walking through the halls at work I would pretend to pull my knife out so I could walk faster.

I was once shot five times in the guts

I saw red for a few seconds, but made then made a full recovery - no medical treatment or even health packs necessary.

Not just games

I frequently wish Cmd-Z worked in the real world, although probably I wish more often it worked properly in MS Office for Mac.

Oh come on, who else hasn't....

....imagined using the graphical Crossbow from Half Life Multiplayer when walking around the real world to get the satisfying 'whump' head shot into the imaginary opponent camping in the distance?

I once had Elite wireframe spaceships giving me a light show in the sky while I was walking home one dark night after a 36 hour session on the Spectrum but I've not had anything similar since I stopped doing so many amphetamines and hallucinogenics.