Videogame Pain

By Lindsay Comeau

Have you ever watched a video or seen a photo where someone sustains an injury and you cringe. Of course you have, you've been on the internet. Did you ever experience the same thing while playing a video game? Did you ever wonder why that happens? He's why, and how it enhances our gaming experience.
Robert Rath wrote an article for the Escapist at the beginning of the year that described the phenomenon where people have physical reactions to pain being depicted in photos or videos. Rath states that "In 2009 a University of Birmingham study found that one-third of participants reported feeling physical sensations like tingling, aching, or sharp pains when shown images and video of people injured or in pain". This experience has been associated with what are called "mirror neurons" http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct05/mirror.aspx.
It's no surprise that video games have the same affect as photos and video when it comes to making us "feel" the pain our characters are simulating. In Rath's article he uses Metal Gear Solid 3, Far Cry 3 and Call of Cthulhu as examples of games that provoke physical reactions. The reaction comes from the intense injuries the characters suffer. Rath gives an example from Far Cry 3: "Jason [Brody] pulls nails out of his arm, enormous shards of glass and shrapnel from his hands, and in the most graphic examples, he digs bullets out of his arm with a scalpel, a stick, or his teeth". If you've never played Far Cry 3, here's a video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66qGf66BTFs. This attention to the painful details really adds to the experience of the game.
Simulating pain through painful images is interesting when you think of games as vehicles for emotion. They are simulations purposed with making you feel something. It could be happiness, excitement, fear, sadness, anxiety or maybe it could be a physical sense of comfort or discomfort. Personally in games with vast outdoor environment, when the sun shines and gives off that warm orange grow, even though it's simulated it feels almost real. I know what the sun feels like so my brain can simulate that feeling when I see it in game. The same goes for pain. Most people know what pain feels like so their brains and their "mirror neurons" can simulate that sensation.
This concept brings us one step closer to fully immersive, simulated experiences. I am curious to see how far we can push this phenomenon in video games now that we understand why it happens.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/columns/criticalintel/10166-Bringing-the-Pain.2