By Malorie Riggle
To begin, I am terrified of overstimulating amounts of anger so I can not see any reason someone would willingly play this game, Cuphead. You, the participant, practically ask to be put in a chaotic state of frustration. Why? While looking for articles to cite in this post, I can see why I had the initial hesitation for this game, simply because of the titles that I’ve generally seen when skimming the internet. That being said, most everything I saw when I typed “Video games” and “Anger” correlated video games to violence, alcohol abuse, and aggression. Why is this? How did it take me such effort to find any sort of video game article without the author completely bashing video game consumers for getting into video games and letting the video games influence their emotions?
Perhaps this is due to many of the people writing these articles are generally well above the age of thirty. It could be that people are afraid of technology, or that the violent minority are too loud for some people to look past. Looking at an article from iflscience, it seemed that the sample size was “241 men between 18-37 years old” (Dunhill, 2021). It may also be assumable that the samples are skewed. Putting aside the strange sample, the study found that if the gamers were given positive reinforcement before playing, they did better, assumably the opposite was shown to be true as well.
Also looking into this thought of strong emotions when playing video games, “Emotional Manipulation and Task Distraction as Strategy: The Effects of Insulting Trash Talk on Motivation and Performance in a Competitive Setting” by McDermott and Lachlan (2021) is basically a ton of hypothesizing about how trash talk can distract gamers when they play. They determined that anger and shame were the main emotions that people felt when they were playing a video game and were told that they were lame. To conclude so you shouldn’t need to read it (but you definitely can if you’d like). When gamers played a racing game and were randomly insulted, this influenced their ability negatively on psychological and emotional levels (McDermott & Lachlan, 2021).
Since this isn’t supposed to be an essay, but it has turned into one, I’ll just cite the other sources I found as links if this is interesting to you. All of this to say, as you insult people, it hurts their feelings and distracts them. Common sense enough, right?
It shouldn’t be hard to figure that if someone were to want to make a difficult game, they would try to pull any and all tricks to aggravate the user– including psychologically and emotionally. To feel like you are being cheated, but know you have the capability to surpass the obstacle, and then be insulted by a frustrating video game character is such a pile of annoyingly good game design. Keep the player on their toes, but let them notice that it is possible only to tell them, “A ‘W’ for me and an ‘L’ for you!” just to rub in the fact that you failed. So when you go to repeat that difficult section, the quote is fresh on your mind that the game believes you deserved the “L”, so you are now distracted and it is even more tricky than the last time.
People want to win. If they are determined, it will feel as if they have to before they are willing to take a break. Even if there is no specific trophy for completing an obstacle, the rush of relief, pride, and excitement is enough to brighten your mood and push you further through the game to seek the feeling again.
This won’t always push every player through, though, from personal experience I will honestly give up if a game takes me ten minutes to pass a boss or checkpoint because it will frustrate me or make me feel it is no longer worth the effort or emotional strain. My husband, though, will play until a vein bursts in his head– sometimes. Just to clarify the last sentence was a hyperbole, but it will be several dozens of tries to get him past excruciatingly and absurdly difficult parts.
In conclusion, Cuphead uses such emotional and psychological tactics to its benefit to appeal to the bull-headed and stubborn reward seekers in the gaming community. Many other games have added this tactic to their own game in different styles and intensities. Another example can be seen as the “You Died” screen in Dark Souls to just cement the fact that you indeed failed at whatever goal you were seeking and now have to watch some stupid monster stomping on your lifeless body. To all the game devs who read this, use these tactics however you seem best fit for your game, but be aware of the audience who will inevitably press “Play.”
Sources:
Dunhill, J. (2021, January 14). Gaming whilst angry could make you play significantly worse, study suggests. IFLScience. https://www.iflscience.com/gaming-whilst-angry-could-make-you-play-significantly-worse-study-suggests-58287
McDermott, K. C. P., & Lachlan, K. A. (2021). Emotional Manipulation and Task Distraction as Strategy: The Effects of Insulting Trash Talk on Motivation and Performance in a Competitive Setting. Communication Studies, 72(5), 915–936. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2021.1975139
