Gaming hosts Josh and Ryan are back with special guest Jamie Madigan! Jamie is a lifelong gamer who also happens to have a PhD in Psychology (with a focus on gaming culture). This is an INCREDIBLE episode you can’t miss. From Gaming ADD to those that platinum everything, to discussing if online friendships are “real” and more. We get the insight gamers truly want to know and have a blast while doing it. It’s an episode like no other, filled with gaming knowledge and video game chat from the Video Gamers Podcast! Please support Jamie and consider purchasing one of his books! You can do that here: https://www.psychologyofgames.com/ Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/ Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What types of gamers are there?
Hello, fellow gamers, and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. You know, gamers come in all different types and have vastly different reasons for the games they play and why they love them. From the hardcore competitive gamers that love a challenge to the chill, relaxed gamers that want nothing more than to tend their farms.
The psychology of gaming is a fascinating and oftenly debated subject, and that's what we're diving into on today's episode. But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host, Josh, and joining me, he still refuses to try Path of Exile 2, and if a game involves dodge rolling, he's instantly skeptical. Maybe today we'll find out why he's so weird.
It's Ryan. Listen, listen, we figured out last time with the sushi roll with the crab's treasure and stuff. No, we're not going there, Ryan. Yeah, just rolls aren't for me, man. That's all it is. Oh, man. Oh, man. And yet I know you love sushis. Yeah. Yeah. I know. Right.
Chapter 2: Who is Jamie Madigan and what are his contributions to gaming psychology?
And joining us, he's got an actual PhD in psychology, has been a lifelong gamer. He's one of us and has made analyzing gamers, both his career and passion. It's the one, the only Jamie Madigan.
Hey, guys.
All right.
Thanks for having me on.
Oh, man. We are so pumped to have you, Jamie. Thank you so much for being here with us. Absolutely. Yeah. So just to give our listeners an introduction to you, Jamie, you do have a PhD in psychology. And not only that, but you have written several books about On this, one of them is getting gamers the psychology of video games and their impact on the people who play them.
And then you had the engagement game, which is why your workplace should look more like a video game.
Love that. I'm going to second that one right there.
Yeah, that's a good read. And then most recently, the psychology of Dungeons and Dragons. I am a huge D&D fan, as are many of our listeners. Amazing, yes. And not only that, but you also have a podcast that is the psychology of video games.
Yeah. Psychology games. I cover both video games and tabletop role-playing games like D and D. You're a busy man.
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Chapter 3: What are Jamie's favorite games and why?
I'm next on karate champ.
Oh, there you go.
Yup.
Yeah. I've told the story of the, uh, dark shady corner of my local seven 11, uh, putting more money into street fighter too, than I can remember as a kid. So, uh,
I actually played that at a laundromat, oddly enough.
Oh, my God. Anywhere that had one. It was great. If they had an arcade machine that you could walk to, you were like, dude, I just found 50 cents. I know where I'm going. Let's go.
Galaga or Battlefield 42 at a Pizza Hut or something like that.
wherever it's at you're you're in good company jamie because i think you and i are probably pretty close in age ryan a little bit younger but uh he he caught the tail end of the uh the arcade craze there as well so yeah so it's just kind of a pastime and a habit that i never gave up i just kind of clung on to it to one degree or another and until like earlier today like right before we recorded yeah there you go
So what are some of your favorite games that you've played recently? You and I kind of had a little conversation over email, and I'm not going to lie, I kind of nerded out with you over some of your favorite games. But for our listeners, what are some of your favorites?
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Chapter 4: What is Gamer ADD and how does it affect gaming habits?
Hey, if I pay money, I have an advantage over other people in, especially in a competitive game. Um,
And it's, it's like unlocking weapons too. And class abilities are looking at your war zone.
Yeah.
I, I have a Tuesday night group of friends that I play video games with and we've been playing space Marine too. Oh, fantastic game.
So good.
Yeah. And we're playing through the campaign, but we're also doing like these PVE missions that you, you can play, which are meant to be like multiplayer. Like they're balanced around multiplayer.
I think those are better than the campaign. Honestly, I don't like them. Oh, you don't like them? Oh, that's interesting.
And the reason is that all of the progression stuff is locked. All of the unlocks depend on your progression. So you have to play and unlock and earn currency to unlock the cool... You know, weapon or to make this weapon more powerful and so forth. And it feels like some of this stuff is frequently balanced around you having done that.
So again, like the idea is that you throw your head against the wall until you've earned enough until you've done enough grinding to earn the unlocks that make the levels playable. And like one of my friends has got like way more hours than the rest of us and he's got all the stuff unlocked.
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Chapter 5: How do game mechanics influence player engagement?
It's that 15 to 25 range. You got time, you got no kids most likely, and you have the time to grind. Nowadays, it's, I want to have fun. I want to enjoy my game time. I want to play. I don't want to have to spend 15 hours doing this to unlock the gun to help me 10%. It's definitely the... time invested is not worth the reward for people like us anymore.
Yeah. It needs to respect my time. The game design needs to respect my time.
Agreed. Yeah.
Chapter 6: What psychological insights can we gain from gaming experiences?
You can offer that stuff, but you know, don't like degrade my experience playing the game if I don't engage with it.
Yeah. So let's let's move on to another one, because this one, I think, is very near and dear to probably most gamers, you know, at this point. And, you know, we're dads. There's a certain stigma, especially for people that have been lifelong gamers, that the friendships that we build online and through gaming aren't real. You know, we've heard this from parents.
We've seen it in TV and media and stuff like that, where it's like, hey, you know, if you met somebody playing Halo back in the day, that person's not your friend. You know, that might have been somebody that you played games with, but you don't know that person in real life. And so I think a lot of times there is this dismissal of online friendships.
We were talking about and I'll just plug it because I think it's a phenomenal movie. And John is the one that actually turned us on to this. But there is a movie called The Remarkable Life of Ebeling. that focuses on somebody that is handicapped and found kind of their friendship and life through that game.
And so highly recommend people check that out, especially if you want a little bit of a tearjerker there too. You know, but this is one of those things as a parent, My kids play online games, and they have met some really cool people.
Our community that we have, I mean, we just had a Marvel Rivals night where we had 28 people playing Marvel Rivals together in these fun 6v6 matches, and it was just the best time. That sounds awesome. It was fantastic. You should come join us because it really is a good time.
Send me the info. I'll be there.
Oh, absolutely. And so it's one of those things where I think as gamers, we have made friendships. I know we have just through this podcast and playing games with people. We've met some people that I consider very good friends, even though we've never met each other in real life. And there's the thinking that...
Not that this would happen, but hey, if the internet goes away, you don't have that friendship anymore. So it's this false friendship, so to speak. And this is a tough one, because as a dad, there is the part of me that says, hey, kids, you should have real life friends. And of course, my kids have online friends as well.
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Chapter 7: How does nostalgia impact our gaming preferences?
And then you ease into the, you know, what do you do for a living? You know, what's your family situation, that sort of stuff. And yeah, It is the same reason, if you think about it, why it was so easy for us to make friends when we were kids. Because we were all in school together. And we all played the same games and maybe watched the same TV shows and read the same comic books.
And why it's easier, if you're lucky, to work with people who have similar interests. You can form those kinds of relationships. But when you say... Don't work outside the home or if you are unemployed or if you, you know, work at home, like in your job, it's more difficult to make friends because you don't have that scaffolding. And gaming can provide that in a way that other things can't.
Yeah, I think there's something to be said, too, for it's it's it's a lot easier to like you said, the barrier of entry, that social awkwardness. I mean, I know that there's a lot of people that struggle with, you know, feeling like they're socially awkward. And in their minds, it's I can't go up and approach this stranger and start talking to them.
We get it. And our Discord, dude. Lurkers. We got lurkers in our Discord that will sit there for a year. I've been here. I've been listening to you guys forever. I'm going to just say hi. And then they just get open arms. What's your favorite games? You know, we always like to try to just bring everybody in. And it's almost like just kind of a revelation, like...
OK, you know, these people are cool. They will accept me. And it's always cool to see every time. And I'm getting, again, goosebumps now thinking about it.
Yeah. Yeah. So I really like that, that it is just an easier kind of barrier to entry. It's a little bit easier to put that virtual foot forward to start these relationships. It's low risk is a way to look at it. Yeah. Yeah. All right, we got to move on. As cool as I think this topic is, man, let's move on.
Yeah, we're already after. You see how this goes.
Jamie's learned already.
He knows. He knows who we are.
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