This PAX East panel on game design and mental illness, host Kelli Dunlap PsyD (Psychologist at American University Game Lab) explored all these tropes and why games use them – from storylines all the way down to basic mechanics.
What is mental Illness?
According to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), mental illness is described as:
Games as cultural artifacts
Kelli explained that games are used to reflect the culture that makes them. Culture is relative to your region. For example: Monopoly is a game about American capitalism. While for people here in the US the game make sense, someone in China might view the game differently – or as completely irrelevant.
Mechanics are influenced by culture as well, and all mechanics in games are there for a reason. Whether to get a rise out out of players or to invoke some sort of emotion, it is all intended by the developer. With the exception of bugs, the way that the game is set up is mainly a cultural reflection.
What can games tell us about mental illness?
Much like with movie tropes, mental illness is viewed as villianous or inhernetly bad, thus making them “scary”. That’s why so many horror games place players in mental wards or asylums. Characters with perceived mental illnesses are 85% more likely to be violent in video games and films than in real life.
Kelli did a case study of 39 different games over different genres, all of them about mental illness. Her criteria were broken down in to 3 different categories:
Characters: who have dealt with mental trauma in their respective games. Environment: Where the game is taking place, like mental hospitals or insane asylums Game Mechanics: special functions that are unique to that game, like sanity meters, blurry screen resolution and no save options.
All of which led her to the conclusion that the view of mental illness is skewed. the narrative is consistent with violence and games just reflect what people are already thinking about those with mental illnesses. No one really knows what to do about it. On the bright side however, there are a lot more games being developed from the view point of those with mental illness like depression or bipolar disorder. This way we, as a society can have a better understanding of it is like to live and deal with these disabilities.
While the world may never know what causes mental illness we as a society can help one another better understand it. Plus now with how immersive games have become we can better understand what the trauma is that others go though and have a little more empathy towards them. If you are interested in finding out more about Kelli Dunlap be sure to follow her on twitter and check out her website for more of her findings.
