Tell me what your interests are

As I start to do research professionally, more and more people ask me what my “research interests” are. Typically I give the very dudely answer of sports and video games, which isn’t always the quality of answer they’re looking for, but to anybody who reads this blog, my answer shouldn’t be a surprise.

Sometimes, I even like to combine sports and video games. For example, here’s a potential research question that’s been bugging me for some time: why do I love FIFA 11 so damn much?

I got the game last Christmas, so I’ve been playing it for eight months now and still can play it for hours. I’m often entranced by sports games; NCAA Football 10 was a good example, as was the Xbox launch game NFL Fever and the subsequent entries in that series.

But FIFA 11 is a different animal; those love affairs lasted a few months, not eight (and counting).

To explain this surprising phenomenon, I’ve come up with a few potential hypotheses (which aren’t really in the form of scientific hypotheses – so don’t tell my professors):

I started to play FIFA during a time of my life when I started to appreciate soccer. Or, to put it another way, my interest in soccer has grown correlatively with my interest in FIFA. I experienced a similar relationship between football games and American football about, oh, 10 years ago. I didn’t really like football as a kid, but those deeper connections – through things like video games and fantasy sports – have increased my tolerance for it.

A related hypothesis: FIFA has helped me learn about soccer. (This is an understood premise of that hypothesis ==>) I like learning; it’s good for stuff. That’s why I’m still at university (as the British might say). At first, I was just learning rules of the game – much of which I also picked up at UNCW’s women’s soccer games – like how to be offsides and how the ref’s power of estimation determines fouls. Eventually, I started (and am still) learning about different leagues and teams (or clubs) and players around the world.

I’m still not very good at it. This hypothesis relies very heavily on pseudo-relativist groundwork: relative to the difficult level I often play on (World Class), I’m not always good at winning. Games that are too easy can get boring, but games that are too difficult lead to frustrated quittery. FIFA’s World Class level fits in between for me.

Moreover, I don’t know what to expect from game to game. Some of this relies on the supposition that I’m not very good at the game. That allows for this hypothesis to happen: because I’m not very good, I’m often surprised at what happens when I do certain things during games. This is also – and more seriously and importantly – a testament to the game’s AI and physics engine. It’s largely possible for me to hit the correct buttons at correct times, but it’s much less likely that I’ll be able to predict what even the correct submission of button presses will result in. Sometimes, the ball just does weird things. This seems much less common in other sports games (quick ranking, high to low: soccer, baseball, football, basketball).

It’s an RPG. This part’s cool and probably my favorite part. The Virtual Pro feature lets me constantly perform tasks to improve my (virtual) self. This is highly addictive.

At the end of the day, the answer is probably in some combination of these factors. But I can’t really say for sure, so I guess I’ll have to do more research.

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So, also, I’m now a blog contributor on this website, which is affiliated with my new place of employment ‘n’ schooling. In fact, I’ve posted my first blog entry there on NBA lockout nonsense.

Quote of the Week:

“In general, be specific.”

-Stephen J. Chaffee, Explication