can games make you cry?

Hugh Bowen, can games make you cry?, 2007,http://www.bowenresearch.com/studies.php?id=3

taken direct from the article

in a survey of 535 gamers these are the results gathered by hugh bowens company Bowen research


Here are the genres in order of the percentage of gamers who ranked them as emotionally powerful:
Role playing games 78%
First person shooters 52%
Action 49%
Adventure 48%
Fighting 39%
Sports 34%
MMOs 32%
Racing 31%
Real time strategy 24%
General strategy/puzzle 15%
Flight simulators 8%
Flying 8%

What role does emotion play?
Over a third of the participants report that games are quite an emotional experience. 8% think they're tremendously emotional, 29% quite a bit.

Still, when asked what art forms speak the most to us, games don't rank at the top. Ranked 1 to 6, where 1 is the most emotional, the order was: movies, music, books, video/PC games, paintings/artwork, and last cars. (OK, so I have a thing for cars…)

Heavy gamers have more of a feeling for movies. Lighter and younger gamers are more moved by music.

For genres, I thought MMOs would top the list, but RPGs are the runaway winner – by far the most emotional genre of videogames. Interaction with computer characters seems richer (at this stage of development) than interacting with people in MMOs.

what emotions can a game make you feel?
Here is a list of feelings that gamers say videogames most strongly inspire.
The ones at the top are what you'd expect. But the middle feelings surprised me,
and the last ones suggest where innovative games could go.

competitiveness
violence/excitement
accomplishment
frustration and wanting to overcome it
danger
hate
honor/loyalty/integrity
awe and wonder delight
beauty
sadness
compassion for others
sexuality
love
spirituality

and some examples of these emotions.
Silent Hill, "Throughout the entire game your nerves are constantly being tweaked by the radio static,
fog, growling, ambient sounds and the shuffling of the more malformed enemies."

"I will never forget the feeling of love between Squall and Riona in Final Fantasy 8,
nor the broken-heartedness of Yuna at the end of Final Fantasy 10."

In a first person shooter,
"I was the last person alive in my unit and I was up against 5 enemy soldiers.
The first guy went down then I caught two others crouching together in a room;
with each kill my heart beat a little faster.
By the time I had killed the last guy and won the match for my team, I could feel my pulse beating in my jugular."