So I am a student of animation which allows me to exploit a large portion of my time to watch movies or play video games [both relevant to my field and an essential part of "things a teen must do"]. Anyway, I made an interesting observation. Games like Half life 2 which are puzzle and action based cause little to no sweat while racing games form a midway point to the COD series on the other hand, which make me sweat enough to be uncomfortable after 1 hr of playtime. Now I know that the COD games are insanely frantic, which epic action, extremely fast gameplay, massive firefights and powerful enemies along with sofisticated gameplay mechanisms. At some points in the game, the player alone must confront upto 30 enemies at once from various angles, distances and using various techniques [shotgun and smg CQC guys, snipers, Machine gunners, etc]. This is obviously expensive for my brain, but is it really so heavy that my brain heats up my blood enough to sweat? Is that even possible by itself or is it due to the accompanying hormonal/biochemical changes? What, why and how?
Games can certainly be realistic enough to provoke a biochemical response that is essentially similar to what would occur if you were confronted with that situation in real life. Adrenaline is released, the heart pumps faster, the body heats up. Especially when you tense up and get right into it. If you keep at it for long enough though, gaming can become a calm surgical exercise rather than an intensely physical one.
I don't recall sweating by the effect of the game, but I wouldn't be surprised if games such as "alone in the dark" and "castle wolfenstein" gave me some cold sweat back then. The only thing I remember for sure as a way that my brain has been fooled somewhat similarly is by sometimes making me move my head as if I had to physically dodge fireballs on "doom", instead of just dodging them in the game. Kids playing things like super Mario would often move the controller up as the character jumps, somewhat as if they were using some wii sort of console. Perhaps that's where the idea of wii came from.
I do not play such video games yet perhaps I may have something to offer by way of explanation. In advanced learning of many physical sports, we are taught to use 'right brain training', in that we visualize practicing the movements which we want to accomplish in real life. The brain, in effect, practices all of the neurological connections without actually using the muscle to perform the act. When next time one practices in real life, one will find their performance improving. The brain, while comprising only about 2% of the body weight has been estimated to use 20-25% of the body's energy according to several sites I have visited. In these enhanced games you are playing, I am guessing that the extreme stimulation you are dealing with is perhaps requiring your brain to draw upon energy from other parts of your body. When I ride my horse in advanced movements, I will often find myself breathing heavily and sweating even though it is the horse doing the physical exertion and my body movement is slight and I am in very good physical shape. Visualizing what I would like my body to do in synchronizing the efforts of my horse uses a lot of concentration also, as one is coordinating many facets of spatial information in rapid succession. Just a thought. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
When I first started playing online FPS games (such as Starsiege: Tribes) I found them to be quite psychologically intense. I mean, you're not just dealing with computer AI anymore, you're facing off against real people, so there is definitely a personal element to it all. As such, I found it to be just as competitive as any sport I've ever played, perhaps even more so since a significant portion of the players are either teenagers who are out to demonstrate their superior gaming prowess to everyone else, or people who are acting exactly like them. In fact to call it personal would probably be an understatement, since fragging someone often results in them stalking you for the rest of the game in order to effectively say "no, you're not actually better than me, you just got lucky, and I'm going to prove it". And believe it or not, this problem generally gets worse the better you become, since people always want to prove themselves by taking down who they think are the best players. Of course, there's a lot more to online gaming than that, especially when you're participating in organized scrims or ladder matches. But in some respects that can be even more intense, especially when the matches are close. What I'm actually driving at however is that with enough exposure, some players tend to become a lot like the Borg. In other words, they'll stick to the primary objectives instead of getting caught up in all the peripheral battles of ego, and even in deathmatch style game modes they'll be calm and strategic instead of emotional. It ultimately makes for more enjoyable gaming if you ask me, and doesn't preclude the occasional moment of exhilaration. But it means less 'sweating', less adrenaline, and ultimately less stress on the mind and the body. Yeah, I'm still a bit of a gamer in case you hadn't noticed. Although I don't put anywhere near as much time into it as I used to.
Nice to know. That does seem to be how it works. But still, how big a part does my hormonal/biochemical condition play in it?
A very significant insight, given that I have just managed to crack the first of the MW series online and with my weak lappy and slow connection, I am getting owned - a k-d ratio of a about 1-2.3 Will remember what you said.
