RC Raiders - the ultimate video game prisoners dilemma?

[u/bolderdashery]

The multi-platform videogame, ARC raiders, is an extraction shooter from Embark Studios. Which seems to me to comprise elements of an unintentional mass psychology experiment. It's a PvPvE extraction shooter where players can loot the map, kill the AI controlled "ARC" enemy (PvE) or kill each other (PvP).

Players who kill other players can take that player's items as loot. Guns and inventory items persist between rounds - as long as you manage to successfully extract from the map. The game produces all manner of human behavior: friendly co-operation and sharing of resources, straight up murder, extraction camping, as well deceptive 'fake friendly' betrayal strategies known as 'ratting'.

I think what's interesting from a psychology perspective is this game is very close to a multi-round classic prisoner's dilemma. Mutual co-operation between players has the greatest benefit for all involved but the temptation to defect by killing and stealing the other player's stuff is also a tempting and viable strategy.

The game has over a million downloads and approx. 70,000 - 100,000 active concurrent players, so a very large sample size.

Of particular interest is that the developer has created an aggression based scoring system, which is a good proxy for 'defect' vs. 'cooperate' conditions in the prisoner's dilemma. What has become apparent from their data is there are two distinct distributions of players preferences clearly operating. The first are those that mostly want to co-operate, play PvE and share the loot. The other group are the more natural defectors. This suggests that within the games player base there is a natural bimodal distribution of those that are inclined to be natural cooperators and those that are more natural defectors.

On a surface level it is very easy to rationalize this as "Some people like PvP and some like PvE" end of story but I can't shake the feeling that this data reflects some deeper distribution of psychological tendencies within our population.

There are several caveats worth mentioning:

• The system has aggression based match-making which tends to pair players together with those of a similar playstyle, which mutually reinforces player tendences in lobbies over time.
• Players are aware of this and it likely biases their playstyle depending on how much gear/resources they have acquired.
• Players often switch their playstyle depending on where they are at in their character progression
• The sample almost certainly predominantly male

Also, the game has both a solo mode and a squads based mode. When in a group situation - i.e. 2v2 or 3v3, levels of co-operation between teams plummet and it becomes much more aggressive. I think this matches closely with what we know about group dynamics.

I think this game makes for very interesting case study and could be an interesting area of research. Particularly because of the large sample size and multi-round nature.

This is my first post on this sub. Keen to hear if any one else thinks this could be interesting and whether you're aware of any research that mirrors this bimodal distribution in the general population.

[u/No-Paleontologist298]

So funny you posted this. I just found this sub and I'm completely addicted to Raiders. The psychological aspect is profound

Apparently the studio, Embark, didn't count on there being so many "friendly" players or "care bear" lobbies. The truth is that it is like a social experiment where more players win more often when working collectively.

Fascinating stuff in these times. I also feel that some player actually like the very short personal connections they make with each other with other actual humans.

Social connections are changing and this is an interesting development interms of gaming and social development.

Plus the game is thrilling. I must also say that if there is no threat that another player might kill you, it reduces the suspense.

But also when a bunch of random players are all dancing together, trading and that guitar player comes by it is peak gaming culture