- Joined
- Feb 3, 2013
Editor’s Note: There are NO images of spiders in this piece. Because this is a story about a phobia, we have decided to avoid including any imagery that might trigger it.
When you first start Grounded, a stylish new survival game from RPG developer Obsidian where shrunken players explore a backyard full of unexpected dangers, the game asks a surprising question: Are you afraid of spiders?
“This game contains spiders that are often much larger than the player,” the game informs players. “If you’re super not okay with that, you can enable Arachnophobia Safe Mode in the Accessibility options. This is a visual-only setting that does not affect gameplay or difficulty.”
From there, it’s super easy to jump in and move a slider that changes and deforms the look of the game’s spiders from something monstrous into blobs with two bulging eyes. A small but important touch: you don’t even have to see the original design for a spider; the game forces the player to enable “spider preview.” You can adjust the slider without ever looking.
In a 1994 study of UK adults conducted by Davy, 18% of men and 32% of women said they were scared of spiders. A separate 1996 study conducted by Mats Fredrikson and other researchers found 3.5% of the general US population reported a spider phobia. The idea that so many potential players might not play your game is a huge red flag in an increasingly crowded marketplace. These days, you want to make it easierto play a game, and yet spiders are one of the most common enemy types in lots of different video games.
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full article in link
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