It is not common that academic research inspires an international TV series.
I’m happily surprised to see my research featured on the American series CSI, as a result of my PhD at Nottingham Trent University supervised by Professor Mark D. Griffiths. My research about GTP has flourished at NTU, and I’m very proud to be able to contribute to my university.
I wonder how GTP will be translated into different languages. If you watch the full episode in your language let me know 🙂
Here are some extracts from the story covered by NTU press.
The CSI: Cyber episode – which features Patricia Arquette and James Van Der Beek – aired in the US on May 13 and shows video gamers performing activities from a game in real-life contexts. The characters mentioned GTP, a term which Angelica coined herself, to explain the behaviour of a gamer who thought he could jump from one roof to another.
As one FBI agent said: “We just witnessed a prime example of Game Transfer Phenomena, or what we call “GTP under the influence”. There’s a documented history of gamers experiencing involuntary impulses to perform gaming actions in the real world. The more they play the game, the more they are in the game, in real life. Corey thought that he could jump to that other balcony to escape because he’d done it so many times in the game.”
Angelica said: “I couldn’t believe it. I was already excited when I saw the text on the screen saying “Game Transfer Phenomena” but close to the end of the episode when the FBI agents were talking about it, I almost fell off my chair. It made me reflect on the implications of how research findings can be used for different purposes and agenda – and the responsibility we have as researchers about reporting our findings and in the way we report them.
“Besides the controversy that it can generate portraying gamers potentially harming themselves, the storyline does resemble gamers’ reports to a certain degree. Although gamers typically only experience thoughts and urge to do something, including climbing and jumping from buildings and rarely perform the action.
“The duality between reality and fantasy has always been popular and controversial, which is probably why GTP appealed to the drama so much. According to the stats in my blog, some people who viewed the episode have been checking if the concept of GTP is real or fabricated.”
Here you can read my previous post about GTP in CSI: Cyber and watch the segments.