"The basic idea is that we are using them as a way to simulate threatening scenarios, and then play around with how we would respond to that," Coltan Scrivner, a behavioural scientist and researcher at the University of Chicago, says of games that involve fake danger or violence. The response could be behavioural, or even just emotional, in terms of handling the fear. He calls such games "scary play", and likens them to play-fighting among animals, which prepares them for real-life fighting, but also hunting or stalking prey.
