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Poring over the data, sifting through more than 1,700 specimens, a team of MIT researchers is, as we speak, cataloging the species known as the sports gamer. The data is, so far, unsurprising. More »
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You've lost your job, your house, and your savings are completely gone. Can you survive for a month on $1,000? That's the challenge put forth in the game Spent. Are you up to it? More »
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While average blog readership is packed with the sort of hyper intelligent teenagers that have to be portrayed by 30-year-olds in TV dramas, many of the world's teenagers are prone to doing stupid things for stupid reasons. New research explains why. More »
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A report from the USC Annenberg School for Communication finds that the video game racial landscape has a long way to go to match that of American society, fairing about as well or worse than that of television. More »
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Video game studies are inherently flawed, according to a writer for a Canadian quarterly, because in most cases researchers are making subjective appraisals of games they don't even understand. More »
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Researchers modified Half-Life 2 to study whether violence makes a game more enjoyable for players. The short answer: It does not. More »
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No sooner than two 70-year-old FPS enthusiasts pop up do we also find, in the journal Psychology and Aging, a study suggesting that older folks might benefit from playing strategy-intensive video games. More »
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Is President Palmer still doing the Allstate insurance ads? Why didn't he tell us about this? It seems the U.S. auto policy underwriter wants to test whether video games can help make 50-year-olds (and up) into better drivers. More »
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It probably wasn’t coincidence that Shane Murphy returned my call just after I’d thrown my third interception in NCAA ‘09 and punched off the machine in full perfectionist disgust. Murphy, a professor and researcher of psychology at Western Connecticut State, would later explain that I exhibited classic high-ego, low-task gamer behavior. That is, I am fixated on being seen as a winner, and not the process of becoming one. More »
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I wish these studies were done back when I was growing up. Oh, if only my mom could have read these after taking away my controllers when I refused to do my homework. "No, mom, studies show games are actually beneficial. See! Iit says so right here!" *sigh* So, a bunch of researchers gathered in Boston to detail a series of studies conducted to see whether or not video games had an adverse affect on learning. Well, as it terms out, certain games have real benefits and can be learning tools, including World of Warcraft More »
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Or at least a better at math - so says a small study conducted with primary school students in the Scottish city of Dundee. The wee kidlets were divided into three groups of 30 for the ten week study: one group played More Brain Training every morning for 15 minutes prior to lessons; another group used 'Brain Gym,' which is a series of physical exercises designed to stimulate brain activity; and the final group did nothing. Based on the math test given at the beginning and end of the project, the researchers found the Brain Training group made gains across the board, while neither of the other two groups showed such gains. And there were more benefits to some quality time with the DS in the morning: More »
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While I'm all for the academic study of gaming, a lot of the 'scientific' studies just kill me - if you spend too much time [insert time waster of your choice here] in college, your grades could drop? Really? And people actually get funding for this kind of stuff? The paper is being published by the National Bureau of Economic Research and was conducted at Berea College, where certain conditions meant that typical college time wasters weren't present. Video games, however, were - and they found that people who brought along video games to college (or had roommates who did) spent less time studying (and had a lower GPA) than people who didn't: More »
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Prestigious British driving school BSM recently took a survey of 1,000 drivers between the ages of 16-24 regarding how their driving habits are affected by video games, and the results showed that 27% admitted to taking more risks on the road after playing a racing game, with a quarter saying they pretend they are actually in the video game when they drive. A BSM road safety consultant said this presented an indisputable link between gaming and dangerous driving. More »
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ArsTechnica claims that last year's suspicious research conclusion, that gamers actually enjoy games with advertising more than those without, is probably just as bunk as it sounds. More »
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According to a recent report by Agence France-Presse, anyone who is reading this is likely to be a disgusting fatty. Also? A no-good, filthy whore. More »
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Our first reaction when reading about yet another games-induce-violence study is to discount it utterly, but a discussion happening over on GamesFirst right now suggests that we do the opposite, and mine these studies for their true implications. More »
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Wired has a great article up, detailing India's rise as a gamer society and the proliferation of cybercafes and gaming tournaments through India's growing middle class. India today is China of 2001: A rumbling cluster of highly compressed gamers ready to explode in a Big Bang across the entirety of the subcontinent. More »
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Gamasutra reports that according to a recent study, the elusive "casual gamer" is not as flighty a beast as previously thought: More »
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