Kotaku: Study

Study: Video Games Keep Out The Nightmares

Kirk Hamilton — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 20:30:00 EST

The Wall Street Journal has news of yet another gaming study, but this one's pretty darn interesting: Rather than judge video games' effect on violent behavior or socialization, the study looks at whether games can help people escape nightmares. More »

Is There Such a Thing As Killing for the Greater Good?

Brian Crecente — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 12:40:00 EST

Could you kill one person to save five? More »

The Problem With Pathological Gaming Studies

Mike Fahey — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:20:00 EST

Is gaming addiction a real psychological affliction that should be recognized by the American Psychiatric Association? According to some studies as many as ten percent of all gamers could be considered gaming addicts. A new study from Texas A&M's Christopher J. Ferguson explains how those studies are doing it wrong. More »

Million-Dollar Grant Seeks to Spark Young Gamers' Interest in Science

Owen Good — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 23:00:00 EST

The National Science Foundation is funding a project at N.C. State University [pictured above] to develop a video game that helps improve computer science knowledge retention in middle school kids. More »

When Your Mario Kart Obsession Seeps Into Your Daily Commute

Kirk Hamilton — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 21:00:00 EDT

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By now, you've heard about the new study from Nottingham Trent University that found that playing lots of video games can result in "Game Transfer Phenomena": the real world and the video-game world start to blend together, and gamers begin to see conversation menus during real-life interactions and going for button-prompts to perform real-world actions. More »

Study on Effects of Violent Games: Blame the Player, Not the Game

Matthew Buzzi — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 17:00:00 EDT

A study by Villanova University psychologist Patrick Markey suggests that the personality of the person playing a video game is more likely the cause of violent behavior than the actual content of the game. More »

Study Tries to Break Down Who Buys In-Game Items—by Race

Owen Good — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 17:00:00 EDT

A study found that whites and, by a slighter margin, blacks were more likely to account for purchases of in-game items from mobile games, in a study that examined purchasing habits by ethnicity. What it seeks to prove, I have no idea, but the mobile entertainment portal MocoSpace sounds pretty smug that it'll change the face of mobile games development. More »

It's Video Game Competition, Not Violence, That Sparks Aggression

Mike Fahey — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 13:20:00 EDT

Do violent video games cause aggressive behavior? According to a recent report published in the journal Psychology of Violence, the competitive aspect of gaming is more likely to generate aggro than mere violence. All this from a bunch of university students, some video games, and some hot sauce. Science is an amazing thing. More »

Nine Out of 10 Will Not Finish the Game They are Playing

Owen Good — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 02:00:00 EDT

Just 10 percent of gamers actually finish a game, an industry veteran told CNN in a recent feature, and his colleagues and other figures back him up. "Ninety percent of players who start your game will never see the end of it unless they watch a clip on YouTube," says Keith Fuller. More »

Half of All Netflix Users Watch Movies on a Games Console

Owen Good — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 23:30:00 EDT

In May, we learned that Netflix's console traffic—just movies streaming to consoles now—accounted for 20 percent of Internet bandwidth usage in the United States. We have more data backing up the phenomenon: Half of all the service's users watch movies on a games console, says Nielsen. More »

Survey Says You'll Spend About Two Years Playing Video Games

Owen Good — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 20:30:00 EDT

A promotional survey taken by a video game price comparison site turns up an interesting stat: The average gamer will spend just under two years of his or her life, in combined time, playing video games. More »

Computer Learns to Play Civilization by Reading the Instruction Manual

Owen Good — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:30:00 EDT

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Starting from nothing, a computer taught itself to read the instruction manual for Civilization and saw its rate of victory jump from 46 percent to 79 percent. More »

Video Games Improve Marijuana Performance 43%

Joshua Rivera — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 14:20:00 EDT

There aren't many things that marijuana users say weed can't make better. Take this guy I used to know. His name was Mike. Every once in a while we'd hang out with a few other guys and play ridiculous amounts of Halo 2. Occasionally Mike would light up during our fragfests. More »

Would You Like to Take a World of Warcraft Questionnaire?

Brian Ashcraft — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 07:50:00 EDT

The University of California at Santa Cruz is studying how WoW players arrange their interface elements to do various in-game tasks, such as raiding. If you play WoW, click on through and answer away! [WoWIU Study] More »

Does This Experiment Prove That Violent Games Increase Aggressive Behavior?

Mike Fahey — Wed, 25 May 2011 16:40:00 EDT

In a University of Missouri study sure to be cited by anti-gaming pundits for years to come, researchers provide what could be considered solid proof of the link between violent video games, aggression, and wearing funny hats. More »

Study of 'Game Transfer Phenomena' Examines Why Some Get Tetris-on-the-Brain

Owen Good — Sat, 14 May 2011 17:00:00 EDT

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If you've ever closed your eyes and seen tetrominoes falling into place, or Angry Birds slamming into stone walls, you're experiencing "game transfer phenomena," and it involves more than mentally playing a game long after it's finished. More »

The Family That Plays (Online) Together, Stays Together

Owen Good — Fri, 06 May 2011 22:00:00 EDT

Research suggests that family communication improves if the group are playing online video games together, but if a single member is gaming, it suffers greatly as the gaming becomes a substitute for healthy communication. More »

Gamers More Agitated by Playing Sports Games than Shooters, Says UK Study

Owen Good — Wed, 04 May 2011 19:30:00 EDT

There's a couple of ways to look at this latest video game study out of the U.K. Either there is no meaningful link between playing violent video games and aggressive behavior, or FIFA 11 is deadlier than Modern Warfare. More »

Study: Video Games Make You Eat More

Brian Ashcraft — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 06:20:00 EDT

So says a Canadian-led study, reports the National Post. According to the study, video games actually compel individuals to consume more food - even if they are not hungry. More »

Study of 1980s Gamers Finds Them Less Likely to be College Graduates

Owen Good — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 21:30:00 EDT

A researcher at Oxford University queried adults who were 16 years old in 1986 and found a correlation between an interest in video gaming and a lower likelihood of going on to college. More »

Nielsen Survey Finds Black Gamers Spend the Most Time Playing Consoles

Owen Good — Sat, 02 Apr 2011 11:00:00 EDT

Nielsen, the folks who measure every single thing that is or could possibly be done with a television set, have released an analysis of gaming habits by ethnicity, finding that African-Americans game the most per day, on average, Asian-Americans the least. More »

You Can Contribute to the First Major Study of Sports Video Gamers

Owen Good — Fri, 11 Mar 2011 19:40:00 EST

The games development research lab GAMBIT, at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has launched a study of sports video gamers, one a researcher believes will be the first comprehensive, independent examination of a very large video game segment, but one often seen as an outlier to the wider culture. More »

Games Help Soldiers Manage Combat Nightmares

Owen Good — Thu, 10 Mar 2011 23:30:00 EST

Research that last year suggested gamers had the ability to control their dreams - or fight back in nightmares - has been applied to soldiers who have seen combat duty, and finds that those who game have fewer and less intense nightmares about war. More »

Can Video Games Keep Your Children Physically Fit?

Mike Fahey — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST

Can exergaming really take the place of going for a brisk walk or doing a few laps in the pool? A study out of Brigham Young University finds that certain video games do count as legitimate exercise for kids. More »

Bejeweled Proposed As A Clinical Treatment For Depression And Anxiety

Mike Fahey — Wed, 16 Feb 2011 14:00:00 EST

While more mainstream video games are under fire for causing depression, a new study at East Carolina University finds that playing casual puzzle games is an effective way to combat clinical depression and anxiety. Guess who underwrote the study? More »

Games Might Not Desensitize Us To Violence After All

Mike Fahey — Tue, 15 Feb 2011 17:20:00 EST

The "video games desensitize children to violence" argument is a popular weapon in the arsenal of the anti-violent video game crowd. A new study finds violent games to have no effect on long-term emotional memory at all. More »

Video Games Teach Us How To Be Better Bad Drivers

Mike Fahey — Mon, 31 Jan 2011 14:30:00 EST

A new study conducted by Continental Tyres has found that players of driving video games are better at passing their drivers test than non-gaming drivers. Unfortunately they suck at everything else. More »

Can We Stop Blaming Games For Childhood Obesity Now?

Mike Fahey — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:40:00 EST

The United States has been growing increasingly more obese over the past few decades, and video games are often cited as one of the key factors behind this meteoric rise in pounds-per-person. Now researchers say that isn't necessarily true. More »

"Problematic" Gaming Linked To Depression, Drugs, And Fighting

Mike Fahey — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 14:40:00 EST

In a survey that's sure to be taken the wrong way by somebody, researchers at the Yale School of Medicine have discovered links between "problematic gaming" and negative health behaviors like smoking, doing drugs, and fighting. But first, good news! More »

Attractive People Are Smarter Than You Too

Mike Fahey — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 14:30:00 EST

We can't all be Angeline Jolie or Brad Pitt, but what we lack in looks we make up for in brains, right? Apparently not. Researchers in London have found that attractive people are smarter too, dammit. More »

CNN Takes On The Child Gaming Addiction Study

Mike Fahey — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 12:20:00 EST

Early this morning we reported on a new study that claims one in ten children are engaged in pathological gaming, prone to serious mental health issues. How does CNN handle the study? More »

Hate Will Bring Us Together

Mike Fahey — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 14:30:00 EST

A ridiculous study conducted by a group of stupid Slovenian and British researchers has scientifically proven that the more negative a discussion thread is the more active it will be. What a load of bullshit. More »

Just Thinking About Violent Video Games Stimulates Aggression

Mike Fahey — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 11:40:00 EDT

A new study by researchers from Ohio State and Central Michigan Universities finds that simply thinking about playing violent video games can stimulate violent behavior long after your game console has gone cold, unless you're a girl. More »

Motorized Wii Fit Babymobile — Now With Video

Owen Good — Sat, 28 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EDT

This past week, Gizmodo found a research project that seeks to equip infants, who otherwise can't crawl, with a motorized baby-booster controlled by a Wii Fit Balance Board. Now there's video of this contraption in action. More »

Wii Fit Examined As A Concussion Rehab Tool In College Football

Owen Good — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 18:00:00 EDT

Researchers at the University of Maryland and Ohio State University are examining Wii Fit's suitability as "an effective concussion management instrument," in football, where the injury is increasingly a concern. More »

Remembering What Never Happened

Mike Fahey — Mon, 02 Aug 2010 21:00:00 EDT

What if your most treasured memories from childhood were false? A shocking new study finds that one in five people fondly recall events that never actually happened. More »

Religions Weren't Designed With Video Games In Mind

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 05:30:00 EDT

Video games may nor may not be dangerous, they may or may not be art, but I don't think I've ever stood back and wondered whether they were permissible under Islam. More »

Study Says Kids Likely to Play Video Game Sports in Real Life

Owen Good — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:00:00 EDT

Duh, you say. Well, the usefulness of the report suggests that playing video games ain't entirely sedentary, and aren't a threat to actual exercise. Ah, now do you see? Sports games are our friends. More »

Scientific America Looks at GTA, Calls for Non-Sexist, Non-Racist, Non-Violent Video Games

Mike Fahey — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 18:00:00 EDT

The problem of using science to determine whether or not violent video games like Grand Theft Auto do harm to our children is neatly summed up in one article on Scientific American - there's always good news and bad news. More »

Newsflash: Study Reveals Pro Gamers are Out of Shape

Owen Good — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 19:20:00 EDT

British scientists recently studied pro gamers' physiology and reflexes to determine if what they do could be classified as a sport. One gamer in his twenties was described as having the lungs of a 60-year-old chain smoker. More »