Study: Violence Does Not Enhance Gaming Experience

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Study: Violence Does Not Enhance Gaming Experience

Fri, Jan 16, 2009

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According to new research, violent content and imagery do not enhance a player's enjoyment of a video game. The study, conducted by researchers Richard Ryan and Andrew Przybylski at the University or Rochester, involved six experiments in which the level of violence in a normally violent game was decreased without changing its overall content or look. Games such as "Half-Life 2" and "House of the Dead III" were thus modified into non-violent games of tag or had their levels of gore reduced or eliminated.

According to the study's abstract from the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin:

As predicted, results from all studies showed that enjoyment, value, and desire for future play were robustly associated with the experience of autonomy and competence in gameplay. Violent content added little unique variance in accounting for these outcomes and was also largely unrelated to need satisfactions.

Przybylski further notes that although a small subset of the those participating in the study reported themselves as being "more aggressive" and preferring violent games, even these participants did not report enhanced enjoyment or pleasure from playing the more violent versions of the games.

Scott Rigby, president of Immersyve and a collaborator on the study, feels the study could (or, perhaps, should) have an effect upon the video games industry and its focus on violent content in video games, stating:

Much of the debate about game violence has pitted the assumed commercial value of violence against social concern about the harm it may cause. Our study shows that the violence may not be the real value component, freeing developers to design away from violence while at the same time broadening their market.

With non-violent games like Wii Play and Mario Kart DS making top-ten showings alongside the likes of Grand Theft Auto IV and Call of Duty: World At War in recent sales reports, perhaps developers will, indeed, take notice.

gaming culture, research, violence, violence in games, violence in video games

This post was written by:

Marie Kare - who has written 152 posts on GameCyte.

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6 Comments For This Post

Chris Maguire Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
New Study Finds: Blood Code Did Nothing For Me
Marie Kare Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 4:28 pm
@Chris Maguire Wow... that is a blast from the past. How are you even old enough to know what that is?
Scott Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Maybe now they can come up with a more creative argument why games lead people to commit acts of violence.
Marie Kare Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
@Scott Is it because losing makes people angry?
Alexander Galerakis Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
Haven't read the full thing yet, but how did they measure enjoyment anyway?

Also, Half-Life 2 multi player? Not exactly the goriest game, reducing the already slim blood levels wouldn't do much to change the experience, would it?

Reducing blood doesn't equal to removing violence when the point of the game is still to shoot people. It's still violent and still shouldn't get in the hands of small children, so please, leave the blood and gore alone, if only as an excuse to give it a 15+ tag.

Really removing violence would be to make the game about something other than killing. For example, change all the zombies in Resident Evil with teletubbies that you run around hugging, and the whole plot to never even mention danger, death, or any of the mature themes it's known for. How many of the same people would enjoy that game then?

I don't know if I'm expressing myself properly, I'm just trying to say, less blood doesn't really equal less violence, and truly less violence can definitely affect the enjoyment you get.
Marie Kare Says:
January 16th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
@Alex Kalimera, Alex!!!

Half-Life 2 was the one they turned into a game of tag. Instead of "killing" robots, you were asked to simply tag them. Instead of dying, they were magically teleported elsewhere. It was House of the Dead for which they took out all the blood.

And I think you're expressing yourself very well. I understand your point and I think it is a good one. If they left the context intact -- shooting zombies, blood or no, is still shooting zombies after all -- maybe the real finding is that people just don't really care about detail in games. As long as the overall gist is there (i.e., causing another thing/person's destruction), they'll have a pretty good time.

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