A new study has come out with interesting findings regarding video games and aggression. The study absolves violent content, but brings up something else that any gamer should be all too familiar with: frustrating gameplay.
Yes, I’m sure any player who has struggled with Resident Evil’s original tank controls, or more recently, had a run at Angry Birds, knows the feelings of getting frustrated from a game, either because it was hard to figure out, had too many gamebreaking elements, or was just too hard to play.
So, the University of Oxford released a study revealing a found correlation between video game, aggression, and game design. We’ll share some quotable quotes with you below, from researcher Dr Andrew Przybylski:
We focused on the motives of people who play electronic games and found players have a psychological need to come out on top when playing.
If players feel thwarted by the controls or the design of the game, they can wind up feeling aggressive.
This need to master the game was far more significant than whether the game contained violent material.
Whatever your stance on gaming and aggression is, it’s important to note that the research in this field is still in a preliminary stage, even though it’s been almost 20 years since the Mortal Kombat hearings in the US Senate. No, we still don’t know for sure whether video games lead to aggression lead to violence, but it’s encouraging to see that it’s not as cut and dried as vociferous pundits would have you believe.
