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127 excellent video game research topics for 2023.

Are you looking for the best video game research topics for 2023? We are proud to say that you have arrived at the right place. Our experienced ENL writers and professional editors have just finished creating our brand new list of 127 awesome video game topics for high school and college students. You can use any of our ideas for free – no credits required.

Best Way To Write A Video Game Essay

Before we get to the list of topics, we want to make sure you know how to write a great essay. After all, finding a great topic is just part of the writing process of any custom term papers . Here are some pointers that should help you do a better job on your research paper:

Structure your paper properly and always start with an outline. We recommend you use the 5 paragraph essay structure, as it’s extremely versatile.
Make sure your grammar and vocabulary are spot-on. Edit your work and polish your writing to make sure you get a top grade.
Be careful with quotes and citations. Remember to include all your sources in the References chapter.
Always start your paper with a great thesis statement. Dedicate some time to crafting the best one possible.
Keep in mind that each body paragraph should start with a clear statement and then support it. Don’t tackle more than one important idea in a paragraph.
Make sure you research the topic thoroughly and get accurate data from reputable sources. This is, after all, a research paper.
Last, but not least, write in a clean and concise manner. Express your ideas clearly and avoid unnecessary information that would just confuse or bore your readers.

Now that you know what to do and what to avoid when writing the video game research paper, it’s time to take a look at our list of original video game research topics:

Easy Video Game Topics

We will start our list with a selection of easy video game topics that are perfect for students who don’t want to spend too much time on their papers:

Talk about your favorite video game
What do you like about modern video games?
The process behind the creation of a new game
Why do you want to become a video game developer?
What is a MMORPG video game?
Differences between FPS and RPG games
Analyze the gaming industry in a country of your choice
An in-depth look at cyber sports and video game championships
Can playing video games be considered a sport?
What makes League of Legends so popular?
Research gun violence in modern video games
Are the games you play bad for you?
Talk about the impact of video games on small children
Do video games have any positive effects on you?

Video Games Topic For Every Student

Below, you will find a selection of topics for every student from high school to college. Check out our video games topic for every student list:

The psychology behind modern video games
Analyze the launch of a popular game
How are video games priced?
The history of online gaming
Games as learning tools
Controlling video game addiction
Shooters or strategy games?
Why you shouldn’t play video games
Physical benefits of games

Interesting Video Game Topics To Write About

We know; you want a topic that is both interesting and easy to write about. Take a look at these interesting video game topics to write about:

Do violent video games make teens violent?
What is the effect of video games on children?
What changed my view on video games?
Skills that can be improved by playing games
Do adults play video games?
Research the increase in demand for video games
Compare video games in the US and the UK
Ethical responsibility in the gaming industry
How addictive are role playing video games?

Fun Gaming Topics

Yes, writing a research paper can be fun – if you choose a great topic. Pick any of our fun gaming topics and start writing your paper right away:

The entire history of video games
Positive effects of video games
Android games vs iOS games
The Candy Crush popularity
Gaming industry careers
Genres of video games
The technology behind the Xbox 4
What causes addiction when it comes to video games?
How do games improve learning skills?

Latest News On Video Games

If you want to write about something new, we recommend you take a look at the latest news in video games:

Talk about the use of augmented reality in video games in 2023
What are incremental console upgrades?
An in-depth look at inclusivity in video games
Which games are trending in 2023?
Most anticipated video games of 2023
Latest advances in 3D and SFX effects
Talk about the remastered cinematics of Diablo 2 Resurrected
Halo Infinite: everything we know so far
The clan system in Call of Duty: Vanguard

Informative Gaming Topics To Talk About

Do you want to write an informative paper? No problem, we have a long list of informative gaming topics to talk about right here:

Why do people love video games so much?
Can video game addiction be treated like substance addiction?
Case study: The Elder Scrolls of Oblivion
Discuss government regulation of video games in the US
Compare and contrast the Xbox and the PlayStation
A closer look at the Japanese gaming industry
What does it take to become a video game creator?
The rise of Android video games
Do we really need computer games nowadays?

Video Game Research Paper Topics For High School

Our list of video game research paper topics for high school is unique, so you can safely pick any one of our ideas and write your essay on it:

What do modern video games promote?
How much time should you spend playing video games?
Are video games good or bad for our youth?
Talk about how gaming will look 20 years from now
Does playing video games make you think more strategic?
How important are video games for our society?
The importance of video games in treating depression
Are games a good way to treat anxiety?
Why do people spend so much money on video games?

Best Video Game Research Questions

A question is usually enough to spark your creativity. This is why we have an entire list of the best video game research questions right here:

Are video games good for teens?
How does video game violence affect children?
How will games look 50 years from now?
How do games improve our collaborative skills?
Why do we love looking at other play video games?
How damaging is piracy for the video game industry?
Which are more popular, RPGs or FPSs?

Video Games Debate Topics

Are you preparing for a debate and need a great topic? Don’t worry about it; we’ve got your back. Check out these great video games debate topics:

Discuss sexism in modern video games
Talk about social problems related to video games
Virtual reality in future games
The important of augmented reality
Can a game be educational?
What makes games so fun and addictive?
Gaming in the classroom in 2023
Interesting online gaming experiences
Important of games in special education settings

Good Video Game Writing Prompts

Are you looking for some good video game writing prompts that can help you write an intriguing research paper? Here are some of our best ideas:

Compare and contrast the top 3 games in the United Kingdom in 2023
What are some problems with modern video games?
An in-depth look at advanced SFX effects
3D game rendering technologies
Discuss online piracy related to video games
Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs: Modern video games
How realistic are modern games in 2023?
Tackle the violence theme in video games
Sony vs. Microsoft: gaming giants battle
The link between gaming and violence in teenagers
Discuss the addictiveness of video games

Video Games Research Paper Topics For College

Of course, we have a list of video games research paper topics for college students. These are a bit more difficult than the others in our list:

Linking video game addiction to substance abuse
The use of first person shooter games in military training programs
Flight simulation games and their real world applications
Games that improve critical thinking skills
The minimum age for playing video games
Games that improve reaction times
Pros and cons of playing assassin video games
Debunking the most popular myths about video games
Should parents prevent their children from playing video games?
The link between video games and cognitive skill improvements

Engaging Video Games Topics

Want to engage your audience right from the start? If you are looking to impress your professor, you might want to give these engaging video games topics a try:

The role of a developer in the video game industry
How is testing being carried out on video games?
Talk about the latest and most advanced video game effects
An analysis of the video game industry in 2023
Compare the 3 most popular games in the United States in 2023
Are online video games more addictive than single-player ones?
Discuss about the psychological effects of video games
Compare and contrast 3 first person shooter games
Improving reaction time in FPS games
The effect of video games on education

Video Games Of The Future

Last, but not least, we have a nice compilation of ideas related to video games of the future. Take a look at our innovative ideas and pick the one you like:

A closer look at Battlefield 2042
Talk about how rendering graphics works in games
Advances in graphics planned for games to be released in 2023
Innovative graphics in Halo Infinite
Discuss 3D game rendering technologies of the future
What makes Pragmata a game of the future?
The use of artificial intelligence in games in 2023
Research the use of virtual reality in future games
Discuss real-time rendering in future 3D games
An in-depth look at Hytale (to be released in 2023)

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110 Video Game Topic Ideas for Essays & Examples

🔝 top 10 video game topics for 2024, 🏆 best video game topic ideas & essay examples, 🎮 good video game research topics, 🕹️ interesting gaming topics to write about, ❓ video game research questions, ✅ simple & easy video game essay topics.

Looking for video game topics for your project? Look no further! Here, we’ve collected excellent essay topics for true gaming enthusiasts. Whether you’re looking for argumentative essay ideas on video games, research topics, or questions for debate, you will find them here.

History of Video Game Consoles
Myths of Video Game Violence
The Global Phenomenon of Esports
VR Gaming and Its Future Possibilities
How Video Games Influence Cognitive Skills
Therapeutic Mental Health Benefits of Video Games
Diversity and Gender Representation in Video Games
How Multiplayer Games Impact Social Interaction
Healthy Gaming Habits Against Video Game Addiction
Aesthetic and Narrative Qualities of Artistic Video Games
Product Life Cycle & Marketing of Video Game Industry One of the most important advantages of the concept of life cycle can be seen in the sphere of marketing, where if used as a tool it allows adjusting the strategies, including marketing, based on […]
Sony and Nintendo in the Video Game Industry The firm has manufactured several generations of the home console since the 1980s, beginning with the Nintendo Entertainment System, the Super Nintendo Entertainment System released in the early 1990s, and the Nintendo 64 that was […]
FIFA 10 Football Simulation Video Game A lack of consistency is evident in the various versions of this game as FIFA 10 played on a PC lacks the realism that is exhibited when the game is played on XBOX 360 and […]
Video Game Addiction and Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs As to me, I was interested in video games when I was a child because this industry was at its beginning and almost every pupil was involved in it.
The Video Game Industry Evolution The first mention of the creation of such games dates back to the 1940s, but it was in 1952 that Alexander Shafto “Sandy” Douglas officially presented his dissertation at the University of Cambridge. One of […]
Video Game Effects: Good or Bad? Given the fact that there is indeed a logically sound rationale to such a suggestion, throughout the course of conducting my study, I remained thoroughly observant of the article’s classification-related suggestions, in regards to the […]
The Monopoly Tycoon Video Game Review The game is stylistically similar to the board game Monopoly, and it can be played both online and offline. It is important to note that the game has a multiplayer feature, which can be played […]
The “Medal of Honor” Video Game Analysis The game is set to depict the Afghanistan invention in 2002 and the battle between the U.S.military and the Taliban. Due to the close resemblance of the game to the Afghanistan war, the game has […]
The NASCAR Video Game Project Management Plan The plan attempts to draw the features and gameplay mechanics by replicating the thought process of a potential player. At this stage, the game should be well-advertised and ready for release.
The Motivation of the Video Game Player For instance, the project gave its players the dynamic and fast pace of the game, a vast and detailed map, various locations, several different weapons, and character skins, and this is not all the possibilities.
Human Life: Video Game, Simulation, or Reality? Drawing parallels between the real and the virtual world, one can admit the unreality of the existence of the planet and people and compare everything that happens with the simulation in which we are.
Does Video Game Violence Lead to Aggression in Children? Among the gaming community, children participate vigorously in absorbing the plethora of entertaining content, including age-restricted ones where the scenes of violence are abundant.
A Role-Playing Video Game Ayiti: The Cost of Life This strategy worked but not to the topmost level simply because the burden of the living cost was gradually weighing down the overall income of my family.
BioWare Video Game Project Management For example, Dragon Age: Inquisition, the third installment of the company’s flagship series, switched to the Frostbite engine used by most of the EA games and succeeded in delivering the product despite the technical difficulties […]
Video Game History: Overview From the 1990s to Nowadays In addition to arcade car behavior, the game was also famous for its beautiful graphics at the time, with each game in the series being a launch title showing the capabilities of the console.
Video Game Delivery Project: Strategic Marketing To initiate strategies in marketing of Video Game, the company will decide to develop a web based application by ABC CORP and this application is customized to meet the requirements of the project. The purpose […]
A Video Game Store’s Business Plan The projected cash flow of the cash in the balance sheet will appear positive for the next five years and will show that the company’s profitability in will be good enough pay for operating expenses […]
The U.S. Video Game Industry This was also based on the views of the company’s developers who assumed that the technological advantages of the the16-bit system were extremely less than that of the 8-bit system.
Video Game Company Against Online Piracy The purpose of the said DRM software is to protect the intellectual rights of the company. The fourth major issue is the encompassing goal of the VGC to end all types of piracy.
Twitch.tv and Video Game Streaming Career From this point, in spite of the fact that the Twitch.tv platform can be viewed as belonging to the live-streaming industry, the careers of streamers develop according to the traditional principles of the entertainment business.
Nintendo in the Video Game Industry Previously, Atari was a major power to reckon with in the industry but was later toppled by Nintendo. Part of Yamauchi’s vision was to introduce new and cheaper video games in the market than the […]
Video Game Industry Analysis In 1950, Yamauchi assumed the position of the president in the firm and got on a variety of strategies with the purpose of rationalizing and modernizing the way the firm was controlled.
Game designers have the responsibility to design less video game Secondly, the outcome of the video game is unpredictable as compared to movie in which the audience can predict the point at which the story would end thus making the video games more interesting to […]
Striving for the Ultimate Knowledge: Eli’s Mission. Video Game Owing to the peculiarities of the movie plot, the game can be shaped in a most intriguing way, with a lot of turns of the plot which lead to the most effective denouement.
Analysis of the Counter-Strike Video Game Phenomenon in Computer Gaming
Comparison of Three Companies in Video Game Industry; Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft
Analysis of Free Will in The Stanley Parable Video Game
Analysis of the Effects of Playing a Video Game Used in Computer Science
Analysis of the Characteristics and Player Statistics of Bungie’s Video Game Destiny
Are Video Games Truly a Game or a Reality?
Analysis of the Topic of the Releases in the Video-Game Industry and the Issues of the Violence
Analysis of the Rise of the Video Game Empire in Modern Society
Two Aspects of Creating a Video Game
Analysis of the Third-Person, Console-Based Video Game, The Last of Us
Are Users The Next Entrepreneurs? A Case Study On The Video Game Industry
Combating Video Game Addiction : A Global Problem
Does Playing Video Game Consoles Bring About Plenty of Advantages?
Analysis of the Field Work Project and the Topic of a Video Game Community
Does Video Game Violence Affect Children?
Do Video Games Contribute For Video Game Violence?
Is The Video Game Industry an Oligopoly?
Is Video Game Violence the Cause of Juvenile Delinquency?
Psychological Effects of Video Game Violence on Children
What Is the Defining Business and Economic Characteristics of the Video Game Console Industry?
Why Play Station 4 and the Xbox One Are the Kings of the Next Generation Video Game Console?
What Makes A Video Game Addictive?
Competition Among 3 Main Video Game Companies: Nintendo, Sega, And Sony
Brief Note On Video Gaming And The Video Game Industry
Effects of Television and Video Game Violence on Children and Teenagers
Analysis of the Different Genres of Video Game Systems for Children
Overview of the Process and Career in Video Game Design
Development of the Elder Scrolls Video Game Series
Breaking Gender Stereotypes in Traditionally Masculine Sports: The Inclusion of Women in FIFA 16 Video Game
Cancer: Video Game and Playing Violent Video
Fighting the Online Video Game Wars in China
Government Regulation Of Video Game Violence Is Unconstitutional And Unnecessary
Japanese video game industry
History of the Video Game Industry
Microsoft Xbox Entering the World of Video Game
The Merchant of Video Games: Adapting the Merchant of Venice into an Adventure Game
What Are Some Revolutionary Breakthroughs in the Video Game Industry?
What Does It Take To Make It in the Video Games Industry?
Why Has the Video Game Industry Exploded Recently?
What Is Wrong With the Video Game Industry in This Generation?
Is the Video Game Industry Going Downhill?
Who Is the Best Voice Actor in the Video Game Industry?
What Will Be the Next Breakthrough or “Big Thing” in the Video Game Industry?
Is the Video Game Industry in Trouble Right Now?
Who Makes More Money: Hollywood or the Video Game Industry?
How Has the Coronavirus Impacted the Video Game Industry?
What Is the Biggest Missed Opportunity Yet in the Video Game Industry?
Does Video Game Violence Induce Negative Affects on Our Youth?
What Are the Changes the Video Game Industry Needs?
How Large Is the Video Game Industry?
Why Is the Video Game Industry in China Dominated by MMOs?
Is There a Bubble Forming in the Video Game Industry?
What Do Video Game Players Understand That Most People Don’t?
How Easy Is It to Make a Video Game?
What’s the Best Advice You’ve Received From a Video Game?
What Was the First Video Game?
What Is the Most Inappropriate Video Game You Know?
What Are the Elements of a Good Video Game?
How Much Does It Cost to Develop a Video Game?
What Can Video Game Consoles Offer You?
Why Video Game Addiction Is One of the Urgent Problems Today?
How Does Science Create Video Game?
How the 1970s Sparked the Video Game Industry?
Why Do Video Game Movies Always Fail?
What’s the Most Popular Video Game Genre?
The Science Behind Brain-Boosting Games
How Gaming Reflects and Influences Society
How Video Games Participate in Social Justice
Pros and Cons of Gamified Fitness and Wellness Apps
Gamification, Its Benefits, and Learning Outcomes
Virtual Goods in Video Games and Their Real-World Value
What Factors Influence Immersion and Player Engagement?
Cloud Gaming and the Potential of Streaming Technology
Market Trends and Revenue Models of the Video Game Industry
Violence, Microtransactions, and Other Ethical Issues in Video Game Development
Problem Solving Essay Ideas
Computers Essay Ideas
Technology Essay Ideas
Cyberspace Topics
Developmental Psychology Essay Ideas
Software Engineering Topics
Online Community Essay Topics
Hacking Essay Topics
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

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122 Video Games Research Paper Topics For Students

Oct 6, 2022

Oct 6, 2022 | Topics

Video games are a big part of our lives, just like political science, and they have been since the early days. Even with all that gaming available to us, there’s still something about a classic game that keeps us coming back for more. This is why we’ve decided to put together a list of 100 video game research paper topics.

The best video games research paper topics are those you’re passionate about. If you know how to write a video games research paper , it needs to be something that interests you and inspires you to write. The more the topic interests and inspires you, the easier it will be for you to write a good one.

When selecting your topic, make sure it’s something that has enough information available on it so that there is no need for any additional research beyond what has already been done on the subject matter.

Video Games Argumentative Essay Topics For Students

Best Video Games Research Paper Topics

The History of Video Games
How Video Games Affect the Brain
The Psychology Behind Video Games
Why Do We Play Video Games?
How to Make Money with Your Gaming Skills
How to Improve Your Gaming Skills
What Makes a Good Game?
How to Choose the Right Gaming Computer
How to Clean Your PC and Keep It Running Smoothly
The Psychology of Video Game Design Masturbation: Let’s Talk About It
The Psychology of Gaming Addiction
How to Improve Your Gaming Skills What Makes a Good Game?

Interesting Video Games Research Paper Topics

The Impact of Video Games on Children’s Development
The Effects of Violent Video Games on the Brain
How Does a Gamer’s Body Impact Their Gaming Experience?
How Do Gamers Use Interactive Fiction to Explore Human Nature?
How Does Video Games Impact the Brain?
How Do Children Use Video Games to Explore Social Issues?
Can Video Games Change Society for the Better?
How Do Mobile Apps Affect Our Lives as a Whole?
How Do Video Games Affect Our Emotions?
What Is the Relationship Between Video Games and Social Media?
Can Video Games Help People With Special Needs ?
How Does Technology Affect our Brain Health?

Simple Video Games Research Paper Topics

Simple Video Games – A Definition and Explanation
How to Create Your Own Game
The Way Children Play Video Games Nowadays and Their Favorite Types of Games.
What is the Most Popular Type of Game?
Who Creates These Games?
What is the Difference Between Video Games and Real Life?
How Are Video Games Used in Education?
Can Video Games Be Addictive?
What are the Effects of Violent Video Games on Children’s Behavior?
How Do You Feel About Video Games?
What is the Future of Video Games?
What Can Be Done to Reduce the Amount of Time Kids Spend Playing Video Games?
How Do We Know If a Child Is Too Addicted to Playing Video Games?
Should Children Play Violent Video Games?
Are Any Benefits of Playing Violent Video Games on Children’s Behavior and Learning Abilities?

Controversial Video Games Research Paper Topics

Video Games and Violence
Video Games and Addiction
Video Games in the Classroom
The Effects of Violent Video Games on Children and Adolescents
Obesity, Diabetes, Cancer, and Heart Disease as a Result of Game Play
How to Make You’re Playing Time More Productive With These Tips From Experts
Benefits of Gaming: Why Gamers Can Be Happier Than Non-Gamers
Why is Playing Video Games Good for Your Mental Health?
Does Technology Destroy Creativity?: How to Avoid Becoming a Cyber Zombie?
How to Use Video Games to Improve Your Self-Esteem?
How Can You Avoid Becoming Addicted To Video Games?:
The Benefits of Playing Video Games
10 Ways Gaming Can Make You Smarter
Why It’s Important To Maintain A Healthy Diet While Playing Video Games
Is Gaming Bad For Your Eyes?
How To Become More Productive By Playing Video Games
How to Make Your Playing Time More Productive

Compare and Contrast Video Games Research Paper Topics

Compare and contrast the stories of two video games based on the same universe
Compare and contrast different types of mini-games in video games
Compare and contrast the game design styles of two different developers (for example, Nintendo vs Sega)
Which video game series improved gameplay over its sequels? Explain your reasoning with examples from each title in the series.
Which video game series has the best story?
Which video game world do you think is most likely to be real? Why?
Compare and contrast the gameplay of two different video games within the same genre.
Which video game is better? Why?
Which video game has the best story? Why?
Which video game is more fun to play? Why?
Compare and contrast different types of mini-games in video games.
Which game developer do you think creates better games? Why?
Compare augmented reality with virtual reality in gaming

Video Games Research Paper Topics for Kids

Video Game Addiction: Is it a Real Problem?
The History of Video Games, Past and Present
The Benefits of Playing Video Games to Children’s Development
How to Choose the Best Educational Toys for Your Child’s Development
Video Games Research Paper Topics for Middle School
How to play video games?
What are the best video games of 2020?
What is the difference between online and offline gaming?
How to make your own video game?
What are the popular gaming trends in 2020? *Top 10 Video Game Trends In The United States Of America*
What is a pirated game and how can we avoid it when playing online video games or downloading apps on our phones/tablets/laptops etc.?
Why did I lose my score while playing Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Nintendo Switch?

Video Games Research Paper Topics for High School

Video Games Are a Waste of Time.
What is the Best Gaming Platform?
Which is Your Favorite Game and Why?
Discuss the Benefits of Having a Gaming Console in the Home.
Do You Have an Xbox, PlayStation or Wii? Why Didn’t You Choose The Other One?
Video Games Are A Great Way to Socialize. How Do They Help You Connect With Friends and Family Members?
What Are Your Favorite Types of Video Games?
What Are Some Fun Things You Have Done While Playing Video Games?
What Does Your Family Say About Your Gaming Habits? How Do They Feel About It?
What Would You Tell Someone Who Doesn’t Understand Why You Play Video Games?

Video Games Research Paper Topics for College

Video Game Violence and Its Effects on Children
The Role of Women in the Video Game Industry
How Technology is Affecting Our Relationship with Games
The History of Video Game Development
Why Do People Play Violent Games?
How Technology Is Changing Our Relationship with Games
The Role of computer games and its impacts on Society
How Do People Interact with Each Other and the Environment in a Virtual World?
The Effect of Violent Video Games on Youth
What Are the Benefits of Playing Video Games?

Video Games Research Paper Questions

What was the first video game ever made? What made it so special at that time?
How have different generations of gamers interacted with different types of technology over time (e.g., arcades vs consoles) or even between generations (e.g., Millennials vs Generation Z)?
What is the biggest video game ever made?
How does playing video games affect your brain?
What are some of the most important technological advancements in gaming over time?
How have different cultures worldwide responded to new types of technology, such as video games?
What is the history behind classic games like Pac-Man, Space Invaders and Donkey Kong?

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This article lists some of the best research paper topics for kids, middle school and high school students. These topics will help students better understand video games and write a good essay on this topic. Choosing your topic wisely before you start writing is important, as it can make or break your research paper. So, if you are looking for some interesting ideas, we have covered them all here!

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107 Video Game Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

Inside This Article

Video games have become a popular form of entertainment for people of all ages. From action-packed shooters to immersive role-playing games, there is a video game out there for everyone. With such a wide variety of games to choose from, it can be overwhelming to decide on a topic for an essay about video games. To help you get started, here are 107 video game essay topic ideas and examples to inspire your writing:

The impact of violent video games on children's behavior
The evolution of video game graphics over the years
The rise of esports and its influence on the gaming industry
The benefits of playing video games for cognitive development
The representation of gender and race in video games
The history of virtual reality gaming
The psychology of loot boxes in video games
The role of music in enhancing the gaming experience
The ethics of video game journalism
The impact of video game addiction on mental health
The cultural significance of video game franchises like Mario and Pokemon
The future of cloud gaming and streaming services
The role of storytelling in video games
The influence of video games on popular culture
The relationship between video games and education
The impact of video game censorship on creative expression
The portrayal of mental health issues in video games
The role of social media in video game marketing
The history of video game consoles
The impact of online multiplayer games on social interaction
The evolution of game mechanics in the survival horror genre
The representation of LGBTQ+ characters in video games
The influence of Japanese culture on video game aesthetics
The role of nostalgia in the popularity of retro gaming
The impact of microtransactions on player experience
The relationship between video games and violence in society
The role of artificial intelligence in game development
The impact of video game streaming platforms like Twitch
The representation of disability in video games
The influence of game design on player engagement
The evolution of mobile gaming
The role of virtual economies in online multiplayer games
The impact of video game sound design on immersion
The portrayal of mental illness in video games
The influence of Eastern philosophy on game narratives
The role of user-generated content in game communities
The impact of fan culture on video game development
The representation of indigenous cultures in video games
The influence of literature on game storytelling
The role of game difficulty in player satisfaction
The impact of video game piracy on the industry
The portrayal of war in military shooter games
The relationship between video games and sports
The influence of board games on video game design
The role of player choice in game narratives
The impact of virtual reality on therapy and rehabilitation
The representation of historical events in video games
The influence of film on game aesthetics
The role of gender stereotypes in video game marketing
The impact of game mods on player creativity
The portrayal of mental health professionals in video games
The influence of tabletop role-playing games on video game mechanics
The role of game mechanics in promoting teamwork and cooperation
The impact of game development crunch on industry workers
The representation of animals in video games
The influence of science fiction on game narratives
The role of player agency in game storytelling
The impact of game difficulty on player motivation
The portrayal of addiction in video games
The influence of mythology on game aesthetics
The role of puzzles in game design
The impact of game reviews on player purchasing decisions
The representation of mental illness in horror games
The influence of architecture on game environments
The role of game soundtracks in enhancing the player experience
The impact of game tutorials on player learning
The portrayal of robots and AI in video games
The influence of fashion on character design in games
The role of humor in game narratives
The impact of game localization on cultural representation
The representation of environmental issues in video games
The influence of psychology on game design
The role of game narratives in exploring complex themes
The impact of game communities on player engagement
The portrayal of mental health struggles in indie games
The influence of mythology on game storytelling
The role of player feedback in game development
The impact of game accessibility on player inclusivity
The representation of gender identity in video games
The influence of surrealism on game aesthetics
The role of morality systems in game narratives
The impact of game tutorials on player retention
The portrayal of mental health professionals in horror games
The influence of psychology on game narratives
The role of player choice in shaping game outcomes
The impact of game aesthetics on player immersion
The representation of LGBTQ+ relationships in video games
The role of environmental storytelling in game design
The impact of game streaming on player engagement
The portrayal of mental illness in puzzle games
The role of player feedback in shaping game development
The impact of game aesthetics on player perception
The representation of LGBTQ+ characters in horror games
The influence of film noir on game narratives
The role of environmental storytelling in shaping game worlds
The impact of game tutorials on player skill progression
The portrayal of mental illness in narrative-driven games
The influence of science fiction on game aesthetics
The role of player choice in determining game endings
The impact of game aesthetics on player emotional response
The representation of LGBTQ+ relationships in indie games
The influence of literature on game design
The role of environmental storytelling in immersive game worlds
The impact of game streaming on player community building
The portrayal of mental health struggles in interactive fiction games

Whether you are writing a research paper, a critical analysis, or a personal reflection on video games, these topics provide a diverse range of ideas to explore. From examining the psychological effects of gaming to analyzing the cultural significance of game narratives, there is no shortage of fascinating topics to delve into. So, pick a topic that interests you and start exploring the world of video games through the lens of your essay. Happy writing!

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Video Games Research Paper Topics

Video games are interactive computer games that you play by using buttons or controls to move images on a computer screen. Video games are now everywhere, and their impacts on society are worth studying. One of the best ways to understand the impacts of video games is by researching it. Although student enjoy playing video games, they find it difficult to get topics that will enlighten them on the impacts of video games. We understand why students need the right research topics, and we’ve decided to help them get it. As you read on, you will find some interesting video games research paper topics. Check the topics and choose the one that suits you best. All the video games research paper topics that you find here are easy enough for students to research, so be confident while choosing your topic. You won’t even need to do excess research before you come up with what to write about your topic. By using the topics below for your research, you will discover the impacts of video games on society, especially the popular ones.

Best Video Games Research Paper Topics

Video games are now life-like. What are its consequences, in terms of teenagers?
Are video games spoiling or building society? Discuss the topic using some common video games as examples
Argue the kind of educational video games that parents should play with their kids
Explain how gaming can be used in special education
Discuss the trend of designers and gamers types of video games their kids play. Discuss this topic in terms of aggression and violence.
The way video games are spoiling countless innocents?
How to transform video games into agents that share meaningful significance to the society
Will streaming replace console?
How video games serve as an escaping mechanism from taking narcotics and committing suicides
Gaming as an ideal way of dealing with disengaged students
Video games don’t have a place in education. Argue a side
Pick up a gaming technology and explain the way it works
The release that is causing the most buzz
Compare augmented reality with virtual reality in gaming
Explain how educators integrate gaming into the classroom
Why children should spend some time on gaming instead of focusing only on lectures
Why people hardly get bored after playing a single game several times
How virtual reality is impacting video game technology
Describe the features that categorize games as educational games and entertainment games
Negative Impact of Playing Video Games
How often should children play video games if they don’t want to get addicted to it?
How Video Games Can Assist in Brain Development Process
The Impact Of Video Games On Gamers
The Impact Of Video Games On The World
Why Video Games Censoring Is Important
Benefits of Playing Video Games
How to use video games as a form of therapy
The ways video games can hurt
How Video Games Help Society
Analyze the way violent video games promote violence in society
How Video Games Influence Young People
Video Games Can Improve Learning
Psychological Effects Of Video Games
How Video Games Impact The Brain Of Gamers
The various kinds of problems that video games can create
The rate at which teenagers are getting addicted to video games
Are there some unknown Impacts of video games on gamers? Explain some possible Impacts that may not be known yet?
Why kids should not play violent video games
Video Games Are Beneficial
Can video games really cause international crises? Explain what game developers can do to prevent this from happening.
Violent video games are too common in society. What are the possible outcomes of this?
How Are Video Games Promoting Stereotypical Gender-Bias?
Why Video Games Are Popular
The way video games are affecting academic performance
The Common Misconceptions Of Video Games
An invention that will likely replace video games
The cause of game addiction
Do Video Games Make Ethical Responsibility a Meaningless Ideology?
Violence in Video Games Promote Violence in Reality
What Video Games Offer to Gamers
Explain how video games kill creativity
The roles of video games in society. Analyze why these roles are important
What game developers can do to help gamers overcome addiction
Can video games make kids become introverted?

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Library Resources for Doing Scholarly Research on Video Games

woman looking at screen of laptop computer

So you are writing a research paper about video games but aren't sure where to begin? Since video games are a new medium of art that requires an interdisciplinary approach to conducting research, databases that draw on many different publications can equip students and scholars with the tools they need to succeed.

Before you begin exploring databases, here are a few useful tips:

For quick, targeted results, search by abstract instead of by keyword or by title. In an academic paper, the abstract is a brief summary of what the paper or study is about. Searching by abstract will give you a list of all the articles that discuss video games in the summary, so it will help you narrow down more quickly whether or not the article will be useful to you.
Use full-text filters to only get results where the entire article is available for you to read.
For the most scholarly results, use peer-reviewed filters to find only articles vetted by experts in the field.

Recommended Databases

Note that some of these databases are accessible from home with a library card while others can only be used onsite at an NYPL location.

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For those new to academia/scholarly research, EBSCO's Academic Search is a staple in libraries nearly everywhere to conduct general research. It is a good starting point to see the current literature out there for any paper, in this case, gaming scholarship. However, just typing in "video games" alone in the search will lead you to over 300,000 results; how do you narrow it down? As mentioned above, use limiters such as peer-reviewed/full text enabled for high-quality articles that you can read fully. Other available search limiters are "magazines" (think video game magazines) and "company" (e.g. if you want to research a specific video game company such as Capcom or Square Enix). Academic Search is good if you want to study video games in terms of education, how to utilize them in a teaching setting, in the workplace, and more.

Business Source Complete

If you are interested in researching video games from a business point of view, then EBSCO's Business Source Complete is the database for you. Here you will find SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunities, Threats) analyses of gaming companies, research about NFTs (Non-Fungible Tokens), virtual and augmented reality, video games, and more.

JSTOR (accessible from home with a library card)

Similar to Academic Search, JSTOR is a staple in many libraries and is a good area to conduct initial research while trying to figure out what you want your paper to be about. Typing "video games" alone in the search bar will net you more than 50,000+ scholarly articles about the popular entertainment medium. You can narrow your research to video games in Military Studies, Library Science, Political Science, and much more.

"Can video games help alleviate seasonal depression?"

"Do violent video games cause behavioral problems in adolescents?"

"Does Cognitive Dissonance explain the Console Wars?"

"Does causing chaos in Grand Theft Auto correlate to causing chaos in real life?"

EBSCO's PsycINFO is useful if you are interested in studying video games in terms of the realm of psychology, and have ever pondered one of the above questions. You can find articles about video game addiction, aggression in players, mental health, personality development, and more.

Project Muse

This resource is a general favorite for anything art or media related, with tons of scholarly, peer-reviewed articles about video games including articles on diversity in video games, video games and the ecosystem, video games and civic development, and more. When starting research on video games, this database is highly recommended to be your number one starting point when trying to figure out what your paper is going to be about.

Sage Knowledge

Sage is a good starting point if you want to read reference/textbook material about video games and gamification. In Sage you will find authoritative encyclopedias and handbooks that will help any gaming scholar in the beginning stages of their research. Some interesting encyclopedias that feature a chapter in video games are Death and the Human Experience, Out-of-School Learning, Communication Research Methods, and many more.

Additional resources:

Our LibGuides page will point you to themed research guides of Library resources. For example, if you wanted to create a video game about a time-traveling librarian that takes place in New York City in the 1800s, looking at local history and newspapers may be something you want to do. If you know the research you want to do requires in-depth assistance, it's encouraged to make an appointment with a librarian .
This list of Fellowships around the city and at NYPL may be of interest to scholars.
Our Interlibrary Services and Documents is also a service for scholars to utilize if you need an article or not owned by the Library. You can also use interlibrary loan for video games as well.
Flipster is a magazine database accessible with your library card that includes video game magazines.
Finally, an external resource, the Internet Archive , has all kinds of old-school video games you can play, as well as gaming manuals and much more. Anyone who needs primary sources will find this very useful.

Video Games Research Paper Topics

Good Video Games Research Paper Topics
Interesting Video Games Research Paper Topics

Video Games Research Paper Topics for College Students

Video games research paper topics for high school students, ✒️ good video games research paper topics.

Violent Video Games Contribute To Youth Violence?
Violence In Video Gamess
Video Games Do Not Cause Violence
Video Games Consoles: Ps3 And Xbox 360
Video Games And Violence Speech
Video Games And Violence
Video Games Affect The Brain
Video Game Violence Research Paper Video
Video Game Violence Research Paper Gorefest
Video Game Industry
Video Game And Young People
Video Game Addiction
The Wii: Nintendo’S Video Game Revolution
The Video Game Industry Competition
The Negative Effects Of Video Games
The Impact Of Video Games On Children
The Effects Of Video Games On The Heart
The Bad Effects That Video Games Have On Children
Speech On Video Game Violence
Some People Regard Video Games As…

✨ Best video games Topic Ideas & Essay Examples

A Critique of “Do Video Games Kill?” Sample In the essay “Do Video Games Kill? ” Karen Sternheimer takes on the subject of the media’s influence on adolescent and adolescent force in America. She focuses chiefly on video games peculiarly the late popular “first-person shooter” games (p. 204 )…..
Violence and Video Games “The Columbine shooters played violent video games; that has to be a factor in their decision to brutally murder their classmates!” Society is quick to point fingers and approach unknown situations with a causal mentality that often results in a ….
Video Games Cause Aggressive Behavior Argumentative Essay In today’s economy, I believe that violent video games do promote violent and more aggressive behavior amongst our children. Parents need to step up and monitor what type of video games their kids are playing. You never know ….
The Impact of Video Games The author continues to emphasis that on utilitarian grounds that video games provides billions of hours to millions of people of fun and entertainment evidently outweighing the potential harm it can cause. In addition to the positives, gaming fuels ….
Do Video Games Lead to Violence? President Donald Trump said Thursday during a White House meeting on school safety that the nation needs to address what young people are seeing. ‘I’m hearing more and more people saying the level of violence on video games is really shaping young ….
Are Video Games Good for You A typical story told by parents is that staring at the TV too long can ruin your eyes or watching SpongeBob or any other cartoons make you dumber to steer their children from consuming hours of TV. People invest more time looking at screens from ….
Video Games vs Cinema Resident Evil is a multimillion-dollar production, from video games, to movies, this take on the modern-day plague, opened the door to many branches off undead productions. Resident Evil is noted to be one of the best video games of all time. It is ….
Do Video Games Make You More Violent “I know, it’s hard to wrap your head around such a fact of after years of listening to ‘don’t sit too close to the TV, you’ll ruin your eyes,’ or ‘stop wasting your time playing video games—go outside!(https://www.idtech.com/blog/video-games-are-….
Video Games and Attentional Control The video game industry is thriving like never before. According to a 2018 study, 60% of Americans report playing video games daily (Entertainment Software Association, 2015). Red Dead Redemption 2, released by Rockstar Games in October of 2018, ….
Analysis of the Attractiveness of Video Games To determine the attractiveness of the video game business, PEST analysis, and Porter’s five forces will be used. PEST analysis will be used to analyse the external environment of the video game business faced by Tencent and the industry. Tencent is ….
Why Would Video Games Hurt Have video games ever hurt you? Have they ever hurt someone you love? If you answered no, then the article “Do Video Games Inspire Violent Behavior” By Gregg Toppo got its point across. This article mainly how horrible behavior from kids comes from ….
Violent Video Games Should Be Banned Almost every child enjoys playing video games as it acts as a source of entertainment. However, as time passed by vicious contents are now being portrayed through gaming that dehumanizes children and encourages in promoting violent behavior. Parents ….
Video Games and Why They Should Not be Regulated This paper will discuss how video games are regulated by the rating system, how violent video games encourage regulations, the positive effects of playing video games, how parents can bond with their children using video games and … Video games have ….
Are Violent Video Games Really That Bad for You A lot of people play video games these days. You can look at people of many and different ages, religions, backgrounds, race, and economic scale. New apps and video games are being created each and every day. This generation meaning millennials and ….
Some People Regard Video Games As Some people regard video games as harmless fun, or even as a useful educational tool. Others, however, believe that videos games are having an adverse effect on the people who play them. In your opinion, do the drawbacks of video games outweigh the ….
Essay – Violence in Video Games There is a growing phenomenon that threatens our safety every minute.Violent video games are causing our children to be aggressive monsters.If we allow these games to continue, there will be more school shootings and more mad men with weapons…..
Violent Video Games Leading to Criminal Behavior Violent video games and its effect on gamers has been a debatable topic for decades. Although scientists have not came up with an official answer, many people have different opinions on where they stand in the argument. Many people believe violent ….
Video Games Are Good to Educate Throughout the history of gaming there has always been a stigma. The stigma is that games are bad for the youth and do not teach them anything necessary to further their development. A lot of individuals feel as though games are a waste of time and ….
Favorite Heroines of Female Video Games If you were to ask many video game enthusiasts about their favorite female video game heroines, the answers you’d get would be very varied – some will say Lara Croft of the Tomb Raider series, others say Alyx from the Half-Life series, few say Jade ….
Violent Video Games and their Positive Effects How many times a day do our children ask us for something and we so quickly reply, “No” without second guessing it or even listening to the whole question? A million and one times, right? Most children play video games, and regardless of how we ….

✍ Interesting Video Games Research Paper Topics

Social And Ethical Issues Of Video Games
Rhetorical Analysis Of Video Game Violence
Research Paper- Benefits Of Video Games
Psychological Effects Of Video Game Violence On Children
Production Of Non-Educational Video Games Should Be Banneds
Positive Effects Of Video Games
Persuasive Speech – Benefits Of Video Game
Effect Of Violent Video Games
Comparison And Contrast Two Video Games
Argumentative-Video Game Violence
Argument Parents And Video Games
Are Video Games Influencing Our Children
A Critique Of “Do Video Games Kill?”
A Controversial Topic of Video Games as a Cause of Violence
A Journey Through Digital Literature: Hidden Literature and Literary Criticism in Video Games
A Positive Impact of Video Games on People
A Study of The Psychological Affects of Video Games on Children and Young Adults
Advantages and Disadvantages of Video Games
An Enduring Debate on ‘Do Video Games Cause Violence’
An Issue of Violence in Video Games
Analysis of How Video Games Cause Violence Among Teenagers
Answering The Question on Whether Video Games Cause Violence Or not
Benefits and Detriments of Playing Video Games
Benefits of Video Games in Terms of Learning and Exercising
Children’s Addiction to Video Games
Critical Analysis of Robert Eberts’ Article Video Games Can Never Be Art
Criticism Against Video Games
Discussion on Whether Video Games Are Bad Or Good for Us
Discussion on Whether Video Games Cause Violence in Youth
Effect of Video Games on Children
How Video Games Are Created
How Video Games Can Shape Our Brains and Behavior
Impact of Violence in Video Games
Interacting with Media: How Video Games Have Influenced Storytelling
Investigation of The Debate on Video Games Causing Violence
Investigation of Whether Video Games Cause Violence in Children
Mindfulness in Video Games
Negative Effects of Video Games on Health
Positive and Negative Sides of Video Games: Shadow of The Tomb Raider
Positive Impact of Video Games on Humans
Research Essay on The Negative Effects of Video Games
Research Whether Video Games Cause Violence
Risk Factors of Video Games Addiction
Statement that Video Games Cause Violence is a Misconception
Stop Blaming Video Games
The Benefits of Video Games
The Effect of Video Games on Violence in Youth
The Effects of Video Games
The Impact of Violence in Movies and Video Games on Children
The Issue of Video Games Addiction
The Negative Effects Caused by Overexposure to Violent Video Games and Films
The Relation of Video Games to Committing School Shootings
The Social Impact of Video Games on Children
The Types of Video Games and The Consequences of Playing Them Too Much
The Video Games Software Industry
The Ways Video Games Influence Learning Process
Timeline of Video Games Development
Understanding Video Games Engines and Game Modes
Video Games Comparison: ‘Fortnite’ Versus ‘Pubg’
Why Video Games Addiction is Dangerous

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Advantages and Disadvantages of Video Games

Risk factors of video games addiction, timeline of video games development, how video games can shape our brains and behavior, pros and cons of video games, benefits of video games for children, influence of video games on health, the social impact of video games on children, effect of video games on people's moods, influence of violence in video games, psychological effects of video games on children and young adults, stop blaming video games, benefits and detriments of playing video games, discussion on whether video games are bad or good for us, statement that video games cause violence is a misconception, the panic over video games violence in today's society, negative effects of video games on health, investigation of whether video games cause violence in children, the effects of excessive time playing video games on children, interacting with media: how video games have influenced storytelling.

Video games are interactive electronic entertainment forms that involve player participation through the use of digital interfaces, such as gaming consoles, computers, or mobile devices. They encompass a wide range of virtual experiences that combine elements of storytelling, competition, and problem-solving. Video games often feature dynamic visuals, immersive audio, and engaging gameplay mechanics, allowing players to control and navigate virtual environments, characters, or objects.

The origin of video games can be traced back to the mid-20th century when scientists and engineers began exploring the possibilities of interactive electronic entertainment. One of the earliest examples is "Tennis for Two," created by physicist William Higinbotham in 1958, which simulated a game of tennis on an oscilloscope. However, it was in the 1970s and 1980s that video games gained significant popularity and commercial success. The release of the arcade game "Pong" in 1972 by Atari marked a turning point in the history of video games. It sparked the arcade gaming phenomenon and laid the foundation for the industry's growth. The subsequent release of home consoles like the Atari 2600 and the introduction of personal computers further expanded the accessibility and reach of video games. The 1980s and 1990s witnessed the emergence of iconic video game franchises such as Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, and Sonic the Hedgehog. Rapid advancements in technology led to improved graphics, sound, and gameplay mechanics. The introduction of CDs and CD-ROMs in the 1990s allowed for more complex and immersive gaming experiences. In recent years, video games have become an integral part of mainstream culture and a booming industry, surpassing the film and music industries in terms of revenue.

Shigeru Miyamoto: Known as the "Father of Modern Video Games," Miyamoto is the creator of iconic franchises such as Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Donkey Kong. Gabe Newell: As the co-founder of Valve Corporation and creator of the Steam platform, Newell has played a significant role in the digital distribution of games. Steam revolutionized the way games are purchased, downloaded, and played, greatly influencing the PC gaming market. Markus Persson (Notch): Persson is the creator of Minecraft, one of the best-selling video games of all time. Minecraft's sandbox-style gameplay and open-ended world have captured the imagination of millions of players worldwide.

Action (Fighting, Platform, Shooter, Survival, Battle royale), Action-adventure (Stealth, Survival horror), Adventure (Interactive fiction, Interactive movie, Visual novel), Gacha, Horror, Masocore, Massively multiplayer online, Role-playing (Action role-playing, Tactical role-playing), Simulation (Construction and management, Life simulation, Sports, Vehicle), Strategy (4X, Auto battler, Multiplayer online battle arena, Real-time strategy, etc.).

Arcade video game, Console game, Electronic game, Online game, Mobile game, PC game, Virtual reality game.

Minecraft, Dark Souls, The Witcher, Grand Theft Auto, World of Warcraft, Super Mario, The Sims, Fortnite, Call of Duty, Assassin’s Creed, Pacman, Tetris, Sonic the HedgeHog, Angry Birds, Skyrim, etc.

Public opinion on video games is diverse and multifaceted. While video games enjoy immense popularity and have a dedicated fan base, opinions about them vary among different segments of society. Some people view video games as a form of entertainment that offers immersive experiences, interactive storytelling, and social interaction. They appreciate the creativity, artistry, and technological advancements within the industry. Supporters argue that video games can enhance cognitive skills, problem-solving abilities, and even have therapeutic benefits. On the other hand, there are concerns raised by critics regarding the potential negative effects of video games. Some individuals argue that excessive gaming can lead to addiction, social isolation, and a sedentary lifestyle. Others raise concerns about the violent content in certain games and its potential impact on aggression or desensitization. Public opinion is often influenced by media coverage, personal experiences, and cultural biases. As the medium continues to evolve, ongoing discussions and debates surrounding video games will shape public perception and understanding of their impact on individuals and society as a whole.

1. Cognitive development 2. Entertainment and escapism 3. Social interaction 4. Educational value 5. Technological advancement

1. Addiction and excessive screen time 2. Violence and aggression 3. Health risks 4. Social isolation 5. Distraction and academic performance

1. The video game industry is a multibillion-dollar industry, with revenues surpassing those of the film and music industries combined. In 2021, the global video game market generated over $175 billion in revenue, highlighting the immense popularity and economic impact of video games. 2. According to a study published in the journal Pediatrics, video games can have a positive effect on surgical skills. Surgeons who played video games for at least three hours per week were found to perform laparoscopic surgery faster and with fewer errors compared to non-gaming counterparts. 3. In recent years, the rise of esports (competitive video gaming) has gained significant momentum. Esports tournaments and leagues attract millions of viewers worldwide, and professional esports players have become celebrities with lucrative sponsorships and endorsement deals. The esports industry is projected to reach a value of $3 billion by 2025, further cementing the cultural significance and growth potential of competitive gaming.

The topic of video games is important to write an essay about due to its widespread influence on modern society. Exploring this subject allows for an examination of its impact on various aspects of life, including culture, technology, psychology, and social interactions. Writing an essay about video games provides an opportunity to delve into their historical evolution, from the early days of arcade machines to the immersive and sophisticated gaming experiences of today. It allows for an analysis of the technological advancements that have propelled the industry forward and shaped the way we play and interact with games. Furthermore, studying video games enables an exploration of their cultural significance. Games have become a major form of storytelling, tackling complex themes and issues. They have also sparked discussions about representation, diversity, and ethics within the industry. Understanding the cultural context and impact of video games can shed light on their role as a powerful medium for self-expression and communication. Moreover, video games have been a subject of debate and scrutiny. Addressing topics such as violence, addiction, and their effects on mental health and social behavior can contribute to a nuanced understanding of the potential benefits and drawbacks of gaming.

1. Anderson, C. A., Gentile, D. A., & Buckley, K. E. (2007). Violent video game effects on children and adolescents: Theory, research, and public policy. Oxford University Press. 2. Ferguson, C. J. (2015). Do angry birds make for angry children? A meta-analysis of video game influences on children's and adolescents' aggression, mental health, prosocial behavior, and academic performance. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 10(5), 646-666. 3. Gee, J. P. (2003). What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Computers in Entertainment (CIE), 1(1), 20-20. 4. Griffiths, M. D., & Nuyens, F. (2017). An overview of structural characteristics in problematic video game playing. Current Addiction Reports, 4(3), 272-283. 5. Juul, J. (2010). A casual revolution: Reinventing video games and their players. MIT Press. 6. Kapp, K. M. (2012). The gamification of learning and instruction: Game-based methods and strategies for training and education. John Wiley & Sons. 7. Prensky, M. (2001). Digital game-based learning. McGraw-Hill. 8. Ryan, R. M., Rigby, C. S., & Przybylski, A. (2006). The motivational pull of video games: A self-determination theory approach. Motivation and Emotion, 30(4), 344-360. 9. Sherry, J. L. (2001). The effects of violent video games on aggression: A meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 27(3), 409-431. 10. Yee, N. (2006). Motivations for play in online games. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(6), 772-775.

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Neuro-Gaming: How Video Games Shape the Brain's Cognitive Landscape

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Published: 26 April 2022

Reaction time and working memory in gamers and non-gamers

Gal Ziv 1 ,
Ronnie Lidor 1 &
Oron Levin 2

Scientific Reports volume 12 , Article number: 6798 ( 2022 ) Cite this article

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Human behaviour

The purpose of this pre-registered study was to examine whether asking gamers and non-gamers about their video game playing habits before or after they performed computerized cognitive-motor tasks affects their performance of those tasks. We recruited 187 participants from an online participants’ recruitment platform. Out of those participants, 131 matched our criteria as gamers or non-gamers. They were then divided to two subgroups, and performed a choice-RT task, a Simon task, an alternate task-switching task, and a digit span memory task either before or after answering a video-game playing habits questionnaire. The results showed that gamers who completed a video-games questionnaire before performing the tasks had faster reaction times (RTs) in the Simon task compared with gamers who answered the questionnaire after performing the tasks. In contrast, non-gamers who answered the questionnaire before the task had slower RTs in the Simon task and the alternate task-switching task compared with non-gamers who answered the questionnaire after performing the tasks. The results suggest that answering a video-games questionnaire before the start of a study can lead to a response expectancy effect—positive for gamers and negative for non-gamers. This may bias findings of studies examining video games and the performance of cognitive-motor tasks.

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Using games to understand the mind

Introduction.

With over 2.7 billion gamers worldwide 1 , playing video games can be considered as one of today's favorite pastimes. As the popularity of video games grows, research interest in the effects of playing video games on human behavior and psychology increases as well. In the past few decades, researchers have examined the relationship between video games and aggression (e.g., 2 , 3 ), depression (e.g., 4 , 5 ), addiction (e.g., 6 ), and cognitive processes—among them executive function (e.g., 7 , 8 ), attention (e.g., 9 ), reaction time (RT) (e.g., 10 ), and working memory (e.g., 11 ). It has been suggested that playing video games can have cognitive, motivational, emotional, and social benefits 12 .

A number of studies have shown positive relationships between playing video games and cognitive-motor skills (e.g., 13 , 14 , 15 , 16 , 17 ). For example, Boot et al. 13 showed that expert gamers are better than non-gamers in tracking moving objects, in detecting change, and in task switching. Colzato et al. 15 reported that experienced gamers who play first-person shooter games—action games that are played from a first-person view—were more accurate at an N-back task and reacted faster to go signals in a stop-signal task without compromising stopping performance, than non-gamers. Another study 17 used a stop-change paradigm (a variation of the stop-signal task with the addition of a cue to not only inhibit a response but to initiate another) and demonstrated that, compared with non-gamers, experienced first-person shooter players reacted faster in the go condition and in the change conditions without compromising accuracy.

While the abovementioned findings are promising, there are a number of methodological concerns that undermine our ability to show a causal relationship between playing video games and improved cognitive and motor performance. It is not clear, for example, whether the relationship between gaming and performance is caused by the gaming experience or if it represents pre-existing differences that lead to a self-selection effect, causing certain individuals to choose to play video games 13 . Boot et al. 18 suggested that several methodological shortcomings may undermine the positive effects of playing video games on cognitive/motor performance. Specifically, for studies that aim at examining differences between gamers and non-gamers, covert recruiting of participants is of importance.

Boot et al. 18 emphasize that gamers should not know that they are recruited for a study about gamers or about the benefits of playing video games, as this might bias the results. To prevent that bias from occurring, researchers should not ask participants about their video game-playing experience before the study. This methodological argument is supported by the concept of psychological suggestion. Psychological suggestion refers to a process by which individuals or environmental cues influence the way we think and behave 19 . Suggestions can be deliberate (e.g., directly influencing one's thought, beliefs, or behaviors), or unintentional (e.g., given by certain cues given by individuals or that are present in the environment). Examples of such unintentional cues can be found in various domains. For example, jurors' verdicts are affected by judges’ expectations of guilt and by subtle differences in the way they give instructions to the jury 20 . Ziv and colleagues 21 provided an example from the motor learning domain, where participants’ expectancies of success were manipulated by changing the task-success criterion. In their study, participants who practiced with an easy success criterion putted golf balls more accurately in a transfer task compared with participants who practiced with a difficult success criterion. In the abovementioned studies, subtle cues led to changes in decision making in jurors as well as in individuals who performed a motor task (golf putting). Similarly, gamers who learn that they are about to participate in a study on gamers' abilities, and who believe that gaming may be related to higher cognitive and motor performance, might expect to perform better—and indeed do so.

One theory that can explain how psychological suggestion works—and in the context of the current study how unintentional psychological suggestion can lead to changes in gamers' task performance, is the response expectancy theory 22 , 23 . Response expectancies can be defined as “the anticipation of automatic, subjective, and behavioral responses to particular situational cues” ( 23 , p. 69), and they can be a product of suggestion. Such response expectancies can lead individuals to automatically change their behavior in accordance with their expectancies 24 . For example, Clifasefi et al. 25 showed that telling participants that they are receiving a drug that enhances mental alertness and cognitive function, when they actually received a placebo, led to improved performance in a cognitive task (compared with participants who were told they were given a placebo). Similarly, Foroughi et al. 26 showed that individuals who were recruited overtly for a cognitive training session (i.e., recruitment flyer mentioned that training can improve cognitive function) improved their cognitive performance after a one-hour training session compared with participants who were recruited covertly (i.e., neutral recruitment flyer) for the same training and showed no improvements.

In accordance with psychological suggestion and response expectancy theory, Boot et al. 27 suggest that participants' expectancies can affect the results of studies. Gamers, for example, may expect to perform well in certain cognitive/motor tasks if they believe that there is a positive relationship between gaming and performance, and if they are aware of the fact that they were recruited for a certain study because they play video games. Such expectancy effects can also occur in video game training studies in which participants are told that such training should lead to improved performance in various cognitive tasks (e.g., 28 ).

To assess the effects of this possible bias directly, we devised a study in which a group of gamers and a group of non-gamers were covertly recruited and were asked to perform certain cognitive/motor tasks either before or after answering a video-games questionnaire. Covert recruitment can be accomplished, for example, by inserting the questions regarding gaming habits within various unrelated questions (e.g., questions about religious beliefs and preferred temperatures) 17 . However, it is even better to avoid asking such questions at all. In our study, we used an online participant recruitment platform that allowed us to recruit gamers and non-gamers without asking any preliminary questions.

Therefore, the purpose of the current study was to examine whether asking participants about their gaming experience prior to participation in the study affects their performance. We hypothesized that (a) asking gamers about their gaming experience before the study will lead to better performance in reaction time (RT)-based tasks compared to asking the same questions after the study; (b) asking non-gamers about their gaming experience before the study compared to after the study will not affect their performance in RT-based tasks; and (c) there will be no differences between gamers and non-gamers in a digit-span memory task.

The second hypothesis requires an explanation. First, although response expectancies and suggestions can be both positive and negative, there are relatively little data regarding these effects in simple cognitive-motor tasks. In addition, the few studies that examined these effects on motor performance showed contrasting results. While Ziv et al. 21 showed positive, not negative, effects in a golf-putting task, Fillmore and Vogel-Sprott 29 reported both negative and positive changes in the performance of a pursuit-rotor task corresponding to suggestions of negative or positive effects of caffeine (when the participants actually drank a decaffeinated drink). In addition, Harrell and Juliano 30 showed the opposite effect of placebo caffeine in a finger-tapping task (improved performance when told caffeine impairs performance, reduced performance when told caffeine enhances performance). Finally, we did not know whether non-gamers believe that gaming is related to performance of such tasks, or if such beliefs are necessary for the effect to occur. Therefore, we adopted a cautious approach in developing this hypothesis. The third hypothesis is based on the view that, as compared with attention and information processing capacity, working memory capacity is expected to be affected to a lesser extent by suggestions or response expectancy (in the context of the beliefs of gamers). Indeed, Boot et al. 27 have reported that expectancies that playing video games will improve memory stores are relatively low.

We selected RT-based tasks because these tasks are expected to produce better processing speeds, attentional control, and visuomotor transformation, which appear to be more elevated in gamers than non-gamers. Working memory, on the other hand, may be positively affected by gaming to a lesser extent, albeit some improvement might be expected as the memory network and the attentional network share overlapping neural pathways (e.g., dorsal attentional pathways 31 .

Pre-registration and raw data repository

The study’s main questions and hypotheses, experimental conditions and groups, and dependent variables, as well as the handling of outliers and data exclusion, sample size, and statistical analyses, were all pre-registered on aspredicted.org and can be accessed online ( https://aspredicted.org/wp53f.pdf ). Any deviations from the pre-registration are noted. Analyses that were not pre-registered are reported in the Exploratory Analyses sub-section of the Results section. We removed one hypothesis listed in our pre-registration (i.e., that gamers who play first-person shooter games will have faster reaction times but will make a similar number of errors in RT-based tasks, since the sample size of first-person shooter players playing over 10 h per week was too small ( n = 14) compared with those playing less than three hours per week ( n = 119). The raw dataset used for the statistical analyses can be accessed online as well on OSF ( https://osf.io/s2vcz/?view_only=88caada978f141f787684cc2e63b7673 ).

The results are reported for each of the experimental tasks separately. The RT data for all three RT-based tasks are presented in Fig. 1 .

Mean RTs for the choice-RT task ( a ), the Simon task ( b ), and the alternate task-switching task ( c ), for the four experimental groups (figure created using R software). NG-B Non-gamers, questionnaire at the beginning, NG-E Non-gamers, questionnaire at the end, G-B Gamers, questionnaire at the beginning, G-E Gamers, questionnaire at the end. Note that the y-axis limits differ between graphs. Errors bars represent standard error. Small light-gray circles represent individual participants.

Choice-RT task

A two-way ANOVA [Group × Questionnaire Timing (before or after the tasks)] revealed no group effect, F (1, 127) = 0.47, p = 0.49, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.00 and no Questionnaire Timing effect, F (1, 127) = 1.68, p = 0.20, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.01. In addition, no significant interaction was found, F (1, 127) = 0.59, p = 0.44, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.01. The mean choice RT was 367.72 ± 62.73 ms.

Mean correct responses

There were no differences between questionnaire delivery time (before or after the task) in gamers (Mann–Whitney U = 638.00, p = 0.74; mean: 23.73 ± 0.41) and non-gamers (Mann–Whitney U = 358.50, p = 0.26; mean: 23.71 ± 0.53). There were also no differences in total correct responses between gamers and non-gamers (Mann–Whitney U = 2172, p = 0.76).

A two-way ANOVA [Group × Questionnaire Timing (before or after the tasks)] revealed a significant interaction, F (1, 127) = 7.30, p = 0.01, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.05, as can be seen in Fig. 2 . The mean RT of the non-gamers was higher when the questionnaire was delivered before performing the task (515.40 ± 70.26 ms) compared with after the task (479.51 ± 47.57 ms; Cohen’s d = 0.61). In contrast, the mean RT of gamers was lower when the questionnaire was delivered before the task (487.26 ± 57.75 ms) compared with after the task (510.98 ± 70.57 ms, Cohen’s d = 0.37). There was no Group effect, F (1, 127) = 0.02, p = 0.88, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.00, and no Questionnaire Timing effect, F (1, 127) = 0.30, p = 0.58, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.00.

The interaction between group (gamers vs. non-gamers) and the questionnaire delivery time (before vs. after the task) of the mean RT during the Simon task (error bars represent 95% confidence intervals) (figure created using Microsoft Excel).

There were no differences in the questionnaire delivery time (before or after the task) between gamers (Mann–Whitney U = 608.00, p = 0.66; mean: 22.60 ± 1.32) and non-gamers (Mann–Whitney U = 404.50, p = 0.81; mean: 22.35 ± 1.41). There were also no differences in total correct responses between gamers and non-gamers (Mann–Whitney U = 2309.50, p = 0.29).

Alternate task-switching task

A two-way ANOVA [Group × Questionnaire Timing (before or after tasks)] revealed no group effect, F (1, 123) = 0.77, p = 0.38, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.01, no Questionnaire Timing effect, F (1, 123) = 0.53, p = 0.47, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.00, and no interaction, F (1, 123) = 3.12, p = 0.08, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.03. The mean RT for this task was 967.43 ± 184.01 ms.

There were no differences in the questionnaire delivery time (before or after the task) between gamers (Mann–Whitney U = 495.50, p = 0.83; mean: 21.93 ± 2.01) and non-gamers (Mann–Whitney U = 361.00, p = 0.79; mean: 21.42 ± 2.73). There were also no differences in total correct responses between gamers and non-gamers (Mann–Whitney U = 1758.00, p = 0.77).

Digit span task

A two-way ANOVA [Group × Questionnaire Timing (before or after the tasks)] revealed no group effect, F (1, 127) = 2.32, p = 0.13, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.02, no Questionnaire Timing effect, F (1, 127) = 0.22, p = 0.64, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.00, and no interaction, F (1, 127) = 0.70, p = 0.70, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.00. The mean correct response was 5.88 ± 1.81.

Mean highest number of digits before the first error

A two-way ANOVA [Group × Questionnaire Timing (before or after the tasks)] revealed no group effect, F (1, 127) = 1.32, p = 0.25, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.0 and no Questionnaire Timing effect, F (1, 127) = 0.63, p = 0.43, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.01. In addition, no significant interaction was found, F (1, 127) = 0.64, p = 0.43, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.01. The mean highest number of digits before the first error was 6.69 ± 1.93.

Stepwise multiple regression and LASSO regression analyses

We entered the following independent variables to the regression equations: hours per week playing video games; playing first-person shooter games, strategy games, and role-playing games; years playing video games; beliefs regarding a connection between playing video games and task performance; and, knowledge of media reports on a connection between playing video games and task performance. Table 1 presents the findings for both the stepwise and LASSO regressions. As can be seen in Table 1 , regardless of the type of regression used, the models led to a low R 2 of under 0.06.

Exploratory analyses

Gender differences.

We did not expect that gender differences would affect our results, and therefore we did not include an analysis such differences in our preregistration. However, we wanted to make sure that this assumption was indeed the case, and thus performed independent t-tests for all dependent variables in order to assess differences between males and females. Our assumption was correct, as all of these tests were statistically insignificant with low effect sizes (see Table 2 ).

Alternate task switching task including all data

For the alternate task-switching task, we decided before the study to remove all RT values over 1500 ms. However, because there was no time limit to the stimulus, durations of over 1500 ms may have been valid as well. Therefore, we ran the two-way ANOVA [Group × Questionnaire Timing (before or after the tasks)] without excluding values over 1500 ms. This analysis revealed a significant interaction, F (1, 127) = 4.35, p = 0.04, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.03, as can be observed in Fig. 3 . A post-hoc analysis showed that the non-gamers reduced their RT from 1135.45 ± 605.75 ms when the questionnaire was completed before performing the tasks to 911.01 ± 161.57 ms when the questionnaire was answered after performing the tasks (Cohen’s d = 0.51). In contrast, the gamers had similar RTs in the beginning questionnaire (1007.94 ± 272.63 ms) and the end questionnaire (1054.83 ± 332.94 ms). There was neither a Group effect, F (1, 127) = 0.02, p = 0.90, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.00, nor a Questionnaire Timing effect, F (1, 127) = 1.86, p = 0.18, $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.01.

The interaction between group (gamers vs. non-gamers) and the questionnaire delivery time (before vs. after the task) of the mean RT during the alternate task-switching task (error bars represent 95% confidence intervals) (figure created using Microsoft Excel).

Beliefs about a connection between playing video games and the ability to perform cognitive-motor tasks

An independent t-test revealed no differences between the beliefs of gamers and non-gamers regarding the connection between playing video games and the ability to perform cognitive-motor tasks, t (128) = 1.44, p = 0.15, Cohen’s d = 0.25. The mean response (on a scale of 1–10) was 8.05 ± 1.93 and 7.60 ± 1.64, for gamers and non-gamers, respectively. The median for both groups was eight.

Awareness of media reports on the benefits of video games

In non-gamers (< 3 h of play per week), 25 participants reported that they were aware of media reports discussing the benefits of video games in regards to the performance of cognitive-motor tasks, and 32 participants reported that they were not aware of such reports. In gamers (> 10 h of play per week), 43 reported that they were aware and 30 reported that they were not aware of these reports. However, a χ 2 test revealed no differences between the groups, χ 2 (1) = 2.90, p = 0.09, φ = 0.15.

Bayesian analyses of null results

In null-hypothesis significance testing, a lack of significance does not allow us to demonstrate the probability of the null hypothesis itself 32 . Therefore, we used Bayesian statistics to assess the probability of the null hypotheses for the dependent variables that did not produce significant main effects or interactions. The Bayes factors supporting the null hypothesis (BF 01 ) compared to the possible combinations of main effects and interactions are presented in Table 3 .

We also analyzed the Bayes factors to exclude the interaction effect alone. This analysis showed that the Bayes factors for excluding the interaction were 16.51, 6.3, 15.70, and 14.94 for the choice-RT task RT, the alternate task switching RT, the correct response, and the highest number of digits before first error in the digit-span task, respectively.

The current study examined whether cognitive/motor task performance in gamers and non-gamers was affected by whether they completed a video-games questionnaire prior to performing those tasks. We had three hypotheses. First, we expected that asking gamers about their gaming experience before the study would lead to better performance in RT-based tasks compared with asking the same questions after the study. This hypothesis was partially supported. Gamers had faster RTs when they performed the Simon task (but not the other two RT-based tasks) after answering the video-games questionnaire compared with before answering the questionnaire. The Bayes factors associated with these tasks mostly suggested that the data are more likely to be accurate under the null hypothesis (except for inconclusive findings regarding the models with the separate main effects) (see Table 3 ). Second, we hypothesized that this effect would not be found in non-gamers. This hypothesis was not supported by our data. In the Simon task, non-gamers had faster RTs when performing the task before completing the questionnaire compared with after answering the questionnaire. In addition, our exploratory analysis showed that this also occurred in the alternate task-switching task. These results suggest that answering a video-games questionnaire before performing such tasks may have an adverse effect on performance in non-gamers. Finally, our hypothesis that similar effects would not be found for the digit-span memory task was supported by the data of the current experiment.

The finding that the timing of questionnaire delivery affects both gamers and non-gamers can explain, at least in part, the observed differences between groups in previous studies in which all participants answered a video-games questionnaire prior to their participation in the study. According to the results obtained in our study, not only do gamers perform better after answering questions about their gaming habits, but non-gamers perform worse after answering such questions. In fact, our data suggest that it is possible that the effect on non-gamers is greater than the opposite effect on gamers, since answering questions about video-games habits negatively affected the non-gamers in two tasks—the Simon task and the alternate task-switching task (although this is an exploratory finding), whereas this only positively affected gamers in the Simon task. Moreover, there were no differences between groups in the participants' responses to the question “Do you think there is a connection between playing video games and the ability to perform cognitive-motor tasks, such as the ones you just performed?”. In both groups, the mean response was ~ 7.5–8 (on a scale of 1—not at all to 10—very much so). In addition, there were no differences between groups in the number of participants who were familiar with media reports or research regarding the benefits of playing video games in relation to the ability to perform cognitive-motor tasks. Both gamers and non-gamers appeared to believe that playing video games can enhance performances of cognitive-motor tasks, and therefore it is possible that the video-games questionnaire caused gamers to perform better and caused non-gamers to perform worse. Therefore, the results of our study support the concept of psychological suggestion as well as the response expectancy theory.

Similar effects can be found in the literature on stereotypes and test performance. These effects suggests that individuals show suboptimal task performance when they know they are "expected to be" weak at that task 33 . The belief that one is supposed to be weak at a task can be due to prior experience, common knowledge, media reports, or a direct manipulation. All those causes are forms of psychological suggestion—a phenomenon in which what individuals are made to believe, think, or feel can influence their cognition and patterns of behavior positively or negatively 19 . For example, Beilock et al. 34 (Exp. 1) randomly assigned 40 male expert golfers to a stereotype-threatened group or a control group and asked them to putt from three distances. The participants in the stereotype group were told that women tend to perform these putting tasks better than men and that these differences are supported by statistics from the Professional Golf Association and the Ladies Professional Golf Association. While there were no differences in putting performances between groups in a pre-test, golfers in the stereotype-threatened group performed worse in a post-test compared with their counterparts in the control group.

Psychological suggestion can affect, among other factors, the motivation of the participants. Therefore, it is possible that once gamers realized that the study is about gaming, their motivation to perform better was directly elevated. This elevated motivation may have led to behavioral changes that led to the improved performance in gamers when they performed the tasks after answering the video games questionnaire. Regardless of the reason for the elevated motivation, it has been shown that such motivation can increase focus on the task at hand, and therefore leading to improved performance and learning 35 . While the effects of psychological suggestion and/or motivation are plausible mechanisms for improved performance, the actual underlying mechanism are still to be examined directly in additional studies.

In the current study, the effects of the questionnaire timing on performance in both gamers and non-gamers were found only in some of the performed tasks. In the digit-span task, despite previous studies showing improved working memory performance in gamers (e.g., N-back task 15 ), we did not expect any differences between gamers and non-gamers in memorizing digits, as this is not usually a beneficial attribute in video games. However, it is possible that working memory may still benefit from video games, as this cognitive function could be facilitated by improvement in attention or processing speed since the brain networks mediating memory functions and executive function appear to overlap 36 . There were no differences between groups and conditions in the choice-RT task as well. We suspect that this is because the task was too easy, and therefore was not sensitive enough to account for the possible priming effect of the questionnaire. The Simon task was of moderate difficulty and presented the greatest effect of questionnaire timing. Finally, the alternate task-switching task, the most challenging of the three RT-based tasks, showed a questionnaire timing effect only for the non-gamers in the exploratory post-hoc analysis. It is possible that task difficulty serves as a moderator for such stereotype effects 37 , 38 . Barber et al. 37 , for example, showed that negative age-based stereotyping negatively affected the gait of older adults in a difficult gait task but not in a simple gait task. Additional studies that examine the effects of playing video games on generic or practical cognitive-motor performance should address task difficulty as a possible moderator.

Finally, it is possible that our inconsistent and relatively modest findings are because the priming effect itself was subtle as it required participants to indirectly realize that the study is about video gaming (when the questionnaire was introduced prior to the performance of the tasks). It is possible that larger and more consistent effect sizes would have been found if participants were overtly recruited for this study. However, it was our purpose to examine the effects of subtle and indirect cues on performance, and thus we chose covert recruitment and indirect cues. It should also be noted that in psychological research, as Funder and Ozer 39 suggested, “small effect sizes from large- N studies are the most likely to reflect the true state of nature” (p. 164), and that “Smaller effect sizes are not merely worth taking seriously. They are also more believable” (p. 166). The results of our study, taking into account variability in human behavior, the large sample size, and the relatively subtle intervention, are in line with the abovementioned statements.

Strengths of the current study

The primary strength of the current study is the covert recruitment of participants. The online participant recruitment platform we used ( www.prolific.co ) allows the researcher to employ many variables to exclude or include participants based on preliminary answers they supplied when they registered on the website (e.g., demographics, health, hobbies). Furthermore, the researcher can exclude participants who had participated in previous studies completed by the researcher. Once a study is published on that website, participants receive a message that they are eligible to participate, but they do not know the criteria for participation. Hence, the participants in the current study did not know that this was a study that examined the relationships between playing video games and cognitive-motor performance, nor did they participate in any of our previous studies in which similar tasks were used. This is a major methodological issue in video-game research 18 , and therefore we believe that our methodology allowed us to provide meaningful answers to our research questions.

Another strength of the current study is the large sample size and ample statistical power. Many of the studies that compared gamers to non-gamers used relatively small sample sizes [e.g., 36 participants 17 , 21 participants 13 , 35 participants 14 ]. In the current study, we were able to recruit 131 participants, who provided us with at least 80% of statistical power. Finally, conducting the study online ensured that it was double-blinded. In addition to the covert recruitment, the researchers in such an online study do not have any contact with the participants, and thus cannot influence their performance in any way.

One final strength is the computerized randomization to experimental groups. This randomization is performed without the knowledge or the intervention of the researchers, and therefore prevents bias in assigning participants to groups.

Limitations of the current study

One limitation of the current study is that the sample size did not include enough participants who were first-person shooter players or action video-game players. In previous studies, it was mainly playing action video games that was associated with improved cognitive-motor performance. However, we would have been required to implement an overt recruitment process of participants to specifically recruit those participants, and that would have prevented us from answering our research questions.

Second, in an online study, variables such as type and size of keyboard, screen size, participants’ motivation, and environmental conditions cannot be controlled. However, all the participants used a computer to complete the experimental tasks and did not use a smartphone or a tablet. In addition, Woods et al. 40 suggested that large sample sizes in online studies can make up for the relative lack of control.

Third, it is possible that self-selection bias led participants who received an invitation to participate in a study on RT and memory. Such self-selection may create a sample that consider themselves as proficient at such tasks. However, if this was the case, our findings may suggest that both negative and positive priming can lead to differences in performance even in a biased sample of participants who perform such tasks well.

Finally, in order to maintain covert recruitment, we could not ask detailed questions about videogame playing habits prior to the study. Therefore, we have no knowledge of the distribution of playing time over the week. It is possible that some of the participants play mostly on weekends (similar to massed practice) while others distribute their playing time more evenly throughout the week (similar to distributed practice). Massed and distributed practice may affect learning differently (e.g., 41 ), and thus this can be an important moderating variable that should be examined in additional studies on gaming.

The results of the current study suggest that asking participants about their gaming experience before they perform cognitive-motor tasks can either positively or negatively affect their performance, depending on whether they are gamers or non-gamers. In addition, task difficulty is a probable moderator of these effects. The results obtained in our study have methodological implications for future research that examines the differences between gamers and non-gamers, and for research in video-game training aimed at facilitating cognitive-motor performance. Finally, these findings support the concept of psychological suggestion and the response expectancy theory.

Participants

We used G*Power 42 to perform a priori power analysis for our two-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) [Group (gamers/non-gamers) × Questionnaire Delivery Time (before/after the performance of tasks comparing)]. To the best of our knowledge, no previous studies have directly examined the effects of suggestion or response expectancy on simple cognitive/motor tasks in gamers and non-gamers. However, there are studies from the motor learning literature showing that enhanced expectancies of success which are caused by providing easy criteria of success (e.g., 21 , 43 ) or visual illusions that lead to a perceived larger target 44 can lead to improved performance and learning, with effect sizes varying from moderate (Cohen's d = 0.54; 44 to large (Cohen’s d = 0.8 21 , calculated from the reported $\eta_{p}^{2}$ = 0.14). Because these studies had a small sample size ( N between 36 and 45), effect sizes could have been overestimated (the Winner’s curse 45 . Therefore, in our study we took a more cautious approach and selected a moderate effect size (Cohen’s d = 0.5/Cohen’s f = 0.25) for our power analysis. We entered this effect size into the power analysis with the following parameters: alpha (two-sided) = 0.05, power = 0.80, allocation ratio 1:1. The results of the power analysis suggested that 128 participants are required to detect differences between groups or to find an interaction with 80% power.

Therefore, our goal was to recruit 128 participants between the ages of 18–35 years and to randomize them to four groups of 32 participants each: (a) gamers who answered a video-games questionnaire at the beginning of the study (G-B), (2) gamers who answered a video-games questionnaire at the end of the study (G-E), (c) non-gamers who answered a video-games questionnaire at the beginning of the study (NG-B), and (d) non-gamers who answered a video-games questionnaire at the end of the study (NG-E).

We recruited participants through Prolific ( www.prolific.co )—an online participant database platform that allows the researcher to use various exclusion and inclusion criteria (based on information individuals provide in their profile) and allows the participants to participate in an online study from their own computer.

In such an online study, we cannot know if the participants who begin the study will complete it. Therefore, we recruited 160 participants in two projects. In one project we recruited 80 participants who, according to their information on Prolific, play video games more than 13 h per week (a more stringent criterion than our pre-registered requirement of > 10 h per week), and in another project we recruited 80 participants who play video games less than three hours per week. We were aware of the possibility that the information individuals entered when they created an account on Prolific may not be current, and indeed, out of 159 participants, only 110 matched our pre-registered criteria: 70 participants who reported playing over 10 h per week and 40 participants who reported playing fewer than three hours per week. Therefore, we added 28 participants in another project in order to increase the number of non-gamers. This addition led to a total of 187 participants who completed the study. Out of those, 131 participants (27 females, one participant who did not report gender, mean age = 23.51 ± 4.33 years) matched our gamers and non-gamers inclusion criteria, and they are analyzed in the current study: 34 participants in the G-B group (one female, one unreported gender), 39 participants in the G-E group (seven females), 28 participants in the NG-B group (10 females), and 30 participants in the NG-E group (nine females). It is important to note that the participants were not recruited based on information entered when signing up to our specific study. The participants on Prolific.ac answer general questions regarding demographics, hobbies, health, etc. when joining the database. Based on these data, we were able to filter participants who filled in specific responses. However, the participants did not know why they received an invitation to participate. This allowed us to covertly recruit participants for the study, without them knowing that the study had anything to do with gaming.

Randomization to groups was performed automatically by the web-based platform. Importantly, the prospective participants in Prolific did not know that they were recruited based on their video game playing habits. The participants also reported being fluent in English and were paid 2.5 British Pounds for their participation. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of The Academic College at Wingate (approval # 303), and all participants filled out an electronic informed consent form on the study’s website prior to their participation. In addition, all methods were performed in accordance with the relevant guidelines and regulations.

Participants were asked to perform the following four tasks.

In this task, the participants pressed as quickly as possible the “j” key if the word “right” appeared on the right side and the “f” key if the word “left” appeared on the left side of a centralized cross on the computer screen. The words “right” or “left” were presented for 900 ms, followed by 600 ms during which only the centralized cross was displayed 46 , 47 .

This task is a variation of the choice-RT task. The words “right” or “left” could be displayed on either the right or the left side of the cross. The participants were required to press the “j” key if they saw the word “right” (even if it appeared on the left side of the cross) and to press the “f” key if they saw the word “left” (even if it appeared on the right side of the cross) 48 , 49 . Similar to the choice-RT task, the words “right” or “left” were presented for 900 ms, followed by 600 ms during which only the centralized cross was displayed.

In this task, a square or a rectangle in either a blue or green color appeared at the top or at the bottom of the screen. If a shape appeared at the top of the screen, the participants were asked to press the “f” key if the shape was blue and the “j” key if the shape was green (regardless of whether it was a square or a rectangle). However, if the shape appeared at the bottom of the screen, participants were asked to press the “f” key if the shape was a square and the “j” key if the shape was a rectangle (regardless of the color). In this task, each stimulus was presented for an unlimited duration until a key press was recorded. The above-mentioned three RT tasks are presented in Fig. 4 .

An example of the choice-RT task ( a ), the Simon task ( b ), and the alternate task-switching task ( c , d ) (figure created using Microsoft PowerPoint).

Digit-span memory task

In this task, participants were asked to remember the digits that were presented to them on the screen. The first number included three digits and each consecutive number had one additional digit up to 11 digits. Digits were shown one at a time for a period of one second each. Digits were randomly selected using a random number sampling of the digits 0 to 9 without replacement up to 10 digits. For the 11-digit number an additional (duplicate) digit was randomly added to the 10 digits. All digit randomizations were conducted in R 50 . If the random sample included a series of ascending or descending numbers (e.g., 1, 3, 5; 7, 5, 3; 3, 6, 9; 8, 6, 4) the series was deleted, and another random sample was generated. A similar approach to the presentation of this task has been used in previous experiments (e.g., 51 ).

This study was conducted online using a web-based platform ( www.gorilla.sc 52 ). This platform is integrated with the participants' database ( www.prolific.co ) and the participants perform the experiment on their own computer. Web-based studies have been shown to provide accurate measures of RT that are similar to those attained in lab-based studies (e.g., 53 , 54 ).

After the completion of an electronic informed consent form that was presented at the beginning of the study, participants in the G-B and NG-B groups answered a questionnaire regarding their video game playing habits. Specifically, they were asked how many hours they spend playing video games per week in general, and how many hours they specifically spend playing first-person shooter games, strategy games, or role-playing games. The participants chose one answer from a list (I do not play video games, 1–3 h, 4–6 h, 7–9 h, 10–12 h, 13 h per week or more). In addition, they were asked how many years they have been playing video games (< 1 year, 1–2 years, 3–4 years, 5–6 years, > 7 years). Participants in the G-E and NG-E groups answered a neutral questionnaire with the same number of questions (e.g., how many hours per week do you watch TV, how long is your commute to work, how many books have you read in the last year). After answering the questionnaires, the participants were familiarized with the four tasks in a counterbalanced order. Each participant performed one block of eight trials of the three RT-based tasks (i.e., choice-RT, Simon task, alternate task-switching task) and one block of four trials of the digit span task that consisted of remembering one digit, two digits, three digits, and four digits.

After completing the familiarization stage, the main part of the study began. For the three RT-based tasks, the participants performed two blocks of 24 trials each. For the digit span task, they performed two blocks starting with three digits and ending with 11 digits (in increments of one). The four tasks were presented in a counterbalanced order between participants. After completing the four tasks, participants in the G-E and NG-E answered the same video game playing habits questionnaire. In addition, all four groups answered the following two questions: (a) “Do you think there is a connection between playing video games and the ability to perform cognitive-motor tasks, such as the ones you just performed?” (answers on a scale of 1—not at all, to 10—very much so), and (b) “Are you familiar with media reports or research regarding the benefits of playing video games in relation to the ability to perform cognitive-motor tasks?” (yes or no). These two questions were presented to all groups at the end of the study, because if they were presented at the beginning of the study they could have explicitly exposed the study’s purpose 18 . In all of the questions presented throughout the experiment, the option to answer, “Prefer not to say” was included as well.

Data exclusion

During pre-registration, we decided that for the choice-RT and the Simon task, RT values of over 1000 ms would be removed because they represented RTs that were longer than the presentation of the stimulus (900 ms). However, this did not occur. For the alternate task-switching task, based on our pre-registration, RT values of over 1500 ms were removed. This resulted in a removal of 17 blocks (out of a total of 262 blocks, 6.5% of the blocks). If there were more than 50% incorrect key presses in a block of 24 trials, the block was deleted, as this most likely shows that the participant did not understand the task. This happened only three times in the Simon task (1.1% of blocks), and eight times in the alternate task-switching task (3.1% of the blocks). During pre-registration, we also decided that if there were over 50% incorrect key presses in both blocks of two of the three RT-based tasks for one participant, this participant would be removed from the study. However, this did not occur with any of the participants.

Data analyses

For each of the three RT-based tasks we measured RTs (ms) and the number of correct responses. These were averaged for the two blocks of trials in each task. For the digit span task, we measured the maximum number of digits remembered before the first error and the total number of correct answers. These two variables were averaged for the two blocks of trials.

Based on skewness and kurtosis values, RTs were mostly normally distributed and were analyzed using a 2-way ANOVA [Group (gamers/non-gamers) × Timing of questionnaire (before/after tasks)]. The number of correct key presses in the three RT-based tasks was not normally distributed, and because there is no non-parametric equivalent for a two-way ANOVA we used the Mann–Whitney test to examine, for the group of gamers and non-gamers separately, the differences in correct responses between the condition in which the video-games questionnaire was completed before performing the task and the condition in which it was presented after performing the tasks. The variables measured in the digit span memory task were normally distributed and were analyzed using two-way ANOVAs like those used for the analyses of RTs.

In our pre-registration, we wanted to conduct the statistical analyses separately for each type of game played (e.g., general, first-person shooter, strategy games, role-playing). However, the separate sample sizes were too small, and therefore these analyses could not be performed. We also performed a stepwise multiple regression to examine whether video game playing habits and conceptions of the effects of video games on performance could predict RTs and correct responses in the performed tasks. For this analysis only, we used the data of all 187 participants who completed the study. Because stepwise regression can lead to overfitting and over-estimation of models, we also conducted LASSO (Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator) regression—an accepted alternative to stepwise regression that deals with such problems 55 . To better understand the non-significant effects or interactions, we used Bayesian statistics in our exploratory analyses.

Statistical analyses were conducted using the SPSS version 25 (SPSS Statistics, IBM, USA), R 50 for LASSO regression, and JASP 56 for all Bayesian analyses. Bonferroni post-hoc analyses and 95% confidence intervals were used for post-hoc testing when appropriate, and alpha was set at 0.05.

Data availability

The raw data for this study is available in a raw data repository: https://osf.io/s2vcz/?view_only=88caada978f141f787684cc2e63b7673 . The pre-registration is available here: https://aspredicted.org/wp53f.pdf .

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Video Game Industry

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Virtual Violence and Video Games

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How To Write an Essay About Video Games

Introduction to the world of video games.

Writing an essay about video games requires an appreciation of the medium as both an entertainment form and a cultural phenomenon. Begin by introducing the broad world of video games, covering their evolution from simple pixelated adventures to complex, narrative-driven experiences. Highlight the diversity in genres, from action and adventure to strategy and simulation, and acknowledge the vast demographic that video games appeal to. This introduction should provide a general background that sets the stage for a deeper exploration of specific aspects of video gaming, such as their impact on culture, psychological effects, or the gaming industry’s evolution.

Analyzing Specific Aspects of Video Gaming

The body of your essay should delve into the particular aspect of video gaming that you wish to explore. If you're focusing on the cultural impact, discuss how video games have influenced and been influenced by popular culture. For a more psychological approach, explore how gaming affects cognitive skills, behavior, and social interactions. If your angle is industry-focused, consider discussing the evolution of game design, breakthrough technologies in gaming, or economic aspects like the esports industry. Use specific examples and case studies to support your analysis, demonstrating a deep understanding of the chosen focus area.

Debating Controversies and Ethical Considerations

An essential part of writing about video games is addressing the controversies and ethical considerations surrounding them. This may include the debate over video game violence and its impact on players, the portrayal of gender and minorities in games, or issues related to gaming addiction and mental health. Present various perspectives on these debates, offering a balanced view that considers both the concerns raised by critics and the arguments put forth by proponents of video gaming. This section should engage critically with these topics, showing an awareness of the ongoing discussions in the world of video gaming.

Concluding with a Personal or Predictive Touch

Conclude your essay by summarizing your main points and offering either a personal reflection or a prediction about the future of video games. If you choose to reflect personally, share how your understanding of the topic has evolved or why it holds significance for you. Alternatively, offer predictions about how video games might continue to evolve and impact society. This could include advancements in technology, shifts in societal perception, or potential new areas for growth in the industry. A strong conclusion will not only tie together your essay but also leave the reader with a lasting impression of the depth and complexity of video gaming as a subject.

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Great Research Paper Topics About Video Games To Review

A well-prepared research project includes an extensive amount of planning and exploration, keeping in mind the constraints of time and presentation. It also includes the choice of a good topic, which can be anything of your interest. An unconventional topic of interest for a research could be on the prevalence of children’s video games on which one could concentrate on its aspects for review. Video games are often marveled at; some might consider them as a means of violent recreation. Since, they do have an effect on children, one should be to address a research paper on the sociological and political aspects of video-gaming, for which topics might include

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The designing of video games and its ability to create electronic worlds: 3-D Animation, artificial intelligence and interactive nonlinear storytelling.
Controversies in the field of video games?
Gender stereotypes, the role of video games in gender stereotyping and the changing gender base at a customer level.
The effect of video games on children personality development/adolescent behavior and what could be the steps taken to remedy it. Do they make our children sociopaths?
Are video games a healthy diversion from daily activities or do they teach violent behavior to the players?
What effects do video games have on our thoughts? Have they desensitized us to the ongoing violence in our present society?
The role of parents of taking an interest in video games. Should they ignore them or prohibit them entirely?
Violence and obscenity as dominant features of today’s video games. Is there too much violence and vulgarity that needs to be considered by video game programmers?
Have video games inculcated a sense of virtual reality in us? How do video games use actions and words to influence both conscious and subconscious behavior in us?
The influence of video games on economy. Are they increasing rapidly, and what could be their reasons?
The journey from PONG to PlayStation and Beyond: New Ways of Technology in Video Games.
Can video games be used to develop a film and media studies approach to the society?
Do video encourage healthy competition between the players?
Can certain video games actually be good for one’s psychology?
To Play or Not to Play: Video Games.

All of these are extremely interesting topics and can be worked on easily with the help of the Web and one’s own experience. Since the debate regarding video games is a modern one, options on both sides should be offered in the research paper. The conclusion should be left open to the readers so they can weigh on both the options and take a decision.

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Does Video Gaming Have Impacts on the Brain: Evidence from a Systematic Review

Denilson brilliant t..

1 Department of Biomedicine, Indonesia International Institute for Life Sciences (i3L), East Jakarta 13210, Indonesia

2 Smart Ageing Research Center (SARC), Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8575, Japan; pj.ca.ukohot@iur (R.N.); pj.ca.ukohot@atuyr (R.K.)

3 Department of Cognitive Health Science, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer (IDAC), Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8575, Japan

Ryuta Kawashima

4 Department of Functional Brain Imaging, Institute of Development, Aging and Cancer (IDAC), Tohoku University, Sendai 980-8575, Japan

Video gaming, the experience of playing electronic games, has shown several benefits for human health. Recently, numerous video gaming studies showed beneficial effects on cognition and the brain. A systematic review of video gaming has been published. However, the previous systematic review has several differences to this systematic review. This systematic review evaluates the beneficial effects of video gaming on neuroplasticity specifically on intervention studies. Literature research was conducted from randomized controlled trials in PubMed and Google Scholar published after 2000. A systematic review was written instead of a meta-analytic review because of variations among participants, video games, and outcomes. Nine scientific articles were eligible for the review. Overall, the eligible articles showed fair quality according to Delphi Criteria. Video gaming affects the brain structure and function depending on how the game is played. The game genres examined were 3D adventure, first-person shooting (FPS), puzzle, rhythm dance, and strategy. The total training durations were 16–90 h. Results of this systematic review demonstrated that video gaming can be beneficial to the brain. However, the beneficial effects vary among video game types.

1. Introduction

Video gaming refers to the experience of playing electronic games, which vary from action to passive games, presenting a player with physical and mental challenges. The motivation to play video games might derive from the experience of autonomy or competing with others, which can explain why video gaming is pleasurable and addictive [ 1 ].

Video games can act as “teachers” depending on the game purpose [ 2 ]. Video gaming has varying effects depending on the game genre. For instance, an active video game can improve physical fitness [ 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 ], whereas social video games can improve social behavior [ 7 , 8 , 9 ]. The most interesting results show that playing video games can change cognition and the brain [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ].

Earlier studies have demonstrated that playing video games can benefit cognition. Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies have demonstrated that the experience of video gaming is associated with better cognitive function, specifically in terms of visual attention and short-term memory [ 14 ], reaction time [ 15 ], and working memory [ 16 ]. Additionally, some randomized controlled studies show positive effects of video gaming interventions on cognition [ 17 , 18 ]. Recent meta-analytical studies have also supported the positive effects of video gaming on cognition [ 10 , 11 , 12 , 13 ]. These studies demonstrate that playing video games does provide cognitive benefits.

The effects of video gaming intervention are ever more widely discussed among scientists [ 13 ]. A review of the results and methodological quality of recently published intervention studies must be done. One systematic review of video gaming and neural correlates has been reported [ 19 ]. However, the technique of neuroimaging of the reviewed studies was not specific. This systematic review reviewed only magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) studies in contrast to the previous systematic review to focus on neuroplasticity effect. Neuroplasticity is capability of the brain that accommodates adaptation for learning, memorizing, and recovery purposes [ 19 ]. In normal adaptation, the brain is adapting to learn, remember, forget, and repair itself. Recent studies using MRI for brain imaging techniques have demonstrated neuroplasticity effects after an intervention, which include cognitive, exercise, and music training on the grey matter [ 20 , 21 , 22 , 23 , 24 ] and white matter [ 25 , 26 , 27 , 28 , 29 ]. However, the molecular mechanisms of the grey and white matter change remain inconclusive. The proposed mechanisms for the grey matter change are neurogenesis, gliogenesis, synaptogenesis, and angiogenesis, whereas those for white matter change are myelin modeling and formation, fiber organization, and angiogenesis [ 30 ]. Recent studies using MRI technique for brain imaging have demonstrated video gaming effects on neuroplasticity. Earlier imaging studies using cross-sectional and longitudinal methods have shown that playing video games affects the brain structure by changing the grey matter [ 31 , 32 , 33 ], white matter [ 34 , 35 ], and functional connectivity [ 36 , 37 , 38 , 39 ]. Additionally, a few intervention studies have demonstrated that playing video games changed brain structure and functions [ 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 ].

The earlier review also found a link between neural correlates of video gaming and cognitive function [ 19 ]. However, that review used both experimental and correlational studies and included non-healthy participants, which contrasts to this review. The differences between this and the previous review are presented in Table 1 . This review assesses only experimental studies conducted of healthy participants. Additionally, the cross-sectional and longitudinal studies merely showed an association between video gaming experiences and the brain, showing direct effects of playing video games in the brain is difficult. Therefore, this systematic review specifically examined intervention studies. This review is more specific as it reviews intervention and MRI studies on healthy participants. The purposes of this systematic review are therefore to evaluate the beneficial effects of video gaming and to assess the methodological quality of recent video gaming intervention studies.

Differences between previous review and current review.

Difference	Previous Review	Current Review
Type of reviewed studies	Experimental and correlational studies	Experimental studies only
Neuroimaging technique of reviewed studies	CT, fMRI, MEG, MRI, PET, SPECT, tDCS, EEG, and NIRS	fMRI and MRI only
Participants of reviewed studies	Healthy and addicted participant	Healthy participants Only

CT, computed tomography; fMRI, functional magnetic resonance imaging; MEG, magnetoencephalography MRI, magnetic resonance imaging; PET, positron emission tomography; SPECT, single photon emission computed tomography; tDCS, transcranial direct current stimulation; EEG, electroencephalography; NIRS, near-infrared spectroscopy.

2. Materials and Methods

2.1. search strategy.

This systematic review was designed in accordance with the PRISMA checklist [ 44 ] shown in Appendix Table A1 . A literature search was conducted using PubMed and Google Scholar to identify relevant studies. The keywords used for the literature search were combinations of “video game”, “video gaming”, “game”, “action video game”, “video game training”, “training”, “play”, “playing”, “MRI”, “cognitive”, “cognition”, “executive function”, and “randomized control trial”.

2.2. Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria

The primary inclusion criteria were randomized controlled trial study, video game interaction, and MRI/fMRI analysis. Studies that qualified with only one or two primary inclusions were not included. Review papers and experimental protocols were also not included. The secondary inclusion criteria were publishing after 2000 and published in English. Excluded were duration of less than 4 weeks or unspecified length intervention or combination intervention. Also excluded were studies of cognition-based games, and studies of participants with psychiatric, cognitive, neurological, and medical disorders.

2.3. Quality Assessment

Each of the quality studies was assessed using Delphi criteria [ 45 ] with several additional elements [ 46 ]: details of allocation methods, adequate descriptions of control and training groups, statistical comparisons between control and training groups, and dropout reports. The respective total scores (max = 12) are shown in Table 3. The quality assessment also includes assessment for risk of bias, which is shown in criteria numbers 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, and 12.

2.4. Statistical Analysis

Instead of a meta-analysis study, a systematic review of the video game training/video gaming and the effects was conducted because of the variation in ranges of participant age, video game genre, control type, MRI and statistical analysis, and training outcomes. Therefore, the quality, inclusion and exclusion, control, treatment, game title, participants, training period, and MRI analysis and specification of the studies were recorded for the respective games.

The literature search made of the databases yielded 140 scientific articles. All scientific articles were screened based on inclusion and exclusion criteria. Of those 140 scientific articles, nine were eligible for the review [ 40 , 41 , 42 , 43 , 47 , 48 , 49 , 50 , 51 ]. Video gaming effects are listed in Table 2 .

Summary of beneficial effect of video gaming.

Author	Year	Participant Age	Game Genre	Control	Duration	Beneficial Effect
Gleich et al. [ ]	2017	18–36	3D adventure	passive	8 weeks	Increased activity in hippocampus
Gleich et al. [ ]	2017	18–36	3D adventure	passive	8 weeks	Decreased activity in DLPFC
Haier et al. [ ]	2009	12–15	puzzle	passive	3 months	Increased GM in several visual–spatial processing area
Haier et al. [ ]	2009	12–15	puzzle	passive	3 months	Decreased activity in frontal area
Kuhn et al. [ ]	2014	19–29	3D adventure	passive	8 weeks	Increased GM in hippocampal, DLPFC and cerebellum
Lee et al. [ ]	2012	18–30	strategy	active	8–10 weeks	Decreased activity in DLPFC
Lee et al. [ ]	2012	18–30	strategy	active	8–11 weeks	Non-significant activity difference
Lorenz et al. [ ]	2015	19–27	3D adventure	passive	8 weeks	Preserved activity in ventral striatum
Martinez et al. [ ]	2013	16–21	puzzle	passive	4 weeks	Functional connectivity change in multimodal integration system
Martinez et al. [ ]	2013	16–21	puzzle	passive	4 weeks	Functional connectivity change in higher-order executive processing
Roush [ ]	2013	50–65	rhythm dance	active	24 weeks	Increased activity in visuospatial working memory area
				active		Increased activity in emotional and attention area
				passive		Similar compared to active control-
West et al. [ ]	2017	55–75	3D adventure	active	24 weeks	Non-significant GM difference
				passive		Increased cognitive performance and short-term memory
				passive		Increased GM in hippocampus and cerebellum
West et al. [ ]	2018	18–29	FPS	active	8 weeks	Increased GM in hippocampus (spatial learner *)
						Increased GM in amygdala (response learner *)
						Decreased GM in hippocampus (response learner)

Duration was converted into weeks (1 month = 4 weeks); DLPFC, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex; GM, grey matter; FPS, first person shooting. * Participants were categorized based on how they played during the video gaming intervention.

We excluded 121 articles: 46 were not MRI studies, 16 were not controlled studies, 38 were not intervention studies, 13 were review articles, and eight were miscellaneous, including study protocols, non-video gaming studies, and non-brain studies. Of 18 included scientific articles, nine were excluded. Of those nine excluded articles, two were cognitive-based game studies, three were shorter than 4 weeks in duration or were without a specified length intervention, two studies used a non-healthy participant treatment, and one was a combination intervention study. A screening flowchart is portrayed in Figure 1 .

An external file that holds a picture, illustration, etc.
Object name is brainsci-09-00251-g001.jpg

Flowchart of literature search.

3.1. Quality Assessment

The assessment methodology based on Delphi criteria [ 45 ] for the quality of eligible studies is presented in Table 3 . The quality scores assigned to the studies were 3–9 (mean = 6.10; S.D. = 1.69). Overall, the studies showed fair methodological quality according to the Delphi criteria. The highest quality score of the nine eligible articles was assigned to “Playing Super Mario 64 increases hippocampal grey matter in older adult” published by West et al. in 2017, which scored 9 of 12. The scores assigned for criteria 6 (blinded care provider) and 7 (blinded patient) were lowest because of unspecified information related to blinding for those criteria. Additionally, criteria 2 (concealed allocation) and 5 (blinding assessor) were low because only two articles specified that information. All articles met criteria 3 and 4 adequately.

Methodological quality of eligible studies.

Author	Year	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5	Q8	Q9	Q10	Q11	Q12	Score
Gleich et al. [ ]	2017	1	0	1	1	0	0	0	1	1	1	6
Haier et al. [ ]	2009	1	0	1	1	0	0	0	1	1	0	5
Kuhn et al. [ ]	2014	1	0	1	1	0	0	0	1	1	0	5
Lee et al. [ ]	2012	0	0	1	1	0	0	1	1	1	1	6
Lorenz et al. [ ]	2015	1	0	1	1	0	1	0	1	1	1	7
Martinez et al. [ ]	2013	0	0	1	1	0	0	0	0	1	0	3
Roush [ ]	2013	1	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	0	0	7
West et al. [ ]	2017	1	1	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	1	9
West et al. [ ]	2018	0	0	1	1	1	1	1	1	0	1	7
Score		6	2	9	9	2	3	4	8	7	5

Q1, Random allocation; Q2, Concealed allocation; Q3, Similar baselines among groups; Q4, Eligibility specified; Q5, Blinded assessor outcome; Q6, Blinded care provider; Q7, Blinded patient; Q8, Intention-to-treat analysis; Q9, Detail of allocation method; Q10, Adequate description of each group; Q11, Statistical comparison between groups; Q12, Dropout report (1, specified; 0, unspecified).

3.2. Inclusion and Exclusion

Most studies included participants with little or no experience with gaming and excluded participants with psychiatric/mental, neurological, and medical illness. Four studies specified handedness of the participants and excluded participants with game training experience. The inclusion and exclusion criteria are presented in Table 4 .

Inclusion and exclusion criteria for eligible studies.

Author	Year	Inclusion			Exclusion
Author	Year	i1	i2	i3	e1	e2	e3	e4	e5
Gleich et al. [ ]	2017	1	0	0	1	1	1	1	1
Haier et al. [ ]	2009	1	0	1	1	1	1	0	0
Kuhn et al. [ ]	2014	1	0	0	1	1	1	1	1
Lee et al. [ ]	2012	1	1	0	1	1	0	1	0
Lorenz et al. [ ]	2015	1	1	0	1	0	0	1	1
Martinez et al. [ ]	2013	1	1	1	1	1	0	0	1
Roush [ ]	2013	0	0	1	0	0	1	0	0
West et al. [ ]	2017	1	1	0	1	1	1	1	0
West et al. [ ]	2018	1	0	0	1	1	1	0	0
total		8	4	3	8	7	6	5	4

i1, Little/no experience in video gaming; i2, Right-handed; i3, Sex-specific; e1, Psychiatric/mental illness; e2, Neurological illness; e3, Medical illness; e4, MRI contraindication; e5, experience in game training.

3.3. Control Group

Nine eligible studies were categorized as three types based on the control type. Two studies used active control, five studies used passive control, and two studies used both active and passive control. A summary of the control group is presented in Table 5 .

Control group examined eligible studies.

Control	Author	Year
Active control	Lee et al. [ ]	2012
Active control	West et al. [ ]	2018
Passive control	Gleich et al. [ ]	2017
	Haier et al. [ ]	2009
	Kuhn et al. [ ]	2014
	Lorenz et al. [ ]	2015
	Martinez et al. [ ]	2013
Active–passive control	Roush [ ]	2013
Active–passive control	West et al. [ ]	2017

3.4. Game Title and Genre

Of the nine eligible studies, four used the same 3D adventure game with different game platforms, which were “Super Mario 64” original and the DS version. One study used first-person shooting (FPS) shooting games with many different game titles: “Call of Duty” is one title. Two studies used puzzle games: “Tetris” and “Professor Layton and The Pandora’s Box.” One study used a rhythm dance game: Dance Revolution. One study used a strategy game: “Space Fortress.” Game genres are presented in Table 6 .

Genres and game titles of video gaming intervention.

Genre	Author	Year	Title
3D adventure	Gleich et al. [ ]	2017	Super Mario 64 DS
	Kuhn et al. [ ]	2014	Super Mario 64
	Lorenz et al. [ ]	2015	Super Mario 64 DS
	West et al. [ ]	2017	Super Mario 64
FPS	West et al. * [ ]	2018	Call of Duty
Puzzle	Haier et al. [ ]	2009	Tetris
Puzzle	Martinez et al. [ ]	2013	Professor Layton and The Pandora’s Box
Rhythm dance	Roush [ ]	2013	Dance Revolution
Strategy	Lee et al. [ ]	2012	Space Fortress

* West et al. used multiple games; other games are Call of Duty 2, 3, Black Ops, and World at War, Killzone 2 and 3, Battlefield 2, 3, and 4, Resistance 2 and Fall of Man, and Medal of Honor.

3.5. Participants and Sample Size

Among the nine studies, one study examined teenage participants, six studies included young adult participants, and two studies assessed older adult participants. Participant information is shown in Table 7 . Numbers of participants were 20–75 participants (mean = 43.67; S.D. = 15.63). Three studies examined female-only participants, whereas six others used male and female participants. Six studies with female and male participants had more female than male participants.

Participant details of eligible studies.

Category	Author	Year	Age			Sample Size	Ratio (%)		Detail
Category	Author	Year	Lowest	Highest	Range	Sample Size	Female	Male	Detail
Teenager	Haier et al. [ ]	2009	12	15	3	44	70.45	29.54	Training ( 24) Control ( 20)
Young adult	Gleich et al. [ ]	2017	18	36	18	26	100	0	Training ( 15)
	Gleich et al. [ ]	2017	18	36	18	26	100	0	Control ( 11)
	Kuhn et al. [ ]	2014	19	29	10	48	70.8	29.2	Training ( 23)
	Kuhn et al. [ ]	2014	19	29	10	48	70.8	29.2	Control ( 25)
	Lee et al. [ ]	2012	18	30	12	75	61.4	38.6	Training A ( 25)
									Training B ( 25)
									Control ( 25)
	Lorenz et al. [ ]	2015	19	27	8	50	72	28	Training ( 25
	Lorenz et al. [ ]	2015	19	27	8	50	72	28	Control ( 25)
	Martinez et al. [ ]	2013	16	21	5	20	100	0	Training ( 10)
	Martinez et al. [ ]	2013	16	21	5	20	100	0	Control ( 10)
	West et al. [ ]	2018	18	29	11	43	67.4	32.5	Action game ( 21)
	West et al. [ ]	2018	18	29	11	43	67.4	32.5	Non-action game ( 22)
Older adult	Roush [ ]	2013	50	65	15	39	100	0	Training ( 19)
									Active control ( 15)
									Passive control ( 5)
	West et al. [ ]	2017	55	75	20	48	66.7	33.3	Training ( 19)
									Active control ( 14)
									Passive control ( 15)

3.6. Training Period and Intensity

The training period was 4–24 weeks (mean = 11.49; S.D. = 6.88). One study by Lee et al. had two length periods and total hours because the study examined video game training of two types. The total training hours were 16–90 h (mean = 40.63; S.D. = 26.22), whereas the training intensity was 1.5–10.68 h/week (mean = 4.96; S.D. = 3.00). One study did not specify total training hours. Two studies did not specify the training intensity. The training periods and intensities are in Table 8 .

Periods and intensities of video gaming intervention.

Author	Year	Length (Week)	Total Hours	Average Intensity (h/Week)
Gleich et al. [ ]	2017	8	49.5	6.2
Haier et al. [ ]	2009	12	18	1.5
Kuhn et al. [ ]	2014	8	46.88	5.86
Lorenz et al. [ ]	2012	8	28	3.5
Lee et al. [ ]	2015	8–11 *	27	n/a
Martinez et al. [ ]	2013	4	16	4
Roush [ ]	2013	24	ns	n/a
West et al. [ ]	2017	24	72	3
West et al. [ ]	2018	8.4	90	10.68

The training length was converted into weeks (1 month = 4 weeks). ns, not specified; n/a, not available; * exact length is not available.

3.7. MRI Analysis and Specifications

Of nine eligible studies, one study used resting-state MRI analysis, three studies (excluding that by Haier et al. [ 40 ]) used structural MRI analysis, and five studies used task-based MRI analysis. A study by Haier et al. used MRI analyses of two types [ 40 ]. A summary of MRI analyses is presented in Table 9 . The related resting-state, structural, and task-based MRI specifications are presented in Table 10 , Table 11 and Table 12 respectively.

MRI analysis details of eligible studies.

MRI Analysis	Author	Year	Contrast	Statistical Tool	Statistical Method	Value
Resting	Martinez et al. [ ]	2013	(post- > pre-training) > (post>pre-control)	MATLAB; SPM8	TFCE uncorrected	<0.005
Structural	Haier et al. * [ ]	2009	(post>pre-training) > (post>pre-control)	MATLAB 7; SurfStat	FWE corrected	<0.005
	Kuhn et al. [ ]	2014	(post>pre-training) > (post>pre-control)	VBM8; SPM8	FWE corrected	<0.001
	West et al. [ ]	2017	(post>pre-training) > (post>pre-control)	Bpipe	Uncorrected	<0.0001
	West et al. [ ]	2018	(post>pre-training) > (post>pre-control)	Bpipe	Bonferroni corrected	<0.001
Task	Gleich et al. [ ]	2017	(post>pre-training) > (post>pre-control)	SPM12	Monte Carlo corrected	<0.05
	Haier et al. * [ ]	2009	(post>pre-training) > (post>pre-control)	SPM7	FDR corrected	<0.05
	Lee et al. [ ]	2012	(post>pre-training) > (post>pre-control)	FSL; FEAT	uncorrected	<0.01
	Lorenz et al. [ ]	2015	(post>pre-training) > (post>pre-control)	SPM8	Monte Carlo corrected	<0.05
	Roush [ ]	2013	post>pre-training	MATLAB 7; SPM8	uncorrected	=0.001

* Haier et al. conducted structural and task analyses. + Compared pre-training and post-training between groups without using contrast. TFCE, Threshold Free Cluster Enhancement; FEW, familywise error rate; FDR, false discovery rate.

Resting-State MRI specifications of eligible studies.

Author	Year	Resting State				Structural
Author	Year	Imaging	TR (s)	TE (ms)	Slice	Imaging	TR (s)	TE (ms)	Slice
]	2013	gradient-echo planar image	3	28.1	36	T1-weighted	0.92	4.2	158

Structural MRI specifications of eligible studies.

Author	Year	Imaging	TR (s)	TE (ms)
Kuhn et al. [ ]	2014	3D T1 weighted MPRAGE	2.5	4.77
West et al. [ ]	2017	3D gradient echo MPRAGE	2.3	2.91
West et al. [ ]	2018	3D gradient echo MPRAGE	2.3	2.91

Task-Based MRI specifications of eligible studies.

Author	Year	Task	BOLD				Structural
Author	Year	Task	Imaging	TR (s)	TE (ms)	Slice	Imaging	TR (s)	TE (ms)	Slice
Gleich et al. [ ]	2017	win–loss paradigm	T2 echo-planar image	2	30	36	T1-weighted	2.5	4.77	176
Haier et al. [ ]	2009	Tetris	Functional echo planar	2	29	ns	5-echo MPRAGE	2.53	1.64; 3.5; 5.36; 7.22; 9.08	ns
Lee et al. [ ]	2012	game control	fast echo-planar image	2	25	ns	T1-weighted MPRAGE	1.8	3.87	144
Lorenz et al. [ ]	2015	slot machine paradigm	T2 echo-planar image	2	30	36	T1-weighted MPRAGE	2.5	4.77	ns
Roush [ ]	2013	digit symbol substitution	fast echo-planar image	2	25	34	diffusion weighted image	ns	ns	ns

All analyses used 3 Tesla magnetic force; TR = repetition time; TE = echo time, ns = not specified.

4. Discussion

This literature review evaluated the effect of noncognitive-based video game intervention on the cognitive function of healthy people. Comparison of studies is difficult because of the heterogeneities of participant ages, beneficial effects, and durations. Comparisons are limited to studies sharing factors.

4.1. Participant Age

Video gaming intervention affects all age categories except for the children category. The exception derives from a lack of intervention studies using children as participants. The underlying reason for this exception is that the brain is still developing until age 10–12 [ 52 , 53 ]. Among the eligible studies were a study investigating adolescents [ 40 ], six studies investigating young adults [ 41 , 42 , 43 , 47 , 49 , 51 ] and two studies investigating older adults [ 48 , 50 ].

Differences among study purposes underlie the differences in participant age categories. The study by Haier et al. was intended to study adolescents because the category shows the most potential brain changes. The human brain is more sensitive to synaptic reorganization during the adolescent period [ 54 ]. Generally, grey matter decreases whereas white matter increases during the adolescent period [ 55 , 56 ]. By contrast, the cortical surface of the brain increases despite reduction of grey matter [ 55 , 57 ]. Six studies were investigating young adults with the intention of studying brain changes after the brain reaches maturity. The human brain reaches maturity during the young adult period [ 58 ]. Two studies were investigating older adults with the intention of combating difficulties caused by aging. The human brain shrinks as age increases [ 56 , 59 ], which almost invariably leads to declining cognitive function [ 59 , 60 ].

4.2. Beneficial Effects

Three beneficial outcomes were observed using MRI method: grey matter change [ 40 , 42 , 50 ], brain activity change [ 40 , 43 , 47 , 48 , 49 ], and functional connectivity change [ 41 ]. The affected brain area corresponds to how the respective games were played.

Four studies of 3D video gaming showed effects on the structure of hippocampus, dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC), cerebellum [ 42 , 43 , 50 ], and DLPFC [ 43 ] and ventral striatum activity [ 49 ]. In this case, the hippocampus is used for memory [ 61 ] and scene recognition [ 62 ], whereas the DLPFC and cerebellum are used for working memory function for information manipulation and problem-solving processes [ 63 ]. The grey matter of the corresponding brain region has been shown to increase during training [ 20 , 64 ]. The increased grey matter of the hippocampus, DLPFC, and cerebellum are associated with better performance in reference and working memory [ 64 , 65 ].

The reduced activity of DLPFC found in the study by Gleich et al. corresponds to studies that showed reduced brain activity associated with brain training [ 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 ]. Decreased activity of the DLPFC after training is associated with efficiency in divergent thinking [ 70 ]. 3D video gaming also preserved reward systems by protecting the activity of the ventral striatum [ 71 ].

Two studies of puzzle gaming showed effects on the structure of the visual–spatial processing area, activity of the frontal area, and functional connectivity change. The increased grey matter of the visual–spatial area and decreased activity of the frontal area are similar to training-associated grey matter increase [ 20 , 64 ] and activity decrease [ 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 ]. In this case, visual–spatial processing and frontal area are used constantly for spatial prediction and problem-solving of Tetris. Functional connectivity of the multimodal integration and the higher-order executive system in the puzzle solving-based gaming of Professor Layton game corresponds to studies which demonstrated training-associated functional connectivity change [ 72 , 73 ]. Good functional connectivity implies better performance [ 73 ].

Strategy gaming affects the DLPFC activity, whereas rhythm gaming affects the activity of visuospatial working memory, emotional, and attention area. FPS gaming affects the structure of the hippocampus and amygdala. Decreased DLPFC activity is similar to training-associated activity decrease [ 66 , 67 , 68 , 69 ]. A study by Roush demonstrated increased activity of visuospatial working memory, emotion, and attention area, which might occur because of exercise and gaming in the Dance Revolution game. Results suggest that positive activations indicate altered functional areas by complex exercise [ 48 ]. The increased grey matter of the hippocampus and amygdala are similar to the training-associated grey matter increase [ 20 , 64 ]. The hippocampus is used for 3D navigation purposes in the FPS world [ 61 ], whereas the amygdala is used to stay alert during gaming [ 74 ].

4.3. Duration

Change of the brain structure and function was observed after 16 h of video gaming. The total durations of video gaming were 16–90 h. However, the gaming intensity must be noted because the gaming intensity varied: 1.5–10.68 h per week. The different intensities might affect the change of cognitive function. Cognitive intervention studies demonstrated intensity effects on the cortical thickness of the brain [ 75 , 76 ]. A similar effect might be observed in video gaming studies. More studies must be conducted to resolve how the intensity can be expected to affect cognitive function.

4.4. Criteria

Almost all studies used inclusion criteria “little/no experience with video games.” The criterion was used to reduce the factor of gaming-related experience on the effects of video gaming. Some of the studies also used specific handedness and specific sex of participants to reduce the variation of brain effects. Expertise and sex are shown to affect brain activity and structure [ 77 , 78 , 79 , 80 ]. The exclusion criterion of “MRI contraindication” is used for participant safety for the MRI protocol, whereas exclusion criteria of “psychiatric/mental illness”, “neurological illness”, and “medical illness” are used to standardize the participants.

4.5. Limitations and Recommendations

Some concern might be raised about the quality of methodology, assessed using Delphi criteria [ 45 ]. The quality was 3–9 (mean = 6.10; S.D. = 1.69). Low quality in most papers resulted from unspecified information corresponding to the criteria. Quality improvements for the studies must be performed related to the low quality of methodology. Allocation concealment, assessor blinding, care provider blinding, participant blinding, intention-to-treat analysis, and allocation method details must be improved in future studies.

Another concern is blinding and control. This type of study differs from medical studies in which patients can be blinded easily. In studies of these types, the participants were tasked to do either training as an active control group or to do nothing as a passive control group. The participants can expect something from the task. The expectation might affect the outcomes of the studies [ 81 , 82 , 83 ]. Additionally, the waiting-list control group might overestimate the outcome of training [ 84 ].

Considering the sample size, which was 20–75 (mean = 43.67; S.D. = 15.63), the studies must be upscaled to emphasize video gaming effects. There are four phases of clinical trials that start from the early stage and small-scale phase 1 to late stage and large-scale phase 3 and end in post-marketing observation phase 4. These four phases are used for drug clinical trials, according to the food and drug administration (FDA) [ 85 ]. Phase 1 has the purpose of revealing the safety of treatment with around 20–100 participants. Phase 2 has the purpose of elucidating the efficacy of the treatment with up to several hundred participants. Phase 3 has the purpose of revealing both efficacy and safety among 300–3000 participants. The final phase 4 has the purpose of finding unprecedented adverse effects of treatment after marketing. However, because medical studies and video gaming intervention studies differ in terms of experimental methods, slight modifications can be done for adaptation to video gaming studies.

Several unresolved issues persist in relation to video gaming intervention. First, no studies assessed chronic/long-term video gaming. The participants might lose their motivation to play the same game over a long time, which might affect the study outcomes [ 86 ]. Second, meta-analyses could not be done because the game genres are heterogeneous. To ensure homogeneity of the study, stricter criteria must be set. However, this step would engender a third limitation. Third, randomized controlled trial video gaming studies that use MRI analysis are few. More studies must be conducted to assess the effects of video gaming. Fourth, the eligible studies lacked cognitive tests to validate the cognitive change effects for training. Studies of video gaming intervention should also include a cognitive test to ascertain the relation between cognitive function and brain change.

5. Conclusions

The systematic review has several conclusions related to beneficial effects of noncognitive-based video games. First, noncognitive-based video gaming can be used in all age categories as a means to improve the brain. However, effects on children remain unclear. Second, noncognitive-based video gaming affects both structural and functional aspects of the brain. Third, video gaming effects were observed after a minimum of 16 h of training. Fourth, some methodology criteria must be improved for better methodological quality. In conclusion, acute video gaming of a minimum of 16 h is beneficial for brain function and structure. However, video gaming effects on the brain area vary depending on the video game type.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank all our other colleagues in IDAC, Tohoku University for their support.

PRISMA Checklist of the literature review.

Section/Topic	#	Checklist Item	Reported on Page #

Title	1	Identify the report as a systematic review, meta-analysis, or both.	1

Structured summary	2	Provide a structured summary including, as applicable: background; objectives; data sources; study eligibility criteria, participants, and interventions; study appraisal and synthesis methods; results; limitations; conclusions and implications of key findings; systematic review registration number.	1

Rationale	3	Describe the rationale for the review in the context of what is already known.	1, 2
Objectives	4	Provide an explicit statement of questions being addressed related to participants, interventions, comparisons, outcomes, and study design (PICOS).	2

Protocol and registration	5	Indicate if a review protocol exists, if and where it is accessible (e.g., Web address), and if available, provide registration information including registration number.	2
Eligibility criteria	6	Specify study characteristics (e.g., PICOS, length of follow-up) and report characteristics (e.g., years considered, language, publication status) used as criteria for eligibility, giving rationale.	2
Information sources	7	Describe all information sources (e.g., databases with dates of coverage, contact with study authors to identify additional studies) in the search and date last searched.	2
Search	8	Present full electronic search strategy for at least one database, including any limits used, such that it could be repeated.	2
Study selection	9	State the process for selecting studies (i.e., screening, eligibility, included in systematic review, and if applicable, included in the meta-analysis).	3
Data collection process	10	Describe method of data extraction from reports (e.g., piloted forms, independently, in duplicate) and any processes for obtaining and confirming data from investigators.	3
Data items	11	List and define all variables for which data were sought (e.g., PICOS, funding sources) and any assumptions and simplifications made.	3
Risk of bias in individual studies	12	Describe methods used for assessing risk of bias of individual studies (including specification of whether this was done at the study or outcome level), and how this information is to be used in any data synthesis.	2
Summary measures	13	State the principal summary measures (e.g., risk ratio, difference in means).	-
Synthesis of results	14	Describe the methods of handling data and combining results of studies, if done, including measures of consistency (e.g., I ) for each meta-analysis.	-
Risk of bias across studies	15	Specify any assessment of risk of bias that might affect the cumulative evidence (e.g., publication bias, selective reporting within studies).	-
Additional analyses	16	Describe methods of additional analyses (e.g., sensitivity or subgroup analyses, meta-regression), if done, indicating which were pre-specified.	-

Study selection	17	Give numbers of studies screened, assessed for eligibility, and included in the review, with reasons for exclusions at each stage, ideally with a flow diagram.	3,5
Study characteristics	18	For each study, present characteristics for which data were extracted (e.g., study size, PICOS, follow-up period) and provide the citations.	5-11
Risk of bias within studies	19	Present data on risk of bias of each study, and if available, any outcome level assessment (see item 12).	5,6
Results of individual studies	20	For all outcomes considered (benefits or harms), present, for each study: (a) simple summary data for each intervention group (b) effect estimates and confidence intervals, ideally with a forest plot.	4
Synthesis of results	21	Present results of each meta-analysis done, including confidence intervals and measures of consistency.	-
Risk of bias across studies	22	Present results of any assessment of risk of bias across studies (see Item 15).	-
Additional analysis	23	Give results of additional analyses, if done (e.g., sensitivity or subgroup analyses, meta-regression [see Item 16]).	-

Summary of evidence	24	Summarize the main findings including the strength of evidence for each main outcome; consider their relevance to key groups (e.g., healthcare providers, users, and policy makers).	12,13
Limitations	25	Discuss limitations at study and outcome level (e.g., risk of bias), and at review-level (e.g., incomplete retrieval of identified research, reporting bias).	13
Conclusions	26	Provide a general interpretation of the results in the context of other evidence, and implications for future research.	14

Funding	27	Describe sources of funding for the systematic review and other support (e.g., supply of data); role of funders for the systematic review.	14

For more information, visit: www.prisma-statement.org .

Author Contributions

D.B.T., R.N., and R.K. designed the systematic review. D.B.T. and R.N. searched and selected the papers. D.B.T. and R.N. wrote the manuscript with R.K. All authors read and approved the final manuscript. D.B.T. and R.N. contributed equally to this work.

Study is supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number 17H06046 (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas) and 16KT0002 (Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (B)).

Conflicts of Interest

None of the other authors has any conflict of interest to declare. Funding sources are not involved in the study design, collection, analysis, interpretation of data, or writing of the study report.

Video Games and Their Correlation to Empathy

How to Teach and Experience Empathic Emotion

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First Online: 18 March 2020
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Ossy Dwi Endah Wulansari 17 ,
Johanna Pirker 17 ,
Johannes Kopf 17 &
Christian Guetl 17

Part of the book series: Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing ((AISC,volume 1134))

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International Conference on Interactive Collaborative Learning

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This article focuses on how video games may trigger empathy. On the one hand, globalization and our fast-changing, globalized world have resulted in an empathy deficit, a situation that calls desperately for a new approach to tackle the empathy issue. On the other hand, recent statistical data has shown that players in some countries today spend on average more than 4 h weekly playing games. Most past research has found that playing violent games decreases pro-social behavior. However, only a few studies investigate the effects of neutral or pro-social video games. Our study aims to identify several characteristics of four games that seem to promote positive moral and empathy and involves 40 subjects. Specifically, we look into the effects of variation of number of interventions and the correlation with perceived presence and immersion. The research reported in this paper covers background and related work on empathy research, existing work on video games for experiencing empathy and the layout of the study. The findings of this initial study on four pro-social games suggest that sufficient story-line of video games can positively impacts aspects such as the ‘perspective taking’ of players. Findings also indicate that multiple interventions and higher perceived immersion dent to increase the level of empathy. This research may contribute to supporting the promotion and development of the ‘ games for good ’ or ‘ games for change ’ campaign.

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Wulansari, O.D.E., Pirker, J., Kopf, J., Guetl, C. (2020). Video Games and Their Correlation to Empathy. In: Auer, M., Hortsch, H., Sethakul, P. (eds) The Impact of the 4th Industrial Revolution on Engineering Education. ICL 2019. Advances in Intelligent Systems and Computing, vol 1134. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-40274-7_16

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Shannon L. Farrell is Natural Resources Librarian in the Natural Resources Library at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities; e-mail: [email protected] . Amy E. Neeser is Assistant Librarian, Library Research—Science and Engineering in the University Library at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; e-mail: [email protected] . Carolyn Bishoff is Physics, Astronomy, and Earth Sciences Librarian in the Walter Library at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities; e-mail: [email protected] ).

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Academic Uses of Video Games: A Qualitative Assessment of Research and Teaching Needs at a Large Research University

Shannon L. Farrell, Amy E. Neeser, and Carolyn Bishoff *

Academic libraries develop collections and services for scholars who use video games in teaching and research. However, there are no assessments of related information and technology needs. The authors conducted 30 semistructured interviews to gather data about these needs and understand how the University of Minnesota Libraries can facilitate access to games and technology. A total of 28 interviewees used games in research, and 23 used games in teaching. We identified a variety of information and technology needs; many showed strong disciplinary trends. The findings can inform needs-based multidisciplinary strategies to develop video game services and collections relevant to unique academic communities.

Introduction

Recent studies show that video games are ingrained in American culture and, increasingly, higher education. A 2015 Pew Research Center survey found that 49 percent of American adults and 67 percent of adults ages 18–29 play video games. 1 The New Media Consortium reported that games and gamification have several applications in higher education, as educational technology and components of blended learning. 2 A search for “video games” in major article indices finds game technology used in diverse research areas.

College and research libraries share a vision of exceptional services to motivate and facilitate cutting-edge research and student learning 3 and have proactively supported scholars using and experimenting with video games. Librarians frequently collaborate with faculty and students to create game collections and interactive spaces for research, teaching, game development, and play. Despite this, there are currently no multidisciplinary assessments that provide an overview of the information and technology needs required by scholars working with video games. Some disciplinary-specific needs are understood, such as the needs of game design programs and curricula, but most information on needs is based on anecdotal evidence.

The University of Minnesota (UMN) is a large, doctoral-granting research university. The Twin Cities campus includes more than 4,000 faculty and 52,000 students, 16 colleges, and more than 300 research, education, and outreach centers and institutes. There is no video game design program or department, but there are a number of research faculty, teaching faculty, and students who use video games for academic purposes. To understand the diverse uses of video games across disciplines, we conducted semistructured narrative interviews of faculty, staff, and graduate students who use games or gaming technology in their work. This paper explores the information and technology needs of scholars who use video games on the UMN campus, similarities and differences by discipline, and how college and research libraries can incorporate disciplinary needs into a strategic approach to video game services and collections.

Literature Review

Many academic libraries recognize that scholars using video games for research and instruction have unique information and technology needs. In 2008, Smith 4 called for a better understanding of game scholars’ information needs, research methods, and types of materials they require, but there are three challenges to understanding those needs on a large scale: lack of information on conducting a comprehensive needs assessment of academic video game users, scarce information about research and teaching needs related to video games, and little information about how unique disciplinary or institutional needs affect a game-related collection or service.

Most library literature on games focuses on recommended genres and equipment 5 or the specifics of acquiring, cataloging, and circulating games. 6 Descriptions of video game collections and services often include a process to gather input; but none of these articles go into detail about the methods or findings, nor do they share a specific plan for how faculty and students would be consulted as technology, research, and classroom needs change.

Laskowski and Ward provide the most thorough overview of classroom and research needs and areas the library can support. 7 They note three primary needs for game-related classes at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC): access to labs with high-powered PCs, availability of course reserves, and access to discontinued games. They propose a variety of needs for game design classes and surmise that those classes would benefit from close liaison partnerships. The research needs they identify all relate to analyses of gameplay, and they propose archiving gameplay videos with player commentary. Since then, game technology has evolved and these recommendations are worth updating.

Many academic libraries have new game collections since the publication of these foundational articles, and descriptions of these collections provide the most up-to-date understanding of the evolving academic uses of video games. It is well recognized that researchers and instructors who use games come from many different disciplines, including education, economics, and the humanities. 8 Some libraries developed partnerships with one department or discipline, such as education 9 or the arts. 10 Librarians managing the game collection at the University of Chicago (UChicago) intend to serve a wide population, from music to media studies to computer science. 11 UChicago also has strong faculty advocates who identified many potential users on campus. 12 Game collections at the University of Michigan 13 and Carleton University 14 likewise support a range of courses and research interests from the sciences to the humanities.

Despite the variety of potential users, there is less documentation about how a library game collection reflects the disciplinary or departmental information and technology needs at a particular institution. The information available shows a surprising amount of consistency across academic game collections: most libraries collect commercially successful games to play on consoles, such as the Playstation 3 or XBox 360. UIUC, 15 the University of Michigan, 16 and the University of California Santa Cruz (UCSC) 17 have vintage games and game systems available. Though personal computer (PC) games are recognized as an important genre to collect, 18 it was difficult to determine if any academic libraries collected PC games or provided hardware to play them. Carleton University is one of the few that does. 19

There are similarities among the themes of many game collections. Collections at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), 20 UChicago, 21 and the University of Michigan 22 all represent the history of video game development and the evolution of games through time. Many academic game collections also focus on acquiring current releases. 23

Some libraries have unique aspects to their collections. For example, VCU collects games specifically for users in the arts. The arts librarian looks for “games that have certain aesthetics … have significant artistic direction, unique narrative or cerebral gameplay.” 24 Some libraries plan to expand beyond console games, including UChicago; a faculty member from English hopes that “computer and mobile games” are eventually added to the collection. 25 At least two libraries make game development software available: the University of Calgary game resources include “six high performance (liquid cooled) gaming PCs” with software packages including Unity and several Autodesk products; 26 and Carleton University had requests for software including Poser Pro. 27

As affordable game technology evolves, libraries take steps to stay up-to-date with new research and teaching applications. Commonly, academic libraries rely on subject librarians to stay aware of research and instruction trends, and that is no different when video games are involved. 28 Another strategy involves direct faculty and student input, which often happens during the initial development of video game collections. 29 However, some collections are built from donations and gifts like at the University of Calgary; 30 a for those, the relationship between the collection and local research and teaching needs is less clear. Some collections accept donations for a particular purpose: the University of Michigan Computer and Video Game Archive (CVGA) accepts donations and purchases games to create the most comprehensive collection possible, while also collecting in targeted ways to support faculty and student activities. 31

No literature to date provides a comprehensive overview of the information and technology needs of academic video game users. Many universities rely on a handful of faculty advisors to understand needs on campus; UIUC consulted a faculty member and hosted a game night for students to gather input; 32 Carleton University similarly “crowd-sourced” input for their game collection from faculty, students, and library staff, though they did not describe their methods. 33 At UChicago, faculty advocates assisted directly with the development of the collection. 34 The University of Michigan LibGuide for the CVGA provides the most comprehensive list of courses, research, and faculty who have used the CVGA on their campus, but the list is intended to inform students and potential users, not provide an overview of trends about research and teaching needs or inform collection and service development. 35

This paper explores the information and technology needs of games scholars at UMN Twin Cities and how libraries can accommodate disciplinary needs and help overcome barriers to academic work related to video games.

We formulated the following research questions:

Which disciplines are represented among UMN scholars who use video games?
Do UMN scholars who use video games collaborate outside their disciplines?
What are the information and technology needs for game-related research and teaching at UMN?
Are there similarities in the information and technology needs of researchers and instructors using video games, despite disciplinary differences?
If obstacles are identified, how can libraries help researchers and instructors overcome them and enhance their work?

To answer these questions, we identified scholars at UMN who work with video games or video game technology. This was defined broadly and ranged from using games as an object of study to using the technology to study a separate problem. We excluded researchers studying “game theory” (a mathematical concept) or studying analog games such as board games or logic puzzles because our interest was in needs related to video game technology.

We used a number of methods to identify a population of faculty, staff, and students. SciVal Experts, a research profile system used at UMN, identified 62 people who had published on video games. The SciVal Experts system does not include all UMN scholars, and the database best represents disciplines that use journal articles as their primary means of scholarly communication, so we also conducted searches of the UMN website to find mentions of video games in biographies, research statements, or classes. Word-of-mouth also played an important role: we asked librarians at the UMN for recommendations and used snowball sampling to find additional names from those we interviewed. Through these combined methods, we obtained 92 total names, which we considered an exhaustive list.

A qualitative approach was most appropriate, as opposed to a survey, since it allowed participants to drive the conversation and focus on topics important to them. Since we did not have personal connections to those doing video game–related work at UMN, interviews had the additional advantage of building new relationships. We sent invitations to conduct hour-long, semistructured interviews to our sample of faculty, staff, and graduate students. Those who responded were interviewed at a location of their choice. Those who did not respond were sent a follow-up invitation two weeks later. Of the 92 names in the original population, 30 people agreed to be interviewed, 20 declined, and 42 did not respond.

Each interview was attended by two members of the research team and was audio recorded with the interviewee’s permission. We asked guiding questions, but the interviewee led the conversation. Instead of transcribing each interview, we used a Google form to code data from the audio (see appendix for codes and definitions). We used a controlled vocabulary to code most topics and captured quotes and observations with free-text responses. To make sure that different coders maintained a level of consistency, we reviewed the audio from the first 15 interviews in tandem and resolved disputes with the codes and analysis methodology. We then assigned a single reviewer to the final 15 subjects.

We took measures to ensure participants’ anonymity by assigning each participant a random number, coding participants by discipline instead of department, and using generic titles (such as untenured faculty) in place of official positions. These methods were approved by the UMN Institutional Review Board on October 17, 2014.

We identified 92 people from four broad disciplinary groups: arts and humanities, social sciences, science/technology/engineering/math (STEM), and health sciences (see table 1). We interviewed 30 people from this population, an overall response rate of 33 percent. The interview sample overrepresented the STEM population, which had a 52 percent response rate, and underrepresented health sciences, which had a 19 percent response rate (see figure 1). It also overrepresented graduate students, who had a 46 percent response rate overall. Participants were split almost evenly between graduate students (13) and faculty/staff (17). It was also noteworthy that the largest number of interviewed graduate students (in both frequency and percentage of total) occurred in arts and humanities (5).

Table 1: Demographics of Interview Subjects (Sample) and Subject Population by
Discipline and Academic Status

Figure 1

Demographics of Interview Subjects (N=30) and Subject Population (N=92) by Discipline and Academic Status

Interdepartmental collaboration was defined as a relationship, formal or informal, between an interview participant and a member of another department. Both formal and informal collaboration were considered: formal collaboration was defined as a relationship based on an externally recognized partnership, such as a project, grant, coauthorship on a manuscript, or serving as an academic advisor or dissertation committee member; informal collaboration was defined as unofficial or casual partnerships based on consultations, conversations, and friendships that contribute to academic work. These data were used to determine whether an interviewee’s work was confined to a single department or discipline or whether he or she had potential connections outside the interviewee’s home department. We found high levels of interdepartmental collaboration in all disciplines (see figure 2). One third of interview participants (10) reported three or more interdepartmental relationships, including an untenured instructor in arts and humanities who collaborated with faculty and students across five different departments in arts and humanities, STEM, and social sciences. A total of 20 percent of participants (6) reported no collaboration or no collaboration outside their departments, including an untenured instructor in STEM who only collaborated with graduate teaching assistants in his department. Interviewees from arts and humanities were the only group where all interviewees reported collaborative partnerships.

Figure 2

Number of Current Interdepartmental Relationships by Discipline (n=30)

The majority (21/30) of interview participants used video games in both research and teaching (see figure 3). Most participants conducted research with video games (28/30). About a quarter of interviewees (7), most from STEM and health sciences, used games solely in research, including a graduate student in STEM who received funding for research and did not teach. Five categories of game-related research emerged from the interviews (see figure 4). Interviewees who conducted research on the development of games or technology typically produced software or algorithms that could be used in games or developed games based on existing technology. Researchers who used games as instrumentation modified game technology to collect quantitative data or used video games as a cheaper alternative to another analogous instrument they could have purchased. When games were used as an object of study, researchers often applied critical analysis or theory to a video game as they would another text or primary source. When games were used to study influences on people or society, the researcher typically used qualitative methods to examine some societal impact of games. Finally, games were studied by some for their educational applications and impact on student outcomes. Some interviewees used games in more than one way, such as a graduate student in arts and humanities who studied video games as both a cultural object and a cultural influence. Similarly, an untenured faculty in STEM researched video games as an educational technology while also examining their social influence. Each discipline was represented in 3–4 research application categories. At the same time, strong disciplinary research trends were present and each category was dominated by a single discipline, with the exception of educational technology. Educational technology applications primarily included testing games and game-based learning principles in the classroom.

Figure 3

Areas of Academic Work Where Interview Subjects Used Video Games or Game Technology, by Discipline (n=30)

Figure 4

Role of Video Games/Technology in Research by Discipline (n=28)

Fewer people used video games in teaching (23/30) than in research, but interviewees who taught with games most often used them in research as well. For example, a tenured faculty researched the effectiveness of a mobile game to create and grade assignments and used the same game in several of his courses. Only two individuals used video games solely in a teaching capacity, including an instructor in STEM who had no research responsibilities. Four categories of teaching applications emerged from the interviews (see figure 5). Some instructors designed games from scratch for students to use in the classroom. Other instructors taught game design principles sometimes using commercial games and sometimes requiring students to create their own games. Games were also used as course material, analogous to texts or other primary sources: instructors assigned games in the syllabus or had students watch videos of others playing through a game. Finally, instructors discussed games, game mechanics, or their own research on games in the classroom but may not have assigned games to students to play in the course. Similar to research applications, some interviewees used games in the classroom multiple ways, like an untenured faculty in STEM who taught game design and also used video games as course material. Every disciplinary group used video games as course material and as a discussion piece in class. Some teaching applications were more common in particular disciplines; 4 of 8 STEM interviewees designed a game for their classes and 5 of 6 from the social sciences used games as course material. Overall, disciplinary trends were far less distinct. Table 2 summarizes the data from figures 3–5.

Figure 5

Role of Video Games/Technology in Teaching by Discipline (n=23)

Table 2: Academic Use of Video Games/Technology by Discipline. Combines Data from Figures 3–5 and Adds Percentage of Use by Total Sample of Each Discipline

Among the interviewees, 18 types of information were used (see table 3). Arts and humanities participants used the most information sources (13), while STEM participants used the least (6). Video games were used as primary sources by interviewees in arts and humanities and social sciences, including a tenured faculty in the social sciences who studies game symbology. Interviewees from all disciplines used colleagues, web sources, journals and Google Scholar. Dominant information sources emerged from each discipline: arts and humanities, journals and web sources (see figure 6); social sciences, journals (see figure 7); STEM, colleagues, journals, and Google Scholar (see figure 8); and health sciences, colleagues (see figure 9).

Table 3: Information Sources Used in Game-Related Research/Teaching (n=30).

Participants identified 17 unique technology needs (see table 4). The following technology categories emerged: equipment, games, programming languages, servers, software, and web applications. Equipment included any type of hardware, from game consoles like Xbox or PlayStations, to mobile phones or personal computers (PCs). PCs were the most common piece of equipment identified as required by the whole sample, but peripherals (accessories such as game controllers) were the predominant type of equipment mentioned by participants in the health sciences. For example, a Wii balance board was used to study involuntary bodily movements. Only five interviewees used console system equipment (see figure 10).

Figure 6

Information Sources in Arts and Humanities (n=7)

Figure 7

Information Sources in Social Sciences (n=7)

Figure 8

Information Sources in STEM (n=11)

Figure 9

Information Sources in Health Sciences (n=5)

Games referred to all types of playable software, and four categories of video games emerged: PC games, played on a computer and often accessed through a platform like Steam, were the most common, followed by console games (played on a console) and web games (played through an Internet browser); mobile games (played on a phone) were the least common. Arts and humanities and social sciences participants had the strongest need for games, and they use the widest variety of platforms. For example, a graduate student in arts and humanities uses PC, console, and mobile games to study music, and a graduate student in the social sciences uses web, PC, and console games to study representations of bodies. Social sciences have the largest use of web-based games, used by 3 of 4 interviewees. Only 1 of 11 STEM participants used video games in his or her academic activities (see figure 11), a graduate student studying a prominent massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG).

Figure 10

Equipment Technology Requirements for Game-Related Research/Teaching by Discipline (n=30)

Table 4: Technology Requirements for Game-Related Research/Teaching (N=30)

Software as a category excluded video games but included almost any other type of digital application that a researcher or instructor identified as necessary to his or her work. The subcategories were chosen with collection development needs in mind; proprietary software would likely come at a cost and include access restrictions, while open source software would be more accessible for any library or user to install. Other categories of interest included custom software, which was usually designed by the researcher or instructor and might not be widely shared or available, and game design software. Game design software might overlap with one of the other categories: some interviewees used Unity, an open source game design software; some used the Unreal engine, which at the time of the interviews cost money to download and was not open source; and some built custom game design software of their own. STEM participants had the most software needs overall; and, as a group, both STEM and health sciences interviewees reported using some type of software from every category (see figure 12). However, the needs were diverse among individuals: a graduate student in STEM used proprietary robotics software and a tenured faculty member in STEM used open source software to teach programming. Arts and humanities interviewees overall did not report many software needs; only 1 of 7 interviewees described any software needs at all. However, members of every disciplinary grouping did report a need for proprietary software.

Figure 11

Game Technology Requirements for Game-Related Research/Teaching by Discipline (n=30)

Figure 12

Software Technology Requirements for Game-Related Research/Teaching by Discipline (n=30)

Some technology used by the interviewees in this study was free or provided by the university, like a personal computer, but many technology needs required some financial resources to fulfill. To determine how interviewees currently met their technology needs, we asked about the specific methods they used to acquire technology. We split the results on technology acquisition into two categories: graduate students and faculty/staff (see figures 13 and 14). Tenured and untenured faculty and staff were combined because the methods of technology acquisition were very similar for both groups. Graduate students used many strategies to acquire technology, including borrowing from others or using their own personal property. For example, one graduate student in the social sciences used free technology, borrowed games from others, made purchases, and still did not have all the technology he needed. On the other hand, faculty and staff primarily purchase technology. One faculty member in health sciences said, “I usually have a couple thousand bucks in my ICR [indirect cost recovery] account… that’s more than enough to pay for the kinds of things we’ve been talking about [plasma screen, Xbox 360, games].” This trend holds true regardless of tenure status. Faculty and staff in STEM are using more freely available technology when compared to the other disciplinary groups. If the faculty, staff, or students had not yet acquired the technology they planned to use, those responses appear as “other.” Faculty planned to either create the technology themselves or hire someone to create it, while graduate students were still considering their options.

Funding sources differed significantly by status, and untenured faculty and staff are shown separately from tenured faculty and graduate students (see figures 15–17). In general, graduate students and untenured faculty and staff relied on a variety of methods for funding compared to tenured faculty. In arts and humanities and social sciences, many graduate students paid out-of-pocket, such as a graduate student in arts and humanities who was unable to get funding for game skins (armor, clothing, and the like), which were required for his dissertation research. In STEM, graduate students received some funding from grants, but that was not the case for graduate students from other disciplines (see figure 15). Tenured faculty mostly got their funding from grants (10 out of 11 in our sample), with some additional support from ICR funds, departmental funds (funding providing by a researcher’s or instructor’s department), and new technology funds (funds provided by the department, college, or university to acquire technology) (see figure 16). Unlike graduate students, tenured faculty did not pay out-of-pocket costs. Health sciences’ tenured faculty illustrated a depth of funding sources. Although there were only three participants in our sample, they had six sources of funding. One example is a tenured faculty member who had both an external grant and used department funding. Untenured faculty and staff appear to be seeking multiple sources of funding (see figure 17). For example, in arts and humanities, an untenured instructor was funding his work with a grant, departmental funds, and his own money. Figures 18–21 summarize the data from figures 13–17 and organize it by discipline.

Figure 13

Graduate Student Acquisition of Games/Technology by Discipline (n=13)

Figure 14

Faculty and Staff Acquisition of Games/Technology by Discipline (n=17)

Figure 15

Graduate Student Funding Sources for Game-Related Research and Teaching (N=13)

Figure 16

Tenured Faculty Funding Sources for Game-Related Research and Teaching (n=11)

Figure 17

Untenured Faculty and Staff Funding Sources for Game-Related Research and Teaching (n=6)

Research Limitations

This research had several limitations. If an eligible participant did not mention his or her work with video games on a staff profile page or in publications, or if the participant was not located through recommendations or snowball sampling, he or she was not included among the population of 92 UMN game scholars. The interview data was more limited in scope because some eligible participants were away on sabbatical, did not respond to invitations, or declined an interview.

Figure 18

Flowchart of Funding Sources for Interview Subjects in Arts and Humanities (n=7)

Figure 19

Flowchart of Funding Sources for Interview Subjects in Social Sciences (n=7)

Figure 20

Flowchart of Funding Sources for Interview Subjects in Stem (n=11)

Figure 21

Flowchart of Funding Sources for Interview Subjects in Health Sciences (N=5)

The exploratory nature of this study limits the generalizability of the findings. However, despite being limited to this one research context, the size of the institution and broad range of disciplines and activities covered in this study provide a rich starting point for future research and the development of library services aimed at these types of researchers. Librarians serving game design or game development programs may observe different needs from those identified in this study because UMN does not have a dedicated game design program.

The open-ended, semistructured nature of the interviews resulted in rich and diverse data that posed some problems when categorizing findings and ensuring anonymity. We used broad codes and categories to capture as much data as possible while also maintaining anonymity, resulting in some loss in the granularity of the data. Additionally, determining how to assign disciplines to interviewees to maintain anonymity was challenging. For example, depending on the context, History can be considered a social science or part of the humanities as it is “multifaceted and diffuse.” 36 We chose to place it in arts and humanities because the researchers interviewed were primarily studying video games as cultural objects instead of the impact on society or human behavior.

Finally, some of the subjects discussed were sensitive (for example, institutional barriers to completing work or acquisition of funding) and some participants felt apprehensive about sharing information. Therefore, the data only represents what interviewees shared “on the record.” Occasionally, the interview location could have inhibited participants (for example, one interview occurred in a public location and two interviews occurred where interviewees’ colleagues were present). However, we have no reason to believe that interviewees concealed information or provided untruthful answers; in the cases where subjects spoke “off the record,” they were candid and honest about challenges with their work.

Demographics and Collaboration

Four disciplines were represented in both the larger population of game scholars and our sample of 30 interviewees. All but one interviewee identified strongly with a single area of study, usually the person’s department or area of research. No single department or discipline dominated; video games were used institutionwide.

Most interviewees had strong disciplinary ties and also had strong patterns of collaboration outside their departments. Collaboration was common for those we interviewed regardless of discipline. We anticipated a higher frequency of collaboration in STEM and health sciences because previous studies showed high levels of formal collaboration in these disciplines, 37 but this did not bear out in the interview sample. Collaborative partnerships took the form of coauthorships, collaborative conference presentations, and participation on doctoral committees, as well as many informal collaborations. Informal collaborations were also commonly described by interviewees and included professional friendships, relationships with advisors and committee members, pilot projects, and interest groups.

These data on collaboration are useful to keep in mind while discussing disciplinary trends around information and technology needs. Widespread collaboration on game-related projects and other projects suggests a need for cross-departmental and cross-disciplinary collaboration among librarians on collection development and the creation of services. Some libraries that invested in game technology do serve a range of users and disciplines, 38 but other prominent collections of games and game technology in academic libraries were driven by the needs of only one or two departments. 39 Awareness of the collaborative partnerships that exist could help libraries go beyond serving one student, class, or researcher at a time, and investments in game technology have the potential to support the work of whole networks of researchers and instructors. Explicit library support of collaborative work with video games could even give fringe projects and new collaborations a space to intersect and thrive. At UMN there is the potential for many departments and subject librarians to guide the development of a possible video game collection, and this would require a very collaborative approach to collection development.

Academic Use of Video Games: Research and Teaching

Video games were commonly used in research across all four disciplines represented in our sample. This confirmed a need for the collection development practices of universities such as UChicago, 40 University of Michigan, 41 and Carleton University, 42 which accommodated users from multiple disciplines.

We did not anticipate how common video games are in classrooms, since published information about game-related courses only identified a handful of classes at any comparable institution, unless they were focused on game design. Additionally, very few course descriptions in the UMN course catalog mentioned video games, and, of the game-related courses we found during our initial searching, most were in the social sciences or arts and humanities. We did not expect so many STEM and health science classes to integrate games as well. In fact, the use of video games in classes was present within all the disciplines, especially in introductory undergraduate courses and upper level seminars. The course descriptions were often vague enough to give the instructor leeway in how to develop his or her individual section, and those who wished to incorporate games could do so. Some departments even encouraged game-related classes due to consistently high enrollment.

Most people in our sample incorporated games into both their research and teaching. We suspect that having a research interest in games may make it more likely for them to incorporate video games into the classroom as well. This may explain why only two people in our sample were using video games exclusively in the classroom.

Overall, knowing how scholars are using video games and gaming technology on campus formed the backbone of this needs assessment. Any effort to provide library support for video game–related work will impact both research and classroom/student needs. Since we know that most scholars are using games in both research and teaching capacities, the support of this work may have double the impact.

Role of Video Games in Research and Teaching

There were clear disciplinary trends in the types of research done with video game technology. The development of video games primarily occurred in STEM, while video games were most often used as a text or an object of study in arts and humanities research. There were also some strong similarities among the disciplinary groups. At least one interviewee in every discipline conducted research that studies “educational technology” or “the influences on people and society.” Since video games were used by different disciplines in different ways, the type of support the library offers should not be done through the lens of a single department or discipline, and a variety of materials need to be available for many different applications including development, study, and experimental design.

Disciplinary differences were more difficult to discern when examining the role of games in teaching. Many classes were new or were only offered once; even so, teaching game design or designing games from scratch occurred not only in STEM but also in social science and arts and humanities classrooms. Incorporating game technology as course material was common, and interviewees identified a number of different ways in which games were used: readings, storytelling devices, and technology in labs. Students were impacted by these course requirements as well. Many interviewees described accommodations for students who did not own a console or a computer equipped to run graphics-intensive games, but some required students to figure out how to access the games on their own (such as via a personal account on the Steam game distribution system). 43

Game design was taught in four classes from three disciplines, which was unexpected because there is no game design program or certificate at UMN. Supporting classes that incorporate game design would be easier if they were all in one area of study, but a subject liaison might only be aware of the one class in his or her discipline. Regular environmental scans might be needed to uncover common technology and material requirements for classes across disciplines for courses that use video games and other emerging technologies.

Information Needs

The most commonly used information sources were Google Scholar, journals, and web sources. The interviewees in the social sciences and arts and humanities were the strongest users of “traditional” library materials such as books and journals. Several interviewees described having to acquire the majority of their texts through interlibrary loan (ILL) because their library did not have the journals or books they needed. Libraries need to review collections in this and other emerging areas to minimize the need for backchannels and shortcuts.

Colleagues were the single most common source of information for interviewees, especially in STEM and health sciences. In one case, a project in health sciences was developed entirely with information and skills contributed from existing relationships. The frequency with which interviewees in this sample collaborate outside their department emphasizes the importance of colleague networks in new and emerging areas. Libraries cross departmental and disciplinary borders and can cultivate a role as a connector for scholars doing similar work in different subject areas with events, experimental technology space, or other strategies.

Libraries should pursue partnerships with existing video game archives and other libraries or investigate shared collection development efforts to help researchers and the public overcome barriers to accessing game-related information sources. Interview participants identified video games as both a kind of technology and a type of information. Games are available in some academic libraries and public libraries, but it is unclear how accessible they are outside their immediate communities or institutions through ILL. Game manuals and trade magazines like Nintendo Power were also used by several interviewees. Public libraries typically collect trade magazines but, according to Worldcat, many often only keep the last 1–2 years. Locating game manuals is even more difficult, as they typically lie only in the hands of hobbyists and collectors. A search on Worldcat shows that relatively few libraries have holdings for either game magazines or manuals, raising the question of how libraries can facilitate access to these materials.

The depth and variety of sources used makes it clear that libraries cannot be the sole gatekeepers of information on this subject. The people in our sample used subscription journals but also ephemeral, noncurated materials (such as game manuals, gaming websites, and streaming games). Other library resources like subscription databases were not as valuable for most interviewees, possibly because they are too narrow in scope or interviewees are simply not aware of them. Rather than collect all of the sources scholars need, libraries can create guides to help scholars locate these materials elsewhere, akin to the University of Michigan CVGA LibGuide. 44

Technology Needs

Interviewees’ needs for devices, displays, and peripherals show no disciplinary trends. Investing in a range of equipment would benefit the largest range of users at UMN. Arts and humanities and social science scholars had a greater need for video games, while those in STEM and health sciences had more software needs. In fact, only one person in STEM identified games as a need, and only one interviewee in arts and humanities used software of any kind.

Disciplinary trends ought to factor into decisions related to purchasing and marketing game technology. For example, at UMN, subject librarians and users in the arts and humanities and social sciences disciplines might be primarily responsible for selecting game titles. Subject librarians for STEM and health sciences should weigh in on video game software selection, since usage would be most expected from STEM and health sciences disciplines.

Among our interviewees, the PC was the most common technology necessary to research and teaching. PCs are necessary to academic work, but there was some nuance to how interviewees used them. PC games are used almost as much as nearly all other types of games combined (console, mobile, and web-based). Mobile games are a growing industry, 45 but they are not used heavily on this campus for academic purposes. Other technology needs are tied to PC games as well; PC accessories, most often graphics cards, were the third highest need in the equipment category. PC games do not require much additional technology besides a computer (unless a powerful game requires faster processing or graphics cards), so they may be more attractive to the researchers and instructors from arts and humanities and social science, who make up the majority of game users. Guidance on collecting PC games is limited, since few academic libraries currently collect them. Most libraries with game collections and services collect console games almost exclusively, likely because console games do not have restrictive digital rights management (DRM) or require an account to play and are easier to collect and lend.

Peripherals were a common technology need, especially in health sciences. Interviewees shared a diverse range of applications for peripherals that have nothing to do with consoles: to control robotics, play PC games, and modify to use as instrumentation. Interviewees also preferred them for their low cost and ability to interface with a number of technologies. Since they are flexible and relatively cheap, libraries and makerspaces could provide a variety of peripherals (with or without consoles) for on-site use or rental.

Acquisition of and Funding for Games and Gaming Technology

In general, interviewees found they could purchase games or technology at stores or online but did not always have funding to do so. The acquisition of games and video game technology was intrinsically tied to funding, which was mentioned as the largest barrier to acquiring technology.

Graduate students used a variety of creative strategies to acquire technology (such as using their personal game collection, borrowing from friends, and other means), whereas faculty and staff simply purchased technology with grants or other funds as needed or used freely available games and technologies, such as online emulators. Graduate students may have less funding available, or they do not know how to access existing funding. The majority of graduate students, all from the social sciences and arts and humanities, were paying out-of-pocket.

Graduate students had the same technology needs as faculty and staff and conduct their own research, often independent of their faculty advisors and any associated funding. STEM graduate students were the only ones receiving grants or new technology funds. We argue that graduate students would be the primary beneficiaries of having video games and technology available, as this would break down disciplinary acquisition and funding barriers. Underfunded graduate students are probably not unique to UMN; and, if libraries made these games and technologies available, graduate students would have much more flexibility in their research. The arts and humanities students who purchased video games out-of-pocket likely used the games as primary research materials, analogous to texts. Since many libraries purchase books for research, it should be easy to purchase games for analogous reasons.

Libraries can also help connect graduate students with funding. Many academic units at UMN provide grants to fund graduate research, and the UMN Libraries subscribe to grant databases and offer workshops on locating grant funding. Since graduate student research is highly valued, it makes sense to assist them in their efforts to acquire game technology by building their grant-seeking skills.

Even though faculty and staff theoretically have the same opportunities for funding, untenured faculty and staff seek more sources of funding to meet their needs, whereas tenured faculty receive most of their funding from grants. Startup packages supported three untenured faculty from STEM and the health sciences, and one staff member reported having to pay out-of-pocket to buy games for classroom use. Faculty and staff for the most part were successful in finding funding to purchase the required technology, but making materials available at the library would put less pressure on faculty and staff to acquire them in other ways and would give them an option to use their funding for other purposes.

Collections in the UMN Libraries are focused primarily on meeting faculty research and teaching needs, as faculty tend to stay at the university longer than students. We recognize that these data could suggest that faculty and staff do not have many barriers to accessing technology and that it is neither necessary nor urgent to include video games and video game technology in library collections. It could also be argued that grants and other funding sources already pay for research and classroom needs and that libraries are not in the business of directly funding research costs like instrumentation, experimental design, or technology development. However, many faculty we spoke to welcomed a chance to collaborate with librarians whether or not the library could directly support their research. Some faculty incorporate games into their outreach service, and many have classes that would benefit from the availability of game materials. We also argue that libraries have a great opportunity to engage with graduate and undergraduate students who want to experiment with games before personally investing in the technology.

By focusing our study on researchers and instructors, we have missed the opportunity to explore implications for students taking classes that incorporate games and gaming technology. What we know came solely from the instructors’ viewpoints; therefore, we do not have a comprehensive picture of how these technologies were made available to students or if they encountered barriers to accessing them. In some classes the game technology was provided, like a health sciences class where Wii balance boards were available to take measurements; but, in another case, students were expected to purchase World of Warcraft and install it on their PCs. Some instructors did note that requiring students to purchase video games may be prohibitive and not directly analogous to purchasing textbooks, as it requires students to own consoles or a high-powered PC that supports gaming. Some attempted to find alternative solutions such as asking the UMN Libraries to install games on library computers and investigating Steam licensing for computer labs. It would be worthwhile to interview students from some of these classes to uncover if they encountered any barriers in attempting to access these technologies.

There is little data available about the information and technology needs of researchers and instructors who use video games in higher education. This study attempted to fill that gap with interviews with faculty, staff, and graduate students from UMN. Scholars from all disciplinary groups were represented and demonstrated both a high level of collaborative activity and use of video games in both research and teaching. As libraries build new video game collections or expand existing collections, they should consider the following findings:

Information used in game-related research and teaching includes nontraditional material such as trade magazines and game manuals. Journals were the most common source of information identified overall, but some essential titles may not be collected or indexed in library catalogs.
Video games are most often researched as an influence on society and having a role in educational technology. This research is diverse and may have vastly different needs.
Video games are commonly used as course material in courses from all disciplines, but console games may not be used as frequently as PC games.
All of the interviewees needed game-related technology, though there was much variation among the disciplines: arts and humanities and social sciences required video games; STEM required software; health sciences required peripherals.
Graduate students, especially those from arts and humanities, are at a major funding disadvantage compared to colleagues in the sciences. This impedes access to game technology required for research and teaching and often requires them to pay out-of-pocket.

This study found some consistency in video game applications between disciplines but even more differences, especially in technology and information use. This suggests that the support libraries provide should be done collaboratively through a multidisciplinary lens. We propose a strategic approach to video game services and collections focused on disciplinary needs. For UMN, this would mean building a collection focused on PC games, a few console games, cutting-edge equipment with game design software, and a collection of peripherals with or without consoles, perhaps associated with a makerspace. Each academic game collection should reflect its institution, based on an evaluation of the unique needs of its population.

Since this study was limited to the UMN campus, we would like to see similar studies undertaken at various institutions that look at how students use and acquire games for classroom use, as well as a large-scale multi-institution look at the use of games in higher education. As technology changes and moves away from physical media, academic institutions will benefit from studies looking at the impact of DRM on scholarship and libraries. Very few video game companies have partnerships with higher education, and more exploration of this issue is needed. These studies would provide a more complete understanding of scholarly video games–related work and scholars’ information and technology needs.

APPENDIX. Interview Themes, Codes, and Definitions

Graduate student: both master’s and doctoral students
Untenured faculty and staff: assistant professor, instructor, postdoc
Tenured faculty: associate professor, full professor
Arts and Humanities: includes any field where the human experience and expressions or explanations thereof are the primary objects of study. History is included here because the interviewees study video games and texts and consider the games as the object of study
Health Sciences: medical, kinesiology, and related disciplines
Social Sciences: includes any field where humans are the primary object of study
STEM: includes disciplines from science, technology, engineering, and mathematics
Formal collaborations: working on a project, publishing a paper, working on a grant together, serving as an academic advisor or member of a thesis or dissertation committee
Informal collaborations: talking to/with people, sharing ideas
Both: a combination of both formal and informal collaborations
Intradepartmental: work alone or only collaborate within their own department
Interdepartmental (1–2): between 1–2 collaborations outside their own department
Interdepartmental (3+): 3+ collaborations outside their own department or split positions between departments
Development of games/technology: researcher has created the video game or associated technology
Instrumentation: using video games to gather quantitative data
Object of study: using critical analysis or thematic study of video games
Influences on people or society: researcher is examining the societal impact of video games
Educational technology: using video games to facilitate learning and improve student outcomes
Undergraduate: lower-level classes, primarily for those pursuing their bachelor’s (1xxx–4xxx)
Graduate: upper level classes, marketed toward master’s and doctoral students (5xxx–8xxx)
Instructor designed a game: instructor created a video game for use in the classroom
Taught game design: instructor taught students how to design their own games
Used games as course material: video games were studied in the classroom, as primary sources
Discussed games: video games were used in the classroom as secondary sources
Other: any other response that did not fall within the above categories
Borrowed/given: the material was owned by someone else and the researcher or instructor acquired from them
Purchased: the material had to be purchased by the researcher or instructor either out-of-pocket or with other funds
Already owned: the instructor or researcher previously owned the material
Freely available: available at no cost to consumers
Grant (general): acquired funding via another organization to pursue their research or teaching projects
New technology funds: funds provided for the explicit purpose of acquiring new technologies
Seed grant: initial capital to start a project
Department funds: funding provided by researcher’s or instructor’s department
Dissertation fund: funding provided by graduate student’s department or graduate school to support dissertation research
Startup package: new professor was provided with funding to set up a lab
Indirect cost recovery (ICR) funds: funds that the university collects to cover overhead costs when grants are written. A portion is returned back to departments
Out-of-pocket: the instructor or researcher had to use personal money to cover the cost
MNDrive grant: grant allocated via partnership between the UMN and the state of Minnesota that provides funding in areas of interdisciplinary research that align with specific industries
Not required: no funding was required for this research or teaching
Equipment, console: consoles, such as Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4, Wii, WiiU, or any other
Equipment, controllers, and peripherals: secondary equipment for the gaming systems listed above, including controllers, Wiimotes, headsets, Xbox Kinects, Wii balance boards, steering wheels, and the like
Equipment, mobile: smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices, including iPhones, iPads, and such
Equipment, display: equipment used to view video games, including television screens, computer monitors, or any other display equipment
Equipment, personal computer: includes Mac, Windows, and Linux systems
Equipment, personal computer accessories: secondary equipment for PC gaming, including joysticks, controllers, headsets, webcams, and other equipment
Games, web: games that are available through a browser or browser-based emulator, or for download online
Games, PC: games purchased to play on personal computers
Games, console: games purchased to play on consoles
Games, mobile: games that are available on smartphones or tablets
Programming languages: computer language used to communicate instructions to a machine, including C, C++, Java, Javascript, Python, and other languages
Servers: computers or programs that manages access to a network resource
Software, proprietary: software that must be purchased from the individual or company that developed it; often includes major restrictions for adaptation and use
Software, free or open source: software that is available for free, typically on the web; often allows users to modify or adapt as needed
Software, custom: software written by the researcher or instructor from scratch
Software, game design: software developed for the specific purpose to design video games
Web applications: software application that is available and runs on the web, such as streaming video
Archives: historical documents or records
Books: written or printed works
Colleagues: talking to people in their discipline
Conferences: formal meetings for people in related disciplines
Course readings: resources that were provided while taking a class
Datasets: collection of related sets of information
Game manuals: instructions on how to play video games
Game reviews: evaluations of video games
Games: console, PC, mobile, or web video games
Google Scholar: freely accessible web search engine that indexes scholarly literature
Interviews: information obtained by interviewing appropriate people
Journals: collections of articles about specific subjects or disciplines
Library databases: catalog of both full-text resources and indexed citations that are accessible electronically
Newsletters: bulletins that are issued periodically
News sources: includes both print and website-based news
Students: people enrolled in either undergraduate or graduate programs
Trade magazines: periodicals that contain news and items about a particular topic
Web sources: materials found on the open web

1. Meave Duggan, “Gaming and Gamers” (Report, Pew Research Center, 2015), available online at www.pewinternet.org/2015/12/15/gaming-and-gamers/ [accessed 18 December 2015].

2. Laurence F. Johnson et al., “NMC Horizon Report: 2015 Higher Education Edition,” Horizon Report (Austin, Tex.: The New Media Consortium, 2015), 22, 35, available online at www.nmc.org/publication/nmc-horizon-report-2015-higher-education-edition/ [accessed 18 December 2015].

3. Association of College and Research Libraries, “ACRL Plan for Excellence,” 2015, available online at www.ala.org/acrl/aboutacrl/strategicplan/stratplan [accessed 11 January 2016].

4. Brena Smith, “Twenty-First Century Game Studies in the Academy: Libraries and an Emerging Discipline,” Reference Services Review 36, no. 2 (2008): 205–20, doi:10.1108/00907320810873066.

5. Examples include Mary Laskowski and David Ward, “Building Next Generation Video Game Collections in Academic Libraries,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 35, no. 3 (May 2009): 267–73, doi: 10.1016/j.acalib.2009.03.005 ; Kristen Mastel and Dave Huston, “Using Video Games to Teach Game Design: A Gaming Collection for Libraries,” Computers in Libraries 29, no. 3 (2009): 41–44, available online at http://eric.ed.gov/?id=EJ831241 [accessed 18 December 2015]; and Diane Robson and Patrick Durkee, “New Directions for Academic Video Game Collections: Strategies for Acquiring, Supporting, and Managing Online Materials,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 38, no. 2 (Mar. 2012): 79–84, doi: 10.1016/j.acalib.2012.01.003 .

6. Examples include Natalie Gick, “Making Book: Gaming in the Library: A Case Study,” in Gaming in Academic Libraries: Collections, Marketing, and Information Literacy (Chicago: American Library Association, 2008), 1–25; David Baker et al., “Lessons Learned from Starting a Circulating Videogame Collection at an Academic Library,” in Gaming in Academic Libraries: Collections, Marketing, and Information Literacy (Chicago: American Library Association, 2008), 26–38; Danielle Kane, Catherine Soehner, and Wei Wei, “Building a Collection of Video Games in Support of a Newly Created Degree Program at the University of California, Santa Cruz,” Science & Technology Libraries 27, no. 4 (Aug. 20, 2007): 77–87, doi:10.1300/J122v27n04_06; and Emma Cross, David Mould, and Robert Smith, “The Protean Challenge of Game Collections at Academic Libraries,” New Review of Academic Librarianship 21, no. 2 (May 4, 2015): 129–45, doi:10.1080/13614533.2015.1043467.

7. Mary Laskowski and David Ward, “Building Next Generation Video Game Collections in Academic Libraries,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 35, no. 3 (May 2009): 267–73, doi: 10.1016/j.acalib.2009.03.005 .

8. Andy Burkhardt, “Taking Games in Libraries Seriously,” The Academic Commons (blog), available online at www.academiccommons.org/2014/07/24/taking-games-in-libraries-seriously/ [accessed 5 November 2015].

9. Chris Nelson, “Gaming Reaches into Far Corners of Academic World as U of C Builds Huge Collection,” Calgary Herald (Mar. 16, 2015), available online at http://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/gaming-reaches-into-far-corners-of-academic-world-as-u-of-c-builds-huge-collection [accessed 4 November 2015].

10. Brian McNeill, “VCU Libraries Launches Collection of Critically Acclaimed Video Games,” VCU News (blog) (Nov. 6, 2014), available online at http://news.vcu.edu/article/VCU_Libraries_launches_collection_of_critically_acclaimed_video [accessed 4 November 2015].

11. Sarah G. Wenzel, “New Library Videogame Collection,” The University of Chicago Library News (blog) (May 25, 2012), available online at http://news.lib.uchicago.edu/blog/2012/05/25/new-library-videogame-collection/ [accessed 30 November 2015].

12. Patrick Jagoda, “Videogame Collection Supports Scholarly Study,” The University of Chicago Library News (blog) (May 25, 2012), available online at http://news.lib.uchicago.edu/blog/2012/05/25/videogame -collection-supports-scholarly-study/ [accessed 30 November 2015].

13. An overview of classes and disciplinary uses is discussed in Mary Claire Morris, “Computer & Video Game Archive Celebrating Five Years of Growth,” The University Record (blog) (Nov. 5, 2013), available online at http://record.umich.edu //articles/computer-video-game-archive-celebrating-five-years-growth [accessed 2 December 2015]. A list of classes and research applications can be found in Valerie Waldron, “Computer & Video Game Archive: CVGA,” University of Michigan Research Guides (2015), available online at http://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=282987 [accessed 2 December 2015].

14. Emma Cross, David Mould, and Robert Smith, “The Protean Challenge of Game Collections at Academic Libraries,” New Review of Academic Librarianship 21, no. 2 (May 4, 2015): 135–37, doi: 10.1080/13614533.2015.1043467 .

15. David Ward, “Vintage Gaming Collection Development Policy and Description” (Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, 2014), available online at www.library.illinois.edu/gaming/gamearchives.html [accessed 20 December 2015].

16. Valerie Waldron, “Computer & Video Game Archive: CVGA,” University of Michigan Research Guides (2015), available online at http://guides.lib.umich.edu/c.php?g=282987 [accessed 2 December 2015]

17. University of California Santa Cruz Library, “Video Games” (2015), available online at https://library.ucsc.edu/collections/video-games [accessed 18 December 2015].

18. Diane Robson and Patrick Durkee, “New Directions for Academic Video Game Collections: Strategies for Acquiring, Supporting, and Managing Online Materials,” Journal of Academic Librarianship 38, no. 2 (Mar. 2012): 82, doi: 10.1016/j.acalib.2012.01.003 .

19. Cross, Mould, and Smith, “The Protean Challenge of Game Collections,” 134.

20. McNeill, “VCU Libraries Launches Collection.”

21. Jagoda, “Videogame Collection Supports Scholarly Study.”

22. Adam DePollo, “Play On: Changing Gamer Culture at the ‘U,’” Michigan Daily (Oct. 22, 2014), available online at https://www.michigandaily.com/arts/10computer-video-game-archive22 [accessed 2 December 2015].

23. Laskowski and Ward, “Building next Generation Video Game Collections,” 268.

24. McNeill, “VCU Libraries Launches Collection.”

25. Jagoda, “Videogame Collection Supports Scholarly Study.”

26. University of Calgary Libraries and Cultural Resources, “Video Games,” available online at http://library.ucalgary.ca/dmc/video-games [accessed 4 November 2015].

27. Emma Cross and Robert Smith, “The Evolution of Gaming at Academic Libraries,” Canadian Library Association Conference (Winnepeg, Manitoba, 2013), available online at https://prezi.com/supsungb2uil/the-evolution-of-gaming-at-academic-libraries/ [accessed 4 November 2015].

28. Burkhardt, “Taking Games in Libraries Seriously.”

29. Three examples of soliciting direct feedback from faculty and students are found in Kane, Soehner, and Wei, “Building a Collection of Video Games”; Laskowski and Ward, “Building Next Generation Video Game Collections”; and Cross, Mould, and Smith, “The Protean Challenge of Game Collections.”

30. Nelson, “Gaming Reaches into Far Corners of Academic World.”

31. DePollo, “Play On: Changing Gamer Culture at the ‘U.’”

32. Laskowski and Ward, “Building Next Generation Video Game Collections,” 268.

33. Cross, Mould, and Smith, “The Protean Challenge of Game Collections,” 133.

34. Jagoda, “Videogame Collection Supports Scholarly Study.”

35. Waldron, “Computer & Video Game Archive.”

36. Mark T. Gilderhus, History and Historians : A Historiographical Introduction , 7th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall, 2010), 41.

37. Vincent Larivière, Yves Gingras, and Éric Archambault, “Canadian Collaboration Networks: A Comparative Analysis of the Natural Sciences, Social Sciences and the Humanities,” Scientometrics 68, no. 3 (2006): 519–33, doi:10.1007/s11192-006-0127-8.

38. Nelson, “Gaming Reaches into Far Corners of Academic World.”

39. Kane, Soehner, and Wei, “Building a Collection of Video Games.”

40. Wenzel, “New Library Videogame Collection.”

41. Mary Claire Morris, “Computer & Video Game Archive Celebrating Five Years of Growth,” The University Record (blog) (Nov. 5, 2013), available online at http://record.umich.edu //articles/computer-video-game-archive-celebrating-five-years-growth [accessed 2 December 2015].

42. Cross, Mould, and Smith, “The Protean Challenge of Game Collections,” 144.

43. For more information, see http://store.steampowered.com/about /.

44. Waldron, “Computer & Video Game Archive.”

45. John Gaudiosi, “Mobile Game Revenues Set to Overtake Console Games in 2015,” Fortune , (Jan. 15, 2015), available online at http://fortune.com/2015/01/15/mobile -console-game-revenues-2015/ [accessed 15 January 2016].

* Shannon L. Farrell is Natural Resources Librarian in the Natural Resources Library at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities; e-mail: [email protected] . Amy E. Neeser is Assistant Librarian, Library Research—Science and Engineering in the University Library at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor; e-mail: [email protected] . Carolyn Bishoff is Physics, Astronomy, and Earth Sciences Librarian in the Walter Library at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities; e-mail: [email protected] ). ©2017 Shannon L. Farrell, Amy E. Neeser, and Carolyn Bishoff, Attribution-NonCommercial ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ ) CC BY-NC.

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Evaluation of problematic video game use in adolescents with adhd and without adhd: new evidence and recommendations.

1. Introduction

2. materials and methods, 2.1. participants, 2.2. instruments.

Questionnaire of Experiences Associated with Video Games, CERV [ 59 ], an instrument validated in Spain to detect problematic and abusive use of video games. It consists of 17 items with a four-point Likert-type response format (never/almost never, sometimes, often, and almost always). Its correction facilitates obtaining a total score, as well as two scores derived from two scales: avoidance (eight items) and negative consequences (nine items). Likewise, the total scores obtained allow grouping into three groups based on the following cut-off points: without problems with the use of video games (scores between 17 and 25 points), potential problems (between 26 and 38 points), and severe problems (between 39 and 68 points). Cronbach’s alpha coefficients for the subscales are 0.87 for negative consequences and 0.86 for avoidance, with a total Cronbach’s alpha of 0.91 [ 59 ]. In our study, the Cronbach’s alpha obtained were 0.73 and 0.82 for each of the scales, respectively, and 0.89 for the global scale.
Passion for video games was assessed using the Spanish version of the Passion Scale [ 60 ]. It consists of two subscales of six items, each of which assesses harmonious passion and obsessive passion, as well as five criteria items to assess the degree of passion for the activity. Each item is scored on a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from “Strongly disagree” to “Strongly agree”. The levels of internal consistency of the scale are adequate, with α = 0.81 for HP and α = 0.87 for the OP scale. Cronbach’s alpha values, in this study, were suitable for both HP (α = 0.72) and OP (α = 0.74).
The Video Game Motives Questionnaire (VMQ) [ 61 ] assesses the underlying motives for playing video games and is grouped into eight categories: recreation, social interaction, coping, violent reward, competition, fantasy, cognitive development, and personalization. Moreover, with four response options from “not at all agree” to “totally agree”. Cronbach’s alpha in the sample was 0.93.
To assess emotional and behavioral problems related to mental health in adolescents, the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) [ 62 ] was chosen. Taking the last 6 months as criteria, it consists of a clinical screening self-report that measures five specific indices and a general one through 25 items, five items per index, with three response options (0 = not true; 1 = somewhat true; 2 = totally true). The specific subscales measured were Emotional Symptoms, Behavior Problems, Hyperactivity, Relationship Problems and Prosocial Behavior. The Total Difficulties subscale is the sum of the first four subscales. The levels of reliability and validity for use in adolescents are adequate [ 63 ]. In this study, Cronbach’s alpha was 0.70 for the Total Difficulties scale and 0.72 for the Prosocial Behavior scale.
Sociodemographic data questionnaire: gender, age, academic year, and diagnosis of ADHD by the public health system, including all subtypes;
Questionnaire on video game use patterns: days and time played; money spent per month on video games.

2.3. Procedure

2.4. ethical aspects, 2.5. data analysis, 4. discussion, 5. conclusions, 6. limitations, author contributions, institutional review board statement, informed consent statement, data availability statement, conflicts of interest.

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	NO ADHD Freq. (%)	ADHD Freq. (%)	X	Sig
Play Video games			10.32	0.000
Yes	1831 (77.7)	140 (88.6)
No	524 (22.3)	18 (11.4)
Play any day of the week			9.19	0.001
Yes	1319 (56.0)	108 (68.4)
No	1036 (44.0)	50 (31.6)
Often play at the weekend			8.81	0.001
Yes	1783 (75.7)	136 (86.1)
No	572 (24.3)	22 (13.9)

		NO ADHD Freq (%)	ADHD Freq (%)	X	Sig
Gender	Men	1084 (59.8%)	111 (79.3%)	20.86	0.000
Gender	Women	730 (40.2%)	29 (20.7%)	20.86	0.000
Spent money on video games	Yes	468 (24.8%)	48 (32.4%)	25.97	0.000
Spent money on video games	No	1346 (75.2%)	92 (67.6%)	25.97	0.000
Time spent weekly	0–2 h	1179 (64.4%)	74 (52.9%)	12.58	0.002
	3–5 h	399 (21.8%)	32 (22.9%)
	6 o more hours	253 (13.8%)	34 (24.3%)

	NO ADHD (n = 1831) M (SD)	ADHD (n = 140) M (SD)	U	Sig.	g+
CERV–Psychological Dependence and Avoidance	13.97 (4.09)	15.36 (4.3)	96,116.00	0.000	−0.338
CERV–Negative Consequences of Use	13.15 (3.41)	14.82 (4.06)	89,269.50	0.000	−0.482
CERV–Total Score	27.12 (7.05)	30.19 (7.93)	91,341.00	0.000	−0.431
Harmonious Passion	9.24 (2.78)	10.23 (3.12)	95,985.00	0.000	−0.35
Obsessive Passion	9.97 (2.91)	11.27 (3.38)	91,981.00	0.044	−0.44

	Medication ADHD	No-Medication ADHD	X	Sig
No Problems	19 (43.2%)	25 (56.8%)	5.115	0.077
Potential Problems	48 (64%)	27 (36%)
Severe Problems	13 (61.9%)	8 (38.1%)

	NO ADHD (n =1831) M (SD)	ADHD (n = 140) M (SD)	U	Sig.	g+
Recreation	9.68 (2.71)	9.80 (2.78)	102,413.50	0.453	−0.442
Competition	7.50 (3.28)	7.81 (3.18)	100,821.00	0.323	−0.100
Cognitive Development	4.79 (3.25)	5.70 (3.20)	90,277.00	0.002	−0.28
Confrontation	5.33 (3.67)	6.45 (3.96)	99,543.00	0.002	−0.30
Interaction	5.05 (3.33)	5.45 (3.58)	100,213,5.00	0.212	−0.11
Violent Reward	3.99 (3.69)	5.00 (3.94)	90,079,5.00	0.003	−0.27
Customization	7.10 (3.72)	7.37 (3.80)	102,384.50	0.317	−0.07
Fantasy	6.10 (3.75)	6.71 (3.53)	97,140.50	0.067	−0.16

	NO ADHD (n =1831) Media (SD)	ADHD (n = 140) Media (SD)	U	p	g+
Emotional Symptoms	13.81 (4.79)	14.53 (4.68)	116,683.00	0.076	0.15
Behavior Problems	12.35 (2.96)	13.11 (3.57)	114,192.50	0.030	0.25
Relationship Problems	15.62 (2.53)	15.85 (2.94)	122,780.00	0.402	0.09
Hyperactivity	16.16 (2.97)	17.44 (3.37)	92,108.50	0.000	0.43
Prosocial Conduct	21.06 (3.29)	19.95 (3.62)	102,986.00	0.000	−0.33
Total Difficulties	57.95 (9.26)	60.93 (9.62)	104,825.50	0.000	0.32

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Isorna Folgar, M.; Faílde Garrido, J.M.; Dapía Conde, M.D.; Braña Rey, F. Evaluation of Problematic Video Game Use in Adolescents with ADHD and without ADHD: New Evidence and Recommendations. Behav. Sci. 2024 , 14 , 524. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs14070524

Isorna Folgar M, Faílde Garrido JM, Dapía Conde MD, Braña Rey F. Evaluation of Problematic Video Game Use in Adolescents with ADHD and without ADHD: New Evidence and Recommendations. Behavioral Sciences . 2024; 14(7):524. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs14070524

Isorna Folgar, Manuel, José M. Faílde Garrido, María D. Dapía Conde, and Fátima Braña Rey. 2024. "Evaluation of Problematic Video Game Use in Adolescents with ADHD and without ADHD: New Evidence and Recommendations" Behavioral Sciences 14, no. 7: 524. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs14070524

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127 Latest Video Game Research Topics You Will Love
Video Games Research Paper Topics For College. Of course, we have a list of video games research paper topics for college students. These are a bit more difficult than the others in our list: Linking video game addiction to substance abuse. The use of first person shooter games in military training programs.
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Here, we've collected excellent essay topics for true gaming enthusiasts. Whether you're looking for argumentative essay ideas on video games, research topics, or questions for debate, you will find them here. We will write. a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts. 809 writers online.
122 Video Games Research Paper Topics For Students
122 Video Games Research Paper Topics For Students. Video games are a big part of our lives, just like political science, and they have been since the early days. Even with all that gaming available to us, there's still something about a classic game that keeps us coming back for more. This is why we've decided to put together a list of 100 ...
107 Video Game Essay Topic Ideas & Examples
To help you get started, here are 107 video game essay topic ideas and examples to inspire your writing: The impact of violent video games on children's behavior. The evolution of video game graphics over the years. The rise of esports and its influence on the gaming industry.
Video Games Research Paper Topics
Video games are interactive computer games that you play by using buttons or controls to move images on a computer screen. Video games are now everywhere, and their impacts on society are worth studying. One of the best ways to understand the impacts of video games is by researching it. Although student enjoy playing video games, they find it ...
Library Resources for Doing Scholarly Research on Video Games
Project Muse. This resource is a general favorite for anything art or media related, with tons of scholarly, peer-reviewed articles about video games including articles on diversity in video games, video games and the ecosystem, video games and civic development, and more. When starting research on video games, this database is highly ...
Top 100 Video Games Research Paper Topics for 2022
The video game industry is thriving like never before. According to a 2018 study, 60% of Americans report playing video games daily (Entertainment Software Association, 2015). Red Dead Redemption 2, released by Rockstar Games in October of 2018, …. Analysis of the Attractiveness of Video Games.
≡Essays on Video Games. Free Examples of Research Paper Topics, Titles
Check out our samples of video game topics for research papers for examples of solid content, structure, and outline. 154 essay samples found. Sort & filter. 1 Benefits of Video Games: a Discursive Paper . 2 pages / 691 words . In contemporary discourse, video games often polarize opinion. Initially perceived predominantly as a form of ...
Neuro-Gaming: How Video Games Shape the Brain's ...
Abstract. Neuro-Gaming: How Video Games Shape the Brain's Cognitive Landscape is a comprehensive research survey that investigates the impact of video games on cognitive processes and the brain's ...
Reaction time and working memory in gamers and non-gamers
A post-hoc analysis showed that the non-gamers reduced their RT from 1135.45 ± 605.75 ms when the questionnaire was completed before performing the tasks to 911.01 ± 161.57 ms when the ...
On the use of participatory methodologies for video game research
Video game scholars examining the shortcomings of previous video game research reference the need for new and innovative methodologies. Existing video game research seemingly inhibits organic learning experiences by setting specific research targets or providing players with gameplay instructions, hence utilising methodological approaches that study the learning process from the outside.
Setting the Game Agenda: Reviewing the Emerging Literature on Video
Research on the social and psychological impacts of video gaming has changed over time in response to the aging demographic of video game players, the growing diversity of video game players, increasing complexity and diversity of video games, and their growing entrenchment in the culture (Dale & Shawn Green, 2017).Scholarship on video gaming accelerated in the early 2000s, with common topics ...
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A strong conclusion will not only tie together your essay but also leave the reader with a lasting impression of the depth and complexity of video gaming as a subject. Free essay examples about Video Game ️ Proficient writing team ️ High-quality of every essay ️ Largest database of free samples on PapersOwl.
Using Video Games to Improve Capabilities in Decision Making and
There is many other benefits 2 in playing video games. In this paper, we are trying to seek information that video game can be used to improve a personâ€™s skill, especially in decision making 3 and cognitive skills 4. ... To select the papers, we determine two research questions: (i) whether video games could really improve cognitive ...
Research Guides: Video Game Studies: Special Topics
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Interesting Prompts For A Video Games Research Paper
A well-prepared research project includes an extensive amount of planning and exploration, keeping in mind the constraints of time and presentation. It also includes the choice of a good topic, which can be anything of your interest. An unconventional topic of interest for a research could be on the prevalence of children's video games on ...
Video Game Genres and Advancing Quantitative Video Game Research with
Quantitative research on video games often reduces participants' gaming experience to how much time they spend playing video games. Although appropriate in some instances, it often fails to capture aspects of the video game experience. Studies that only use time as a means of establishing expertise in gaming fail to capture how much a player is involved in different types of video ...
The Association Between Video Gaming and Psychological Functioning
Introduction. Video gaming is a very popular leisure activity among adults (Pew Research Center, 2018).The amount of time spent playing video games has increased steadily, from 5.1 h/week in 2011 to 6.5 h/week in 2017 (The Nielsen Company, 2017).Video gaming is known to have some benefits such as improving focus, multitasking, and working memory, but it may also come with costs when it is used ...
Does Video Gaming Have Impacts on the Brain: Evidence from a Systematic
The game genres examined were 3D adventure, first-person shooting (FPS), puzzle, rhythm dance, and strategy. The total training durations were 16-90 h. Results of this systematic review demonstrated that video gaming can be beneficial to the brain. However, the beneficial effects vary among video game types.
Video game play is positively correlated with well-being
1. Introduction. Video games are an immensely popular and profitable leisure activity. Last year, the revenues of the games industry were larger than the film industry's [] and the number of people who report playing games has never been higher [].Across the globe, the rise of games as a dominant form of recreation and socializing has raised important questions about the potential effect of ...
A comprehensive systematic review and content analysis of active video
Yet few studies have attempted to systematically catalog features that characterize this research. To address this gap, we undertook a systematic review and content analysis of active video game interventions, examining only published longitudinal interventions that prominently featured active video game technology (≥50% of the intervention).
Video Games and Their Correlation to Empathy
The research reported in this paper covers background and related work on empathy research, existing work on video games for experiencing empathy and the layout of the study. ... In this paper we thus aim at investigating the potential of video games for teaching and experiencing empathy in order to address our main research question, which ...
Academic Uses of Video Games: A Qualitative Assessment of Research and
This paper explores the information and technology needs of scholars who use video games on the UMN campus, similarities and differences by discipline, and how college and research libraries can incorporate disciplinary needs into a strategic approach to video game services and collections. ... We formulated the following research questions ...
Evaluation of Problematic Video Game Use in Adolescents with ...
Video game addiction among adolescents, particularly those with ADHD, is a significant concern. To gather more insights into video game usage patterns in this population, we investigated levels of potentially problematic use, passion, motivations, and emotional/behavioral symptoms in adolescents with and without ADHD. Our cross-sectional, multicenter study involved 2513 subjects (Age M = 15.07 ...
Apple Intelligence Preview
Apple Intelligence can even find a particular moment in a video clip that fits your search description and take you right to it. Remove distractions in your photos with the Clean Up tool in the Photos app. Apple Intelligence identifies background objects so you can remove them with a tap and perfect your shot — while staying true to the ...

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