Study shows gamers get a thrill out of dying

March 10, 2008 by Mark O'Neill |

Not being a gamer, I wouldn’t know myself. But according to Wired, a new study just out has shown that gamers get distressed at shooting their opponents dead but they get very happy when they get killed themselves.

According to the piece :

Ravajas (the study author) isn’t entirely sure why gamers feel this way, though he has theories. If we feel distress when we kill an in-game opponent, it may be because it violates our ingrained sense of morality; we know killing is bad, even when it’s virtual.

His much weirder experimental result, though, is our thrill at dying. Ravajas thinks this might occur because getting killed is “transient relief from engagement”: A first-person shooter is so incredibly stressful that we’re happy to get any respite, even if it requires being blown to pieces.

What do you think? When you get blown to pieces in a computer game, are you annoyed as hell or are you completely exhilarated that you’re being hacked to pieces by a two-headed monster with a bad breath problem and a bad attitude?

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7 Comments »

Comment by Aaron

2008-03-10 11:31:02

When playing, I would never say that I wanted to die. But in hindsight, it is nice to have a break from concentrating on the best way to kill the 20 enemies around you.

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Comment by Alan

2008-03-10 12:47:56

I’d have to say that’s pretty stupid from my point of view. Call me a psycho killer or born survivor or anything else that comes to mind but nothing having to reload is a pretty annoying experience and I can only cheer on when I, my men or one of my units get a kill. A break I can appreciate but if that’s what I wanted then I’d just step away from the PC for a bit.

Sound like your typical ‘unexpected’ result from yet another modern study.

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Comment by Phillip

2008-03-10 16:46:58

What they both said. I hate dying because that either means you’re losing, as in multi-player, or you have to restart from some save point, and that’s a pain. I also happen to love killing my opponents. My friends and I celebrate every head shot in Halo or chainsaw to the face in Gears of War. If people didn’t like killing in video games, then why do they sell, especially first-person shooters?

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Comment by brandon

2008-03-10 20:31:34

I can understand the pleasure of dying in a game. Video games can get pretty intense and even stressful, and an in-game death is at least a temporary release of that stress.

Although in my experience, dying in a video game usually makes me even more stressed.

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Comment by Mansoor

2008-03-12 14:12:25

This is so stupid!! People play because they want to WIN! not die, i hate to die if i could i would own everyone for as long as i could (without cheating of course)….Who dosent laugh at the head shots and ‘unbelevable’ amount of kills you get in a row?

The guy who conducted the research must have some amazingly stupid methods, instead sit down and play a real RPG and see how you feel…

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Comment by Sampi

2008-03-13 18:14:22

I think weather you die or not is irrelevant, is the number of frags which counts ^^

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Pingback by World of Warcraft games » Blog Archive » Study shows gamers get a thrill out of dying

2008-03-14 08:36:51

[...] Matthew wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptNot being a gamer, I wouldn’t know myself. But according to Wired, a new study just out has shown that gamers get distressed at shooting their opponents dead but they get very happy when they get killed themselves. … [...]

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