Video games frequently flaunt international human rights and criminal law without portraying the consequences, a study by Swiss human rights organisation TRIAL and youth rights advocate Pro Juventute Switzerland has unsurprisingly discovered.

Lawyers trained in international humanitarian, criminal and human rights law cast their legal eyes over twenty shooters including Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, 24: The Game, Far Cry 2 and "Metal Gear Soldier 4 [sic]" for the study titled 'Playing by the Rules.'

The study makes for slightly surreal and mildly entertaining reading as one discovers what would be the real-life consequences for fictional video game characters.

Fist-bumping Army of Two stars Salem and Rios, for example, "may be tried for their mere participation in hostilities" as "mercenaries are considered to be civilians and as such, they have no right to participate in the hostilities... Read more

An Iowa State University and National Institute on Media and the Family (NIMF) study has concluded that 8.5% of its 1,178 U.S. participants, aged 8 to 18, met the American Psychiatric Association (APA) criteria for gambling addiction, once again bringing the oft-debated topic of video game addiction into the national spotlight.

Participants were asked eleven questions regarding their gaming habits, including "Do you sometimes skip household chores in order to spend more time playing video games" and "Have you ever lied to family or friend about how much you play."

Per APA standards, exhibiting six or more symptoms constituted addiction. Furthermore, the study found that "pathological status significantly predicted poorer school performance even after controlling for sex, age, and weekly amount of video-game play," with "pathological gamers" twice as likely to have a diagnosed attention problem.

The study claims that the results are "nationally representative within 3%." However, study author and Iowa State researcher Douglas Gentile was quick to point out that the study does not confirm video games lead to "poor school performance... Read more

Action-packed video games can improve your eyesight, according to a recent study at the University of Rochester funded in part by the US Navy's Office of Naval Research.

Researchers set one test group playing first-person shooters Unreal Tournament 2004 and Call of Duty 2, and the other The Sims 2. After 50 hours over 9 weeks, FPS players were found to have a 43% improvement in their contrast sensitivity--the ability to spot slight differences in shades of grey--while Sims 2 players saw none.

"If you are driving at dusk with light fog it could make the difference between seeing the car in front of you or not seeing it," explained study leader Daphne Bevelier. After six months of gaming, a 58% improvement was seen over non-gamers.

Improving contrast sensitivity--a crucial factor in how well we see--was thought to take glasses or surgery. Previous research by Bevelier into video games' ocular benefits discovered they can improve our ability to see objects accurately in a cluttered space.

A pilot study by PopCap's UK division into the use of casual gaming to stave off snack cravings has yielded promising results, according to a report issued today.

The numbers are more than a little iffy--of the mere 30 participants who started the trial, a scant 10 finished--but playing PopCap's Bejeweled Twist apparently had a 100% success rate at beating cravings and lifting mood. Encouraged by these results, PopCap plans to fund nore research into the health benefits of casual gaming this year.

A number of the participants were non-gamers, including 39 year old Debbie Hodgson who said, "My cravings have noticeably reduced since I started this trial and I lost 7 lbs over 4 weeks." Casual gaming might benefit hardcore gamers too, as a study last year revealed EverQuest II players, while not fat, are sad.

While PopCap are naturally reluctant to draw firm conclusions on the results, we here at Shacknews have no qualms about risking our Internet doctors' licenses. Our snappy, quotable advice is "Don't pig: Peggle!" and "Bejeweled those blues away!", though we stray away from recommending Feeding Frenzy 2.

The Xbox 360 is "the console online gaming leader" in the United States, according to a study conducted by marketing research group NPD between January 6-26, 2009. However, the PC remains "the most widely used platform for online gaming activities."

An online survey of "just over 20,000" U.S. residents found that the Xbox 360 accounted for 50% of consoles played online. The Wii made up 29%, a jump from 2008's 18%.

As for PC, NPD told Shacknews that 87% of those surveyed used a PC to play games online. That's down from 90% in 2008, described as a statistically significant decrease. This number presumably includes Flash-based casual games.

Specific figures for other platforms were not provided, but the company said that "PS2 fell dramatically and PS3 moved up from fifth place to third place."

The study further noted that micro-transaction downloads have slowed... Read more

A new study has found that patients with symptoms of post-traumatic stress had fewer flashbacks after playing a round of Tetris.

The experiment, conducted by Oxford University, exposed a group of 40 volunteers to "distressing" images of injuries. A portion of the group was then made to play Tetris for 30 minutes.

Over the course of a week, the Tetris-playing sample was found to have recorded "significantly fewer" flashbacks of the images than the control group, according to the BBC.

"Tetris may work by competing for the brain's resources for sensory information," said Oxford's Dr. Emily Holmes.

"We suggest it specifically interferes with the way sensory memories are laid down in the period after trauma and thus reduces the number of flashbacks that are experienced afterwards."

Researchers admit that the distressing images shown to the group do not compare to actual real-life traumatic events, and that the results of the study are inconclusive as to whether games have a real effect on human memory.

While many have complained about unrealistic depictions of women in games, a new study has found that the atypical body types of some characters can cause both males and females to have a more negative body image about themselves in just 15 minutes.

Male participants in the Kansas State University survey played WWF Wrestlemania 2000, while females played an unspecified beach volleyball game. Both groups answered questions about their body image before and after 15 minutes of play.

The quick reaction and subsequent feelings of inadequacy were especially disturbing due to the vast popularity of video games, Kansas State psychology professor Richard Harris told the Associated Press, as noticed by Joystiq.

Following a recent EverQuest II survey that suggested MMO players were sad but not overweight, another study has found that females and bisexuality may be more prevalent in the game than one may expect.

After tallying the results of over 2,400 completed web-based surveys, researchers told BBC News that females make up roughly 40% of the EverQuest II "gaming population."

Furthermore, those women were found to display "an unusually high level of bisexuality," beating out the rate of "general population" bisexuality by more than five times.

The study suggests that men and women play online games for different reasons, with men wanting to win and women wanting to socialize. In fact, a "high proportion" of women claimed to play EverQuest II with a romantic partner.

"These are not people who are following strict gender stereotypes... Read more

A new study by technology company Emsense has connected the success of FPS games with the frequency of close combat.

The study, conducted by Emsense on behalf of Gamasutra, used bio-sensory headsets to measure the engagement of gamers while playing titles such as Half-Life 2, Halo 2, Gears of War and Battlefield 2142.

"Close combat was the most reliable method of creating engagement, adrenaline, reward, and all the emotions that make shooters so much fun," wrote Emsense's Tim Hong. "Certainly, this is nothing new to the genre, but the next-gen games that excelled in this area were exceptionally strong at creating high-paced close combat frequently."

In one graph recording a player's feedback during a Gears of War close-quarters attack, the "engagement" meter spiked following the landing of a chainsaw, indicating that the visceral nature of close combat is in itself a highly rewarding act.

"Gears of War players recorded high emotional reward for the spray of enemy blood after they succeeded," said Hong. "Of course, we can't forget the ubiquitous Half-Life 2 crowbar, the only weapon players initially have for fighting."

Outside of statistics collected from each individual game (see chart above), the study also compared and contrasted similar sequences amongst competing titles. One particularly interesting examination involved turret sequences in both Resistance and Halo 2, wherein Resistance failed to adequately engage players due to a lack of close combat danger.

"The failure lies in how protected the players are," wrote Hong. "In Resistance, one of the players' experiences with turrets in the first 90 minutes is from... Read more

The non-profit MacArthur Foundation has released a study suggesting that online gaming is a valuable way for youths to learn social skills in the digital age.

A write-up of the study in the San Francisco Chronicle reflects that online games are integral to children's social development in the same manner as social networking sites like Facebook or MySpace.

"There is this generational gap in thinking about the value that social networking brings," said Mizuko Ito, a University of California Irvine informatics professor who conducted the study.

The researchers argued that restricting kids from social networking "eliminates an important social and recreational activity and could leave them ignorant of how to interact, not only in their youth, but also potentially in their professional lives," according to

The report, which was noticed by Blue's News, also mentioned some auxiliary benefits of time spent online. Many youths who got deeply involved in their online activities--a phenomenon the study called "geeking out"--learned to program computers, edit videos, or fix computer hardware as a result of their dedication.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental non-profit group, has studied the energy consumption patterns of the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and Wii, and released a report showing each system's impact on the environment.

The study, noticed by Slashdot, found that American console players consume 16 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year, on par with the entire consumption of the city of San Diego, California.

The Wii is far and away the most frugal of the three current-generation consoles by consuming an average of only 16 watts while active. The next best, the Xbox 360, leaps up 119 watts on average, and the PlayStation 3 steps up further to an average 150 watts.

The NRDC argues that the use of power-saving features in consoles could cut up to 11 billion of that 16 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, saving $1 billion on electric bills and cutting CO2 emissions by 7 million tons--as much as all the cars in San Jose, California.

The group pointed out that the 360 and PS3's power-saving auto-shutdown features are turned off by default. Shacknews readers are encouraged to visit the NRDC's guides for enabling power-saving features to save a few bucks.

A trio of Swedish research institutions have measured heart rates in adolescent, game-playing males and found that those who play violent games show more physiological responses resembling those of high levels of activity, negative emotions or stress.

ScienceDaily summarizes the collaborative research of Stockholm University, Uppsala University and the Karolinska Institute thusly:

In the study boys (12-15 [years old]) were asked to play two different video games at home in the evening. The boys' heart rate was registered, among other parameters. It turned out that the heart rate variability was affected to a higher degree when the boys were playing games focusing on violence compared with games without violent features. Differences in heart rate variability were registered both while the boys were playing the games and when they were sleeping that night.

Heart rate variability is a medical term for the regularity of a heartbeat, meaning that a low variability signals the heart is working smoothly and things are generally well. Meanwhile, a high variability is a precursor to irregular heartbeats, which are symptomatic of certain medical problems, high levels of stress, or strongly negative emotions, according to the research firm Institute of HeartMath.

In recent research, heart rate variability has been linked to the nervous system, which is why mental activities like stress or violence can contribute to increasing that variability.

The researchers aim to continue studying the effects of video games on the body and hope that their findings will contribute to determining whether video game violence causes real-life violence.

The Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) today responded to a recent study connecting violent video games to violent behavior, saying that the authors of the report are deliberately focusing on video games in order to sensationalize the issue.

The study, performed by Iowa State University and published in the journal Pediatrics, claims that children became more aggressive after playing violent video games.

ECA president Hal Halpin responded in this release to the media:

For the better part of the past decade we--game consumers, makers, sellers and creators--have been waiting for the results of an unbiased, longitudinal and comprehensive study to be done which will inform us about the potential harmful effects of entertainment products on our children. Unfortunately, with the report published in the latest issue of Pediatrics, we remain wanting.

One of the ways in which our stance is likely very different from others in the discussion on the subject is that the ECA would encourage more and better research on the matter. The problem has been, and apparently continues to be, that the agenda of the researchers supersedes our want and need for inclusiveness of all media--not just games--for the overtly sensationalistic spin that will inevitably be employed--to the exclusion of music and movies. We remain optimistic that longitudinal research that is truly comprehensive, objective and inclusive will be performed and shared, but sadly that day has not yet come.

A new study from Iowa State University suggests that playing violent video games leads to more aggressive behavior in children, CNN reports.

While the effect of violent video games has been an oft-debated subject--some argue that violent games merely draw the attention of those prone to violent behavior--the study found that players were more aggressive than before the research began.

Furthermore, the more they played violent games, the more aggressive the players were in real life. Meanwhile, those that had less exposure to violent games did not see as much of a growth in aggressive behavior.

The study is "pretty good evidence" that violent games lead to violent behavior, commented University of Michigan research director Dr. L. Rowell Huesman.

The research was conduced across three groups: 181 Japanese students ages 12 to 15, 1,050 Japanese students aged 13 to 18, and 364 US kids ages 9 to 12. The Japanese children rated their own aggressive behavior, as did the US group, though additional data on the US group came from peers and teachers.

A packaging-focused study from the NPD Group has found that the average number of games in a frequent gamer's collection totals a staggering 48 titles, according to Gamasutra.

The study also found that in that same polling group of 562 gamers, 11 percent owned a game that was still sealed in its packaging.

The poll was commissioned by the Content Delivery and Storage Association and the Entertainment Merchants Association, explaining the otherwise odd survey questions.

Other packaging statistics? 88 percent of game owners store their games in the original cases, with 8 percent putting them in plastic sleeves and only 5 percent actually tossing out the original case.

After having their way with a game, 54 percent of gamers surveyed will trade or sell it, 24 percent will give it away, 17 percent will store it, and 2 percent will just throw it in the trash.

The numbers now show that gamers are generally more social than non-gamers--according to a survey commissioned by IGN, anyway.

Gamasutra spotted the report from a 3,000-respondent survey conducted by researchers at Ipsos, in which single gamers were twice as likely as non-gamers to go out on a date. Gamers were also by a slight margin more likely to be non-romantically social by going out or playing sports.

Gaming households on average had substantially more money than non-gaming households: $79,000 in annual income against $54,000. Within those households, gamers tended to be the cultural influence: 37% of gamers reported informing their family and friends on pop culture and technology, whereas only 22% of... Read more

Men that excel in the virtual worlds of video games may be more prone to premature ejaculation, sexual psychotherapist Paula Hall tells the BBC.

A third of men are thought to suffer from the condition, which was recently linked to low serotonin levels after an Utrecht University study of 200 Dutch men. The lower serotonin levels were caused by a certain gene that regulates the body's supply of the hormone.

"Premature ejaculation is definitely not purely psychological," Hall explained. "These men [with non-psychological premature ejaculation] have very quick reflexes. They may be excellent at playing tennis or computer games."

The recent study has given researchers hope in their efforts to create specialized drugs that reduce the likelihood of premature ejaculation. Thanks to Kotaku for the tip.

Steve's Take:  :(

A survey of over 7,000 EverQuest II players suggests that online gamers are in better physical condition than the average American, though they are more likely to suffer from depression and substance abuse.

"They may be drawn to use the game to help deal with emotional distress," research team member Scott Caplan explained to New Scientist Tech.

However, UK researcher Mark Griffiths, who was not involved in the study, warns that the results may not be indicative of the entire gaming community, as the research only focused on one massively multiplayer PC game. Online games and single-player games "involve very different psychologies," he cautioned.

Overall, those polled were found to have an average body mass index of... Read more

Confirming what online gamers who use voice chat already know, a study at Northwestern University concluded that racial bias affects interactions in online worlds.

Paul W. Eastwick, a graduate student at the University, conducted the study by going into the virtual world There and making requests of strangers. There was no evidence of racial bias in small favors. But when asking very large favors afterwards, Eastwick found that white avatars were more likely to be obliged than black avatars.

The results resemble those of similar studies done in the real world. "This study suggests that interactions among strangers within the virtual world are very similar to interactions between strangers in the real world," Eastwick told iTnews.

Gold farming in games like World of Warcraft is now an industry worth an annual $500 million, according to a study from Manchester University reported by BBC News.

Gold farming, which allows users to use real money to purchase in-game currency in massively multiplayer games, has become a controversial issue in the genre.

Professor Richard Heeks, himself a gamer, turned his academic eye to gold farming and found that the industry currently employs an estimated 400,000 people --80% of which are in China-- making an average of $145 per month.

"I initially became aware of gold farming through my own games-playing but assumed it was just a cottage industry," said Heeks. "In a way that is still true. It's just that instead of a few dozen cottages, there turn out to be tens of thousands." ... Read more