Psychology of Videogames
Development - Characters - Gameplay
From the sacred rituals of online communities to the moral dilemmas of post-apocalyptic worlds, this section explores how games mirror — and shape — human psychology. Discover how cognition, emotion, identity, and storytelling collide in digital spaces, revealing what play can teach us about ourselves, our culture, and the worlds we build together.
What Moral Psychology Can Learn from a Bone-Saw
An essay examining the intersection of ludonarrative resonance and moral philosophy through LISA: The Painful’s infamous "arm scene," contrasting interactive self-cost with hypothetical ethics.
Silent Hill 2: Was James the Bad Guy?
A darker reading of Silent Hill 2: James Sunderland, selfish trauma, player complicity, and the horror of mistaking guilt for victimhood.
Hell Is Me? War Tourism, Trauma Tourism and the Problem With Playing Through Someone Else’s Horror
A psychologically informed critique of Hell is Us, exploring war tourism, trauma tourism, learned helplessness, political horror and the uneasy role the player occupies inside a game about genocide, civil war and inherited violence.
Games Should Know When the Player Has Fallen Asleep
An AI sleep-pause feature could help gamers with narcolepsy, fatigue and sudden sleep attacks by pausing single-player games when the player appears to fall asleep. Here is why it should exist, and how a careful home hack might work.
The Luxury of Boredom and the Privilege of Mixtape
A critical Gaming Psych essay on Mixtape, nostalgia, class, boredom, suburban safety and the privilege hidden inside its beautiful vision of teenage freedom.
Mixtape and the Friendship Autopsy: Why the Game Hurts More Than Nostalgia Should
A Gaming Psych essay on Mixtape, friendship, blind hope, teenage identity and the quiet denial that lets us avoid naming the end of a social world.
Self-Determination Theory Applied to Open-World Games
Self-determination theory helps explain why open-world games work when they support autonomy, competence and relatedness, rather than simply making the map bigger.
The Most Psychologically Interesting Games From the Xbox Games Showcase 2026
The Xbox Games Showcase 2026 was full of sequels, remakes, cults, collapse and beautifully expensive suffering. Here are the most psychologically interesting games from the show, from Senua and Fable to Clockwork Revolution, JOIN US and State of Decay 3.
Scarlet Hollow and the Horror of Having Your Agency Taken Seriously
Scarlet Hollow is frightening because it treats player choice as social evidence. A spoiler-light psychology essay on agency, consequence, and what happens when a game actually remembers who you chose to be.
Prove You’re Human and the Horror of Having to Prove You Count
A Gaming Psych analysis of Prove You’re Human, the upcoming game from the creators of 1000xRESIST. Explore CAPTCHA, AI, digital selves, classification systems, and the psychology of being made conditional.
Why Too Much Choice Makes Games Feel Like Work
Choice is central to game design, but too many options can overwhelm players and weaken agency. Here’s how choice overload affects games, decision-making, skill trees, open worlds and player motivation.
Why Good Game Tutorials Feel Invisible: The Psychology of Teaching Players Through Play
Good game tutorial design uses psychology to teach players through action, feedback, memory, and failure. Here’s why the best tutorials feel invisible, and why bad ones feel like homework with button prompts.
The Psychology of GIFT: Why Online Games Bring Out the Worst in Normal People
Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory, or GIFT, began as an internet joke about anonymity and awful online behaviour. Here is the psychology behind why online games can turn ordinary players into lobby goblins, and why anonymity is only part of the story.
When Freedom Starts Feeling Like Paperwork: Decision Fatigue and the Ubisoft Problem
Why Ubisoft games like Far Cry 6, Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, and Star Wars Outlaws can turn freedom into cognitive labour through choice overload, repeated low-value decisions, and open-world fatigue
Promise Mascot Agency and the Psychology of Rebuilding
Promise Mascot Agency turns resilience, coping, and rebuilding into gameplay. Here’s why its strange mascot-management loop works as a quietly powerful psychological experience.
How Life is Strange Reunion Failed Safi
How Life is Strange: Reunion failed Safi by sidelining the Abraxas House mystery, diluting its emotional core, and choosing spectacle over intimacy.
Dispatch and the Moralisation of Ability
Dispatch raises a bigger question than whether its ending works. What happens when narrative games turn ability, performance, and accessibility into a moral test?
Halo and the Halo Effect: Why We Keep Forgiving Cortana
Why do players keep forgiving Cortana, even at her worst? This article explores Halo, the halo effect, and how intelligence, intimacy, beauty, and vulnerability distort moral judgement in games.
The Science of Gaming: Psychological Impact, Benefits, and Myths
Explore the psychological impact of video games, from cognition and flow to social connection, mental health, aggression, and gaming disorder.
Dispatch and the Problem of Conditional Redemption
Why does Dispatch feel almost perfect until the ending? A critical essay on restorative justice, hidden metrics, and moral dissonance in games.