A Roblox game tried to improve body image...and failed

Why no results can still teach us something

LFG: Learning from Games is a series dedicated to making the complex world of video game research just a little easier to understand. I post one about 2-3 times a month in between my Science Shorts and Coming Soon series. LFG #34 is about how well-designed experiments can still be useful even if it gives you unexpected results.

Hello JOMT Reader!

Science can sometimes give us unexpected answers. In new fields of study like the intersection of video games and mental health, experiments often give us conflicting or unclear results. But a well-planned study can still tell us something, even if it delivers unexpected results.

This week’s post is about one such well-executed experiment that surprised researchers. They avoided many pitfalls of other studies by including a large number of participants, proper controls, and a clear research question: can a Roblox game improve young players’ body image?

TL;DR, the answer to that question is no. But because it was well-executed, the researchers got answers to other questions that they wouldn’t have otherwise. And it all points to how personal gaming can be. So, let’s dive in!

🔬Key elements of a good experiment

1. ❓An observation and question
   Any good experiment starts with asking a question about something that we notice. Why is the sky blue? Why does an apple fall from the tree? Can a video game be used to improve body image among its players? That last question is the focus of this week’s post. Researchers at the University of West England recruited a well-known developer on Roblox and co-designed a game to teach young players about having a positive body image. The game in question is called Super U Story and you can check out the community here.

2. 🧪A well-designed experiment
   Blind spots and biases create a lot of problems for researchers when trying to get answers to questions. Most of the time, they are caused by experiments that weren’t designed to rule out other “what if” scenarios. These unanswered “what ifs” weaken the conclusions that researchers get to. For this study, the researchers compared the effect of Super U Story, a similar but unrelated Roblox game, and not playing a game at all. By designing the experiments this way, the researchers were able to answer an oft-unanswered question: does playing games, period, have the same effect?

3. 🧑‍🤝‍🧑Lots of people
   Getting people to participate in research is hard. Most studies top out at about 75-100 people but many more include less than 50 people. It’s hard to draw conclusions about the 3 billion of us that play video games from 50 people. The researchers of this study were able to include 1059 participants, which is considered a large population. Still, it’s a big improvement compared to other studies I’ve shared in the past.

📉No good results

The stage was set for the researchers to find out if Super U Story could improve players’ body image. They measured everything they could measure including body satisfaction, mood, and body appreciation.

No matter how the results were sliced, there was no real impact of playing Super U Story, a different Roblox game, or not playing a game at all on body satisfaction, mood or body appreciation. This is not at all what the researchers were expecting to find.

🗝️What does this mean for us?

Unexpected results sometimes tells us more than results that we expected. There are several key messages that I think are hidden in this study.

1. 🍇Game dev can be fruitful in many ways
   This study was made possible through an industry-academia partnership between Toya, the devs behind Super U Story, the researchers, and the Dove Self-Esteem Project. My biased gamer-self thinks this is an awesome way to turn something you love doing, like making games, into a scientific contribution. My biased scientist-self also thinks this is an awesome way to bring the science out of labs and into the real world through games.

2. ⚖️Balancing fun and education is hard
   I’ve wondered about the effectiveness of educational games for a while. The core issue I see is the mismatch in motivations for playing a game. If you play a game to unwind, would you appreciate the game trying to teach you something instead? Probably not¹. The developers were concerned about this effect (see footnote, the chocolate covered broccoli) that they made all of the educational bits of Super U Story optional, which the researchers suspect affected the results. Not everyone went through the story and understood it in the way it was meant to. Just look at these clips from two different players of Super U Story posted on YouTube.

   This first clip talks about the body-positive message of the game. “You should always be kind and love yourself for who you are…”

   This second clip ends “OK bye…die…” Clearly, in this instance the player just wanted to get through the game. These competing motivations can make it hard for educational messages to be received.

3. 📝Less game reviews, more game reports
   How a game affects you is personal. In the same way that we react differently to the same foods, we react differently to games depending on our motivations for playing (and a whole host of other factors). It’s more helpful for me to know your motivations for playing a game and how it made you feel than whether you recommend the game or give it a score. I realize it isn’t what the industry is expecting, but I’m secretly hoping that we’re slowly moving in that direction.

‼️Final remarks

Super U Story wasn’t able to change players’ self esteem and body image. But we still learned that industry-academia partnerships can be fruitful and found more evidence that games are a personal experience. For something as unique and personal as your self-view, it’s possible that no study will be able to show an effect of gaming that applies to everyone. Maybe it’s time we start asking “how does video gaming affect you?” instead of “how does video gaming affect everyone?”

If you want to read the article that inspired this post, you can read it here for free: https://www.jmir.org/2025/1/e66625

If you liked what you read, please consider giving this post a like and sharing it with your community!

1. Apparently, when a game does something contrary to player expectations, in this case hiding educational content in a game, it’s called a “chocolate covered broccoli.”