Science Shorts: Video games in research (May 2025)
Ludometrics a.k.a. measuring fun and games for health
Science Shorts is a monthly roundup of the most interesting research involving video games. I try to source only open access articles so that you have the option to read the articles as well. It's part of a comprehensive look at happenings in video game research along with my LFG: Learning from Games and Coming Soon series!
Hello JOMT Reader!
I’m doing the (maybe) romantic writing thing and staring out the window of a train, thinking about the next demo I want to try on this ride home. Last night I chilled out to the Cast n Chill demo, fishing on a tranquil lake. It was great to unwind after a long day of work and travel.
For those of you that are new here, this is the series where I highlight some of my favourite game writers on Substack. It’s the least I can do to give back to the community of awesome, insightful game writers who support each other!
Today, I’m highlighting
who writes . You’ll find bite-sized action plans for how to develop a game! Everything from the most recent article on overthinking (and focus) to layers of game design and my personal favourite: managing ideas. They are all things that’ll make you go “oh yeah…” and it has been really helpful to apply them not only to my own gamedev efforts (it’s slowly starting) but to other aspects of work and life as well. If you haven’t subscribed, make sure you check out the newsletter!
TL;DR
We use our voice a lot whether it is to convey an idea, shout an order, or just reassure ourselves that things are going to be ok. Did you know that those vocalizations carry information beyond what is being said? Researchers have used that information to look for signs of heart attacks from just your voice. While the researchers didn’t look at video games specifically, the research can be readily applied to gamers!
Read the article here: Vocal biomarkers in heart failure - Design, rationale and baseline characteristics of the AHF-Voice studyVoice isn’t the only thing that reveals the state of our health. It turns out that body movements while playing a VR horror game can indicate how stressed you are. Applied outside horror games, we might even be able to predict stress before you feel it, so that you can proactively take steps to not be stressed.
Read the article here: Stress Assessment in Virtual Reality Horror Games Using Players' Behavioural and Physiological DataIn addition to voice and body movements, text and in-game behaviours can also be used to determine whether a person might have social anxiety disorder. Researchers in Japan looked at communication logs and game behaviour data of Pigg Party (a popular multiplayer online game in Japan) players. They found that those data could fairly accurately predict individuals with social anxiety disorder. Maybe there’s a way to predict a whole bunch of other conditions just by analyzing the games we play!
Read the article here: Predicting social anxiety disorder based on communication logs and social network data from a massively multiplayer online game: Using a graph neural network
Voices carry a lot more information than you think
Link to article: https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/digital-health/articles/10.3389/fdgth.2025.1548600/abstract
Title: Vocal biomarkers in heart failure - Design, rationale and baseline characteristics of the AHF-Voice study
📃The short
Talking can tell you if you will have a heart attack.
📖The long
Advances in technologies like artificial intelligence have allowed us to look for patterns in complex data, like that hidden in our voice. Characteristics of our voice like pitch (high/low), tone (emotions), volume (loud/soft), and timbre (texture and colour of voice) that are hard to interpret for humans can be analyzed using AI. This ongoing study is looking at using changes in voice characteristics to predict heart attacks.
⚠️Why it matters
The study doesn’t involve games directly, but I see a lot of applications to the gaming industry. Some of us say a lot during gaming sessions, whether it’s to ourselves or each other. What if all that chatter could warn us if we’re at risk of a heart attack? Or other conditions like type 2 diabetes? Is there a future where just playing video games can help us keep an eye on our health?
Bodies speak a language of their own
Link to article: https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/10972326
Title: Stress Assessment in Virtual Reality Horror Games Using Players' Behavioural and Physiological Data
📃The short
Body motion data collected from a VR headset can be used to predict stress.
📖The long
We don’t have to say anything to say a lot — that is, body language is a big part of how we communicate with each other. It shouldn’t be too much of a surprise that those body movements can also tell us a lot about what we are feeling. Researchers in Italy were able to predict feelings of stress just by looking at how participants moved while playing a VR horror game.
⚠️Why it matters
Traditionally, stress was measured through breathing rate, heart rate, and how sweaty your skin got. But those all required people to be hooked up to machines. This research suggests you only need to look at a person (or analyze their movements from a video) to tell if they are stressed. Interestingly, the researchers were looking at stress levels to keep players in a flow state, balanced between challenge and frustration, while playing horror games. But I think data like this is much more useful in health care!
Can (Substack) writing be used for health?
Link to article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/pcn.13804
Title: Predicting social anxiety disorder based on communication logs and social network data from a massively multiplayer online game: Using a graph neural network
📃The short
Text and behaviours in a massively multiplayer online game can be used to predict social anxiety disorder.
📖The long
Patients with mental disorders that make it hard for them to interact with others, like social anxiety disorder, are often delayed in the diagnosis of their condition. Fortunately, advances in technology allow doctors to use other sources of information for diagnosis. In this case, in-game communication logs and game behaviours in the massively multiplayer online game Piggy Party were analyzed and linked to evidence of social anxiety disorder.
⚠️Why it matters
A way to detect social anxiety disorder without asking them to do the one thing they are most uncomfortable with (seeing a doctor) is a pretty big step forward to getting them the help they need. Although the findings of this study are limited to social anxiety disorder, similar studies for all sorts of conditions could help us develop a dictionary for health conditions all based on what you write (and say and do).
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Damn, I need to print that, frame that and see it every minute I doubt myself. Or even better, put it on a wallpaper!
Thank you for the triple mention! (Is that a mention-frenzy?). I never suspected my writing would bring that much value. I tend to see it as trying to focus on gamedev by writing around it, but I still feel like I'm procrastinating.