Researchers have conducted the first quantitative study on post-game depression, concluding that role-playing games trigger the strongest feelings compared to other genres. The study, involving 373 participants, was published in the Current Psychology journal. RPG completers showed stronger depressive symptoms and emotional processing disturbances.
A team from SWPS University and the Stefan Batory Academy of Applied Sciences has published what it describes as the first-ever scientific study measuring post-game depression, or P-DGS, the sense of emptiness after completing a deeply immersive video game. The research, detailed in the Current Psychology journal, drew from two studies with 373 participants recruited via Reddit and Discord. It assessed four subscales: game-related ruminations, challenging end of experience, necessity of repeating the game, and media anhedonia. Game-related ruminations proved the most intense aspect, while media anhedonia—the reduced enjoyment of media—was the least intense. The findings indicate that RPGs produce stronger post-game depression than other games, with participants reporting stronger depressive symptoms and disturbances in emotional processing after finishing such titles. The study notes these effects align with a 2012 investigation into similar emotions after reading fiction books by authors like Arthur Conan Doyle or José Saramago. As the abstract states, the research provides a quantitative measure of this phenomenon previously known anecdotally among gamers.
