After roughly every single outlet in the UK blaming the London Riots on videogames, I was led to believe that perhaps we would experience a few months before some more insanity was thrown about by the mainstream media. Perhaps not. The Metro, a UK newspaper owned by the same media group as The Daily Mail, recently reported on a university study into Games Transfer Phenomena (GTP). Instead of reporting on anything definitive from the study, The Metro decided to lead with this: "Hardcore gamers become so immersed in virtual worlds that they turn to imaginary consoles to 'zoom in' to people in crowds or to pick things up from the floor, according to a study."
The study itself is rather shaky in its conclusions, testing 42 people ranging from ages 15 to 21 to see if gamers think about games after they play them and then transfer those thoughts to the real world. For instance, after playing Assassin's Creed, you begin to look at tall buildings in a different way, as something to be traversed rather than ignored. Was a study between three different universities in the UK and US really necessary for something like this? Only for it to be picked up and abused in such an incorrect way by The Metro?
While it can be argued that this is simply another easily forgotten piece of poor journalism, a large section of The Metro's million-strong readership will read this and believe it, yet again. Fortunately, the co-author of the study, Professor Mark Griffith, has hit back against The Metro in an interview with MCV UK, stating: "For one thing, we never said that [headline] in our paper and for a second thing, the findings don't even hint at that. The Metro, they obviously had an agenda -- because all [the reporter] said was that he just wanted to know about the negative stuff. I told him that the paper was primarily positive, or at least neutral. He said 'I don't want to know about that, I want to know the negative stuff.' "
'Gamers are trapped in virtual worlds' and The Metro loses the plot [CVG]
Contest:
1:30 PM on 09.21.2011 | 
I'd rather be associated with gamers, hardcore or otherwise.
/obligatory joke.
Oooooooooooooh so he confessed it!! Newspapers buying people are idiots (no I don't wanna know about the few people that aren't).
However, Destructoid is clearly a creation of my warped mind, from when I saw a website in a video game once. In reality my screen is blank and I'm just tapping random keys on the keyboard.
"After playing Assassin's Creed, you begin to look at tall buildings in a different way, as something to be traversed rather than ignored."
Point being? After playing GTA4 for some time, I saw a sports car once and a "steal it" thought got in my mind for a nanosecond. That doesn't fucking mean, that I can't tell real world from fantasy -_-
It's just a feeling you get, a habit, that you used in the game for your advantage. It's just a small feeling, only a lunatic would do that for real.
In all seriousness, yes, our newspapers are corrupt, but until there is a country-wide boycott then nothing can be done about it.
As far as the study goes, he's kind of right. When I used to play WoW, if we had three days of raiding in a row I'd sometimes find myself imagining that other cars had identifying bubbles while I was driving, like "Ford Ranger" or such. Didn't mean anything, and it's certainly not only confined to video-games. I used to play Chess everyday in study hall, and after awhile I used to think of walking over tile in terms of a Knight's movement. You never hear anyone complain that Chess players are lost in a fantasy world.
There The Metro, fixed that for you.
Why is this even getting space? why am I even reading this? why am I even commenting? The media wastes my time once again.
No escape from reality
Open your eyes, Look up to the skies and see
Also, @aliened
HAHAHA