Study: Violent videogame ads the most memorable

Another day, another study about violence in videogames. The latest research comes courtesy of the University of Luxemburg, where it has been decided by Professor Obvious that violent videogame commercials are more memorable than non-violent ones. Y’think?

MIT’s Technology Review reports on the findings:

[Researchers] developed a simple racing game called AdRacer … A player drives around a virtual course and scores points by hitting targets along the way — as she drives, unobtrusive graphical ads are displayed as billboard graphics … while a camera records her eye movements. After playing, each player’s ability to recall of brands shown on the side of the road was tested.

Those who played a violent version of the game, where the goal was to run down pedestrians, resulting in a blood-splattered screen, demonstrated significantly better recall of advertised brands than those who played the regular version …

I really don’t know if we needed a study to reach this conclusion. Violence is memorable, especially to a species as brutal and macabre as us. You’re going to remember someone who punched you in the face long after you’ve forgotten someone who gave you five bucks. There’s a reason why so many violent games exist, and it’s not because the game industry is sick and twisted.

It’s because we’re all sick and twisted, deep down.