Cheating in Video Game Extends to Real Life, Says PopCap Study

A study launched by PopCap Games, one of the leading developer of video games with a social side, have released a new study which shows that those players who admit to cheating when it comes to video games are more likely to also cheat in real life.

The study is said to have taken into account more than 1,200 adult consumers of video games and it found that about 48 percent of those who admitted cheating in video games also did so in real life.

Only 14% of those who said they did not cheat in video games did it in real life, meaning that virtual cheats are more than 3 times more likely to carry on their fibbing into the real world.

Clay Routledge, who is a professor at the Department of Psychology of the North Dakota State University, stated, “How we behave in virtual space and interact with others in social games often mirrors how we act in the real world.”

He added, “With more than 100 million people playing social games regularly, we can expect to see the full range of psychological characteristics represented in the social gaming population – even cheating.”

The full study from the Information Solution Group says that there are an estimated 118 million gamers engaged with social titles and 11 percent of those in the UK tend to cheat, compared to about 7% in the United States.

Despite the fact that women are more likely to be social gamers, men are more likely to cheat, both when it comes to games and to the real world.

53 percent of those who cheat in social games also say that they have cheated in school tests while a majority of them also admitted to stealing towels and other items from hotel rooms.

47% of those who cheated also reported that they have taken items like sugar, butter or jam from a restaurant.

Recently a study focused on Steam showed that cheating tends to spread among a network of gamers, although cheaters are also likely to lose some of their friends.