Oxford University’s Internet Institute has published the results of their research study about PowerWash Simulator.

The study was commissioned back in 2022 as a collaboration between the university and PowerWash Simulator developer FuturLab. It collected data from over 8500 players primarily via the PC version on Steam.

The research found that across over 162,325 “in-game mood reports”, players consistently reported an “uplift in mood” while playing the game compared to before they started playing. The bulk of this increase occurred within the first 15 minutes of playtime. The study asserts that this improvement is “comparable with changes seen in other leisure activities such as reading, shopping, or listening to music”.

While it might seem obvious to some, this research is reportedly among the few research studies on the effects of gaming on mood that uses an actual videogame as opposed to a more “artificial” one created by researchers for their experiments. The researchers hope that this could pave the way for similar collaborations between researchers and game creators to better understand the relationships between digital entertainment and human psychology.

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