Study Says "Dying In Videogames Brings Relief"

In a recent paper published in Emotion magazine, 32 Norwegian college students were asked to participate in a study to measure the emotional reaction of playing violent video games.

The study found that in the game James Bond 007: Nightfire, players tended to experience negative emotions (fear, anger, anxiety, etc.) when wounding or killing an opponent. However, dying in the game seemed to elicit positive emotions of relief.

The paper differed from previous studies performed on videogame players as it didn't try to draw definitive conclusions on their findings. The address the notion that there could be several reasons for these reactions, but the observations are interesting nonetheless.

What do you guys think? Do you get a bigger high out of killing or being killed in your FPS of choice?

ars technica: Study: FPS deaths provide sweet relief to victims