The Link Between Battle Royale Games and Aggressive Feelings, Addiction, and Sense of Underachievement: Exploring eSports-Related Genres

The extremely violent and competitive new game genre battle royale is becoming increasingly popular, as exemplified by Fortnite and PUBG. However, previous research has infrequently extended to the exploration of its detrimental psychosocial effects. Our study conducted an online questionnaire survey recruiting Japanese students (n = 874) who currently play online games on a frequent basis. The findings of path analysis demonstrated that, among the game usage time by genre associated with esports, battle royale (β = 0.09) was the only variable associated with aggressive feelings. Battle royale (β = 0.08) and action (β = 0.08) showed statistically significant correlations with gaming addiction, and battle royale (β = 0.10) and action (β = 0.11) significantly correlated with a sense of underachievement. From the results of this study, it is suggested that the battle royale genre requires more attention than other esports genres, particularly in terms of aggressive feelings.