Pete_LeGrant April 23, 2009 Entertainment, PC, PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Wii, Xbox 360 374 views Comments Print This Post  Email This Post

In another of our uber-mega scientific surveys, our team of super scientists interviewed 7,076,943 players of video games involving zombies.

In our effort to discover why zombie games are ever so popular, we asked why these humans enjoy killing zombies so much.

As you can see, the number one reason was that zombies highly resemble humans. “It’s like killing humans, without all the guilt,” Danny Radcliff, 22, explained. “I don’t have any remorse blasting a zombie.” Steve Haskin, 24, said, “It’s like I can take all that hate I have for people and I can direct it against zombies. After I blast a few hundred zombies, I feel right as rain. I take my girlfriend out for mini-golf afterwards.”

Psychologists are worried that zombie games might cause humans to be violent against real-life zombies. “If a real race of zombies ever pops up on Earth, humans might show a lot of aggression towards these zombies as a result of so many years of killing zombies in video games,” Dr. Suzanne Emory, professor of psychology at Yale University explained.

Some respondents (13%) reported glee at the thought of killing humanoid-like beings who are cognitively unable to turn doorknobs in order to chomp the flesh of the human prey trapped inside a bathroom with a shotgun. “Zombies are stupid,” Billy Ramsfield, 11, explained. “That’s why I blast ‘em with a magnum.”

Other respondents cited the “poo poo” smell of zombies as a cause of their desire to kill. (We made no effort to follow up on how the respondents could smell zombies in video games. However, we are interested in the broader question of why the smell of “poo poo” causes rage in some humans; an additional experiment is planned. ) “Zombies smell like crap,” Jim Thurmond, 15, said. “They don’t take showers. They probably don’t even wipe their butts after they take a crunch. Gross.”

A surprising number of players harbored grudges against zombies, claiming that “those rat bastard zombies killed my brother.” “I’m gonna kill ‘em right back, see, and you can’t stop me, see,” Anthony Willis, 28, said. “Those zombie f–ks left my brother to die like a dog in the streets, see, and I want my revenge, see. I’ll bust up their little drug cartel, see.” (We are unaware of zombies engaging in organized crime; a small team of researchers will look into the possibility.)

Another group of respondents (4%) claimed that, by killing off the current wave of zombies, there won’t be any zombies left for future zombie games. Pat Truman said, “That’s stupid. There’s no end to the zombies. Game programmers will just make more. They always do. It’ll never stop. Wave after wave of zombies. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a zombie biting on a human face forever. An endless sea of zombies. No shopping mall will be safe.” (Truman then shuffled away. muttering to himself.)

See also:

• Juggernauts’ favorite things
• Analysis of tool population in COD:WAW
• Common explanations of use of Juggernaut
• Common complaints about Halo Wars