Preferences for cooperative, strategic, and story-driven video games are associated with a higher risk of hikikomori (extreme social withdrawal) among Japanese players, offering insights for game-based mental health interventions.
Article URL: https://plos.io/4fVeSwO
Article Title: Extreme social isolation risk is associated with story-driven, strategic and cooperative-first gameplay preferences
Author Countries: Japan
Funding: This work was supported by Google through a Google Research Scholar award (to Kongmeng Liew). No grant number was assigned. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. No authors received salary support from the funder.
PLOS Mental Health
29-Jul-2026
Competing Interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.