Most Stressful Mobile Games: Be Careful of How You Spend Your Time
One can hardly imagine their life with no cell phone in their hands nowadays. Just like that, mobile games got to be within the same hands’ reach, and their place in our life can hardly be underestimated. But besides pleasure and relaxation, how much stress do mobile games bring into our lives?
Gamblizard decided to conduct a study and measure which of the most popular mobile games are causing the most stress.
We’ve collaborated with a group of 25 passionate mobile gamers to check how playing the most popular mobile titles change their heart rate (BPM).
The results appeared to be quite surprising:
Average BPM Increase
In terms of the average stress level, our so-called winners appear to be very close. The first place and most stressful mobile game according to our research was PUBG Mobile, which increased the BPM level of our gamers by 25.2% on average during the 45-minute game session. Hearthstone was not far behind with 23.3%. A very unexpected result for us, but, as it turned out, the competitive spirit greatly stimulated our gamers and their experiences.
Relaxing Mobile Games
Some of the studied titles appeared to be reducing our gamers’ BPM level making them calmer. Even though the numbers are not great, these mobile games can be considered as the ones to help one take their mind off things.
- Candy Crush Saga – average BPM level decreased by 4.7%
- Minecraft – average BPM level decreased by 2.3%
- Pokemon GO – average BPM level decreased by 0.2%
Last Man Standing
The battle royale games showed unusual results. Such games involve a large number of participants in a round (usually about 100), only one of whom can ultimately remain the winner. Even though not all of these games were among the leaders in terms of average BPM increase, our gamers’ excitement level raised significantly as they progressed further in the game. The closer the gamers were to becoming the last man standing, the more their BPM level increased on average.
Till the end of the game session and with less than 10 players standing, our gamers’ BPM rate increased as much as 33.4% for PUBG or 27.8% for Fortnite, which is equivalent to a relaxed jog.
Most Stressful Titles by the Amount of Stress Peaks
The first part of our study measured the average change in heart rate. Here, we decided to measure how many high-stress moments our gamers experienced on average during our game session of 45 minutes on average. A high-stress moment for our study was defined as any short-term jump in BPM by more than 50% of the original measurement.
Among Us became the most stressful game in terms of peaks, ahead of second place Hearthstone and Subway Surfers by as much as 0.6 stress peaks in a 45 minute session. Despite the fact that, in general, Among did not greatly burden the hearts of our gamers, the search for an imposter or strenuous attempts to hide their involvement all caused them some great excitement.
Most Stressful Titles by the Severity of the Stress Peak
To determine this metric, we took the highest short-term jump in BPM for every game among all of our gamers during their gaming sessions.
The highest peak in heart rate was caused by Arena of Valor in one of our gamers, causing a rapid jump in heart rate by as much as 102.3%. Despite the fact that Arena of Valor was not the first in the overall statistics, some battles caused very strong bursts of emotion among players, especially caused by unexpected defeats.
Methodology
We worked closely with 25 gamers who spend at least 20 hours per week playing mobile games and are familiar with studied titles. Each one of them wore a heart rate monitor during a 45 minute session for every title studied.
We compared the average heart rate during gaming with the initial measurement to bring the results. Then, we averaged the individual results among the whole group to get the final numbers.
The full list of studied mobile games include:
- PUBG Mobile
- Pokemon GO
- Call of Duty: Mobile
- Among Us
- Candy Crush Saga
- Garena Free Fire
- Clash Of Clans
- Angry Birds
- Super Mario Run
- Genshin Impact
- Fortnite
- Arena of Valor
- Minecraft
- Hearthstone
- Subway Surfers
Full Data Set
Check out the full data set to find the info about the title that interests you.
General Data
| Game Title | Average BPM change | Av. Amount of peaks | Highest BPM jump |
| Candy Crush Saga | -4,7% | 0,4 | 60,8% |
| Minecraft | -2,3% | 1,8 | 65,6% |
| Pokemon GO | -0,2% | 1,7 | 58,4% |
| Clash Of Clans | 4,9% | 1,6 | 78,6% |
| Angry Birds | 9,3% | 2,8 | 91,9% |
| Super Mario Run | 11,6% | 1,1 | 47,5% |
| Call of Duty: Mobile | 16,7% | 1,1 | 59,2% |
| Garena Free Fire | 17,1% | 2,4 | 66,0% |
| Genshin Impact | 17,2% | 0,9 | 48,7% |
| Among Us | 17,4% | 3,7 | 83,0% |
| Fortnite | 19,1% | 1,5 | 92,5% |
| Arena of Valor | 22,7% | 2,3 | 102,3% |
| Subway Surfers | 22,8% | 3,1 | 53,4% |
| Hearthstone | 23,3% | 3,1 | 86,7% |
| PUBG Mobile | 25,2% | 2,2 | 53,8% |
Battle Royal Data:
| Players Remaining | PUBG Mobile | Call of Duty: Mobile | Garena Free Fire | Fortnite |
| 50-100 | 19,2% | 11,2% | 12,7% | |
| 30-50 | 21,5% | 14,4% | 9,7% | 16,0% |
| 10-30 | 26,7% | 18,5% | 16,5% | 19,9% |
| <10 | 33,4% | 22,7% | 25,1% | 27,8% |
All data collected by Gamblizard.com. All rights protected.
