Game Player Characteristics and Interactive Content: Exploring the Role of Personality and Telepresence in Video Game Violence Kenneth A. Lachlan & Erin K. Maloney The methodological techniques used in past video game content analyses overlook player differences that might play an important role in generating violent content. The current study aimed to explore these differences in terms of personality type, trait hostility, perceived realism, and telepresence tendency. One hundred and sixty participants were assigned to play one of four video games after filling out a series of personality invento- ries. Content was then evaluated using coding techniques adapted from prior video game content analyses (Smith, Lachlan, & Tamborini, 2003). The findings indicated that game content is highly variable across player characteristics and telepresence tendencies. Keywords: Aggression; Content Analysis; Video Games Popular video games in the United States are rife with graphic violence (Smith, Lachlan, & Tamborini, 2003), leading social critics to argue the existence of a relationship between violent game play and aggressive behavior (Elmer-Dewitt, 1993). Most notably, American news media has associated video game play with the perpetrators of school shootings at Columbine High School and Westside Middle School (Gegax, Adler, & Pedersen, 1998). A large body of research has established a link between video game playing and aggression (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Ballard & Lineberger, 1999; Sherry, 2001), while a handful of studies have attempted to quantify Kenneth Lachlan (PhD, Michigan State University, 2003) is an assistant professor in the Communication Department at Boston College, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, USA. Erin Maloney (MA, University of Connecti- cut, 2006) is a graduate assistant in the Communication Department at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan, USA. Correspondence: Kenneth Lachlan, Communication Department, Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill, MA 02135, USA; Tel.: (617) 552-3083; Fax: (617) 552-2286; E-mail: lachlan@bc.edu Communication Quarterly Vol. 56, No. 3, August 2008, pp. 284–302 ISSN 0146-3373 print/1746-4102 online # 2008 Eastern Communication Association DOI: 10.1080/01463370802240866