Lifestyle What’s the Most Popular Video Game to Play While High? Leafly Staff October 1, 2015

There’s something about settling down with your favorite video game and a bowl of your go-to strain ready at your side. Cannabis can be a magnificent companion to the virtual world, so we dug into Leafly’s strain reviews to find out which games were most cherished and how different varieties affected your abilities and experiences.

What Cannabis Strains Do You Pair with Video Games?

We mapped the relationship between different video games and their strain reviews (click on the below image to enlarge it) to see which strains were connected to popular video games.

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Each connection represents Leafly visitors’ strain reviews mentioning specific video game titles. Both the Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto franchises are the obvious favorites, with Sour Diesel and Durban Poison acting as the bridges between them.

Speaking of Sour Diesel, this consumer favorite is unsurprisingly also a go-to for gaming, as it’s connected to six titles. But were these strain selections actually a good pairing with these games, or did they lead to consumer regret? Let’s take a look at what some of you reviewers said about them.

Cannabis Strains That Helped Gamers Focus

There’s nothing quite like plopping down with your favorite video game and feeling completely immersed in it, thanks to the help of a good focusing strain. Here are a couple strains our reviewers called out as performance enhancers:

Fruity Pebbles

Diablo

Looking for cannabis strains to help you stay on your game? Check out this list of all focusing strains on Leafly.

Cannabis Strains That Were Paired with Creative Gaming

Another way cannabis and video games pair beautifully is through creativity. Many games have a creative component that cannabis can cater to, whether you’re exploring the wastelands of Fallout, building mods for Skyrim, or constructing a glorious palace for yourself in Minecraft.

Green Crack

What other strains can help pique your creativity in the virtual realms? Refer to Leafly’s full list of creative strains to find out.

Cannabis Strains That Were Too Distracting for Gamers

For every strain that boosts creativity and focus, you know there’s another one to throw off your groove completely. It may be that heavy indica that defeats your sense of purpose in the game, or that buzzing sativa that keeps your focus jumping from one irrelevant detail to the next. Let’s take a look at some of the struggles our Leafly reviewers endured:

GSC (f.k.a Girl Scout Cookies)

Purple Urkle

Cannabis Strains That Blew Gamers’ Minds

Leave it to cannabis to ensure you have a great time even when you’re beyond your ability to operate a controller. These reviewers prove that sometimes it isn’t always about winning, it’s about having fun.

Cherry Pie

Lemon Kush

What are the Most Popular Video Games According to Leafly Visitors?

The below graph shows which games were most commonly talked about in Leafly cannabis strain reviews. The larger the bubble, the more popular the game. Call of Duty is king, with Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto, and Skyrim close behind. These games are popular in their own right, but based on our user reviews, cannabis sure brings something special to the experience, too.



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Which Cannabis Strains are Most Popularly Paired with Video Games?

It should come as no surprise that Blue Dream, Sour Diesel, Green Crack, and AK-47 are among the most popular video game partner strains – they’re some of the more prolific varieties available. But it also makes sense that these classics pair so well with video games when you look at their effect profiles.

Blue Dream and AK-47 offer a balance of relaxation and creativity, while other sativas like Sour Diesel and Green Crack provide cerebral energy and focus. Even heavy indicas like Bubba Kush and Northern Lights have something to offer gamers chasing a blissful couchlock feeling that lets you ease yourself into a fully immersive experience.

The below chart indicates the most popular cannabis strains for playing video games. The larger the bubble, the more frequently that strain is consumed when gaming. And, of course, each bubble’s color is designated by which strain type it is, with red representing sativa strains, purple representing indica strains, and green representing hybrid strains.



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Which Video Game Genres are Most Popular Among Cannabis Consumers?

If you’re curious as to which genres are preferred among cannabis, consumers, we broke the data out into a pie chart. Shooter games were the clear favorite, followed by action/adventure and role-playing games.



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This breakdown differs from 2014 statistics via the Entertainment Software Association, which had action games as the most popular genre at 28.2% and shooter titles in second place at 21.7%. Their stats looked more like this:

Action and adventure: 34.2% (we combined action, which had 28.2%, with adventure, which was broken out as a separate genre at 6%)

Shooter: 21.7%

Sports: 13.3%

Role-playing: 9.5%

Fighting: 6%

Which Game Ratings are the Most Popular Among Cannabis Consumers?

Unsurprisingly, with shooter games being the most popular among Leafly’s cannabis consumers, games rated “M” for “Mature” (meaning the content is suitable for players ages 17 and up) were similarly the most popular rating at 54%.

However, titles rated “E” for “Everyone” (meaning all ages) came in second, which may seem remarkable at first until you consider that many gamers who settle in with with a packed strain in one hand and a controller in the other could be looking to relax and have fun playing a game that doesn’t require excessive concentration, skill, or experience. It’s no fun getting your ass kicked while poorly playing an impaired game of Call of Duty, but button mashing through a round of Super Smash Bros. or warbling through “Blitzkrieg Bop” when playing Rock Band with friends can be entertaining even if you’re sucking it up. (Note that Leafly.com requires its visitors to be at least 21 years of age or a legal, valid medical marijuana patient.)



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Which Game Platforms are the Most Popular Among Cannabis Consumers?

Lastly, we analyzed the most popular gaming platforms according to our cannabis consumers.

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Xbox is the most popular gaming platform, with Playstation firmly in second place, PC games in third, and Nintendo bringing up the rear. However, when it came to the console wars, our reviewers don’t specify which generation console they’re using. In actuality, the Nintendo Wii actually sold more units than either the Xbox 360 or the Playstation 3, and lifetime sales of each platform’s newest generation console (the Xbox One, Playstation 4, and Wii U) through February 2015 were as follows:

Playstation 4: 19,052,353

Xbox One: 11,298,462

Wii U: 9,137,844

Time for you to weigh in! Which video games do enjoy most while high, and what cannabis strains make them even better?

Leafly Staff Leafly is the world’s largest cannabis information resource, empowering people in legal cannabis markets to learn about the right products for their lifestyle and wellness needs. Our team of cannabis professionals collectively share years of experience in all corners of the market, from growing and retail, to science and medicine, to data and technology. View Leafly Staff's articles