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Skeptics

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    Good question. Ideally, the answers should show a collection of studies. Showing any single study is completely useless on this topic since it doesn’t (can’t!) show a consensus. Commented Mar 11, 2011 at 10:27
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    Just a personal observation, as a parent and grandparent. I have far less tolerance for violence in media than I did when I was younger. I think that's because I know it can really happen. If gamers can enjoy killing and being killed in a game that tells me two things. 1) It's good, because it means the gamer feels secure in knowing it can't really happen. 2) It's bad, because they are liable to think war is fun (as I did when I was a kid), and go into it for real, finding out too late that it's anything but. Commented Jun 23, 2011 at 18:31
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    Generally there are studies proving correlation between violence and liking violent games. However, this doesn't prove causality. And for more scientific proof, nowadays it's rather hard to find a control group of non-players. Also definition of what is "violent" video game vary a lot. Commented Dec 6, 2011 at 9:35
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    I always point out that violence has been part and parcel of human nature and culture for as long as we've been around, and long before there was anything like a video game. Essentially all of our major wars, persecutions, pogroms, genocides, and so forth have occurred prior to any "media" whatever. Stephen Pinker's new book maintains we are becoming less violen Commented Dec 8, 2011 at 20:04
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    and it's also always been part of human nature to blame bad behaviour of people (and especially kids) on anything new. Be it comic books, radio, television, soda pops, or now videogames. Commented Dec 9, 2011 at 12:43