New Study Suggests Violent Video Games Do Not Lead To Violent Behavior

By Sam Bakken in News on Aug 11, 2005 10:00PM

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign say findings from their online video game study "did not support the assertion that a violent game will cause substantial increases in real-world aggression." While we've always doubted any real connection between playing violent video games and violent behavior and would like to tell Blago that we told him so, we also realize that there's just not enough research in the field for any group to make blanket statements about the impact of violent video games on their players (as mentioned by the Urbana-Champaign researchers).

The study (read it here in PDF) compared two groups. One group of 75 played the game "Asheron’s Call 2" for an average of 56 hour over a one-month period. The control group consisted of 138 participants that did not play the game. All participants were then asked about their beliefs regarding aggression and whether they'd recently had a serious argument with a friend or significant other. "Asheron's Call 2" is an online role-playing game that contains a large amount of fantasy violence. As Dimitri Williams, one of the authors of the study, admits, "This game featured fantasy violence, while others featuring outer space or even everyday urban violence may yield different outcomes."

We wonder who funded this research. We'd bet Blago wasn't too happy about the results since he tried to sell the whole video game ban saying new research linked video games and violent behavior.