I played GTA IV without going postal in real life

Thursday, May 15th, 2008

If, like me, you are fed up of the seemingly continual string of easy headliner stories in the red top and serious press alike which blame video games for the increasing problems of violence, aggression and crime in society, then you will probably rather like this posting. You see one Patrick Kierkegaard of the University of Essex has suggested that there is very little evidence that this is the case. His research, published in the International Journal of Liability and Scientific Enquiry yesterday, actually found quite the opposite: that there is a real argument to be made for such games reducing real world violence.

The really interesting thing being that his research involved actually reading and analysing all the previous research that had been done on the subject of video games and links to violence, the very same studies that ‘experts’ are quick to call upon and which journalists quote from when screaming for the likes of Grand Theft Auto to be banned. Kierkegaard admits that the GTA effect, where graphical realism is really quite intense, is becoming more important and most gamers look forward to each release precisely because of the violence, the crime and yes even the sexual or drugs related plots. However, there remains a huge difference between visiting a virtual prostitute and a real life one, for a start your crotch is likely to remain much less itchy and no actual women will have been exploited in the process (sits back and awaits angry comments from the bra burning brigade and the manbag men arguing that somehow a pretend prostitute does exactly that) and there remains a huge difference between committing a virtual crime and a real one.

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