If you play first-person shooters, does that make you more likely to open fire in real life? If you steal a car in GTA, does that mean you'll also commit theft offline? What is the link between violent and criminal actions in videos to how we act in real life? Is there any link at all???

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Mortal Kombat was a video game phenomenon in the early 90s, claiming all of my quarters and many others when it was first released in arcades back in 1992.

The game featured realistic digitized graphics, something innovative for its time, and doubled down on gore!

It sparked major controversy for its ultra-violent, blood-and-guts style of gameplay. Which became even more of a hot topic in 1993, when the game was released on home consoles.

Parents were outraged by its graphic scenes of violence, which included decapitations, severed heads and lots and lots of blood. This led to Nintendo removing much of the gore, swapping the blood for sweat in its SNES release. Which promoted Sega-haters like myself to jump ship once it was revealed that the Genesis version had the famed “blood code”.

Pushing the envelope of violence, Mortal Kombat was a contributing factor in the creation of the ESRB rating system that now accompanies most video games.

Much of the controversy of Mortal Kombat was in the presumed notion that violent video games are bad for children. Many countries banned the game altogether. And, many angry parents tried their best to do so as well in the United States.

Violent video games have been repeatedly blamed for inspiring real life events, including the 1999 Columbine shooting. And, if it wasn’t video games being blamed, it was Marylin Manson.

This raises the question… DO violent video games make people more violent? Do they desensitize you to violence or cause behaviour problems in kids?

I grew up with Mortal Kombat. And, I certainly am NOT a violent person.

So, let’s find out...

Firstly, this is a highly arguable topic, which isn’t so black and white.
Video games, as we know them, have only been around since the late 70s, early 80s. Meaning there is nowhere near the amount of evidence for or against their violent effects than say something like TV and movies.

But, we can look at some research that can point us in the right direction…

One study, released in 2011 out of Nova Southeastern University and Pacific University cites that playing violent video games produces higher levels of aggressive cognition, physiological arousal and aggressive behaviour compared to that of non-violent video games.

However, that is only short-term. And, admittedly, limitations of the investigation show that the effects of violent vs. non-violent video games on aggression have failed to equate these games in terms of competitiveness, difficulty and pace of action.

And in previous studies, the measure of aggression is similar to the measure of competitiveness. Meaning, they might be one and the same. At least in this particular case.

Now, the American Psychological Association has a very strong stance on this topic, claiming that high levels of violent video game exposure are linked to delinquency, fighting at school and violent criminal behaviour.

But, on the flip side, in 2019, professor and research director at Virginia Tech, James Ivory said that “when it comes to actual serious criminal violence, there’s virtually no evidence that video games matter.” This was after President Trump called for an end to the “glorification” of violence in “gruesome and grisly” video game culture.

Ivy continued to say that “it’s OK morally to have a problem with celebrating violence… but it definitely doesn’t make you a mass shooter. There are other things that affect that.”

The common conclusion among countless studies, while not definitive, is that violent video games do temporarily raise competitiveness and aggression in people, temporarily, but is typically NOT a predictor of violent crime as much as things like poverty, substance abuse and child abuse.

Now, I feel a bit better about uppercutting my opponent into the pit of death.