The player

A joint US/European study suggests that addiction to violent games may actually reduce crime rates – well, sort of, writes CIARA O'BRIEN

A NEW STUDY logically concludes that developing an addiction to violent games is time-consuming. It found that miscreants who spend most of their time gunning down zombies and carjacking helpless civilians on a console have less time to cause mischief and commit crimes in the real world.

The study, conducted by the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in Mannheim, Baylor University and the University of Texas at Arlington, looked at the effect of violent and non- violent videogames on crimes in the US. The games draw “potentially violent criminals to the screen”, moving them away from illegal activities where violence is more likely to occur.

“Videogames reduce crime rates because they keep potential criminal offenders enthralled to their computer or gaming console,” the researchers concluded.

Of course, there is a paradox: constant players of violent videogames may find themselves becoming more aggressive as they are gradually desensitised to violence. The study also says the gradual increase in a willingness to use violence, which it says is produced by violent games, “should not be underestimated”.

Still, according to at least some of the researchers, the time restriction factor is more powerful than the increased aggression.

“The effects of playing videogames include both the promotion of aggressive behaviour and a time-use effect restricting the time for practising aggressive behaviour,” said Benjamin Engelstätter, a researcher at ZEW. “Our findings for the United States show that the time-use effect on players is stronger than the aggression-promoting effect.

“Therefore, possible regulations of violent content in games should be carefully designed. They could lead to a reduction in long-term aggressive tendencies. However, in the short term, they would probably lead to a rise in crime rates as a number of gamers would spend less time playing videogames that might have lost their appeal due to the regulations.”

So in a way, videogames are both the problem and the solution. Confused?