It's just video games....

Violence in video games

Video games affect it may have on those who play it have been studied and debated for many years. One claim that continues to come up is violence in video games and how it makes people who play them violent.  A recent study completed by David Ewoldsen and John Velez suggest that violent video games might not make players more aggressive if they play cooperatively with other people. The Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking study involved 119 college students who were split up into four groups to play the game Halo II with a partner. 

Each of the participants filled out a survey about their video game history and a measure of their aggressiveness. The people that played in multiplayer mode had the objective with killing their opponent more times then they got killed and the people that played-single player mode had the objective to beat their opponents by getting further in the game. After playing Halo II both groups participated in a real-life game where they could compete or cooperate with each other. They received dimes and had the option to keep or share them. This went on for a few rounds.

The research showed that participants who played Halo II cooperatively were willing to be cooperative in the real-life game. According to Velez “these findings suggest video game research needs to consider not only the content of the game but also how video game players are playing the game.”