TTWO/GTA4 - Video games don't create killers - Harvard study

A number of people have expressed concern with my own promotion of GTA4 (Grand Theft Auto 4) and investment in TTWO. Every time I have heard this it has been from someone outside the game industry and has never actually played the game. At a basic level it is just like the movie "The Godfather", except you are playing one of the characters, not just watching them. The Godfather in shows up on the Time magazine top 100 movies of all time and makes their top 5 list since it shares the image banner with Psycho, E.T, Laurence of Arabia, and It's a wonderful life.

This article that addresses the topic.

Video games don't create killers, new book/harvard study says

The book is called Grand Theft Childhood.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes from the article:

Many video game fans have embraced the pair as champions of the industry, a label that makes them uncomfortable.

"We're not comfortable doing pro and con. We've been asked to do the pro-game side in debates, and I don't consider myself a pro-game person. Video games are a medium," Olson said.

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The researchers also try to place video games in a larger context of popular culture. The anxiety many parents voice over video games largely mirrors the concerns raised when movies, comic books and television became popular.

"One thing I like about their approach is that they've tried to historicize the whole concept of a media controversy and that we've seen this before," said Ian Bogost, a professor at Georgia Tech known for his studies on video games.

The book urges a common-sense approach that takes stock of the entire range of a child's behavior. Frequent fighting, bad grades, and obsessive gaming can be signs for trouble.