ABSTRACT
A number of years ago, I embarked on a review of the video game literature. What I found was a body of literature that was large, diffuse, and contradictory. There was work on the effects of violent video games, the causes of video game addiction, the use of video games in clinical settings (e.g., to treat autism), the effects of games on health and on cognitive development, and research on usage by groups such as girls and the elderly. The research stream was wide, but shallow with few studies in anyone area. With growing media attention on ever more sophisticated violent games such as Doom and Mortal Kombat, I decided to focus my attention on the effect of violent video games on aggression. Certainly the gory and interactive nature of these games would stimulate greater aggression in users than the relatively passive experience of television and film viewing. I expected to find fairly clear, compelling, and powerful effects.
