Violent video games cause real-world violence

What we know

Concern that violent video games cause aggressive or violent behavior, especially in young people, has been a recurring topic in public debate since the 1990s, often intensifying after mass shootings when perpetrators were found to have played violent games, despite violent game-playing being extremely common across the broader population without corresponding violence. Researchers have tested the relationship using multiple methods, including laboratory experiments measuring short-term aggressive responses, correlational studies of gaming habits and self-reported aggression, and large population-level analyses of gaming prevalence against real-world violent crime rates, and the overall picture that has emerged from the highest quality, most recent research is considerably weaker than the popular narrative suggests.

A prominent 2020 study by Przybylski and Weinstein at Oxford University, preregistered to avoid the analytical flexibility that had been a criticized weakness of earlier research in this area, examined the relationship between violent game play and real-world aggressive behavior in a large sample of adolescents and their caregivers, and found no evidence that violent game content was meaningfully associated with aggressive behavior, a notably strong null result given the study's methodological rigor and preregistration, which reduces the risk of researchers unconsciously shaping analysis choices toward a desired result.

The American Psychological Association's own task force reviewed the literature and issued a 2020 resolution acknowledging that some laboratory studies find a statistical link between violent game exposure and increased aggression in narrowly defined, short-term contexts, such as slightly more aggressive responses on structured lab measures immediately after gameplay, while explicitly cautioning that insufficient research exists to link violent video game use to real-world criminal violence specifically, a more careful and qualified position than the APA's earlier, more strongly worded 2015 statement, reflecting an evolving and increasingly cautious scientific consensus as methodology in the field improved.

Population-level data provide an important reality check often missing from the debate: video game sales, including violent titles, have risen dramatically in the U.S. and globally since the 1990s, while youth violent crime rates have generally declined over the same multi-decade period, according to FBI Uniform Crime Reporting data, a pattern inconsistent with a strong causal link between violent game exposure and real-world violence at the population level, even though it cannot rule out smaller individual-level effects operating alongside many other, more powerful risk factors, including family environment, mental health, substance use, and access to weapons, some of which show much stronger, well replicated associations with actual violent behavior than gaming does. Researchers studying this area broadly agree the claim, as popularly framed, that violent games are a significant driver of real-world violence, oversimplifies a research base that most consistently finds, at most, small and context-limited effects on lab-measured aggression, not on serious real-world violent behavior.

Common claims

• Playing violent video games turns people into killers.False. No credible evidence links video games to criminal violence.
• Violent games have no effect on players whatsoever.Partly false. Small associations with aggressive cognitions and feelings are documented.
• Mass shooters played violent video games, so games caused the shooting.False. The APA explicitly states this reasoning is not scientifically valid.

Evidence hierarchy

All sources

• Violent Video Game Engagement Is Not Associated with Adolescents' Aggressive BehaviorPrzybylski and Weinstein, Royal Society Open Science · 2019
• APA Resolution on Violent Video GamesAmerican Psychological Association · 2020
• Uniform Crime Reporting Program dataFederal Bureau of Investigation · 2023
• Video games and youth violence research summariesPew Research Center · 2021

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