On re-reading my comments from last Friday about the AC2 study, I realize that my poor, unfocused diatribe levelled pointed fingers in a direction I was completely not intending to. I blame the fact that my brain was in ‘Late Friday Mode’.

The study actually accomplished what it was trying to do, judging from the title of the study (“Internet Fantasy Violence: A Test of Aggression in an Online Game.”) To some degree, it clears my chosen genre of work (MMOs) from the charges levelled at the GTA’s of the industry. As an aside, it also is useful in that it successfully points out that simply having blinking images of very mild violence on a computer screen isn’t going to turn your kids into zombies. While obvious to some, this is still a useful data point to have, and highlights the importance of content, interactivity, and tone to the debate.

What I was trying to say, and utterly failed to, was that this particular study adds very little to the specific debate about GTA, and respectable commenters and bloggers (you know who you are) need to do more than take these things at face value, and claim that they act as an acquittal for the games industry as a whole. There have been a lot of people pointing out this study, but few if any pointing out the study’s flaws or lack of relevance to the immediate Hot Coffee debate. Most have simply been content to say something like, “Another study comes out in our favor.” That’s not good enough.

The GTA debate is high stakes. When evaluating the data points that come out in favor of either side, we need to ask ourselves “If an industry spokesman was sitting across a table from Jack Thompson on Larry King Live, could an industry spokesman armed with this argument defeat Jack in a debate?” Given that Mr. Thompson is apparently seven flavors of crazy, this isn’t a particularly high bar to beat, but in my view, the Illinois AC2 study doesn’t meet that criteria – because it wasn’t meant to. On the other hand, this Game Revolution article does meet that criteria, being very well-researched and whatnot, although it would be nice to see more people (including myself) linking to the source of their statistics, given that “statistics from the Department of Justice” sounds a hell of a lot more credible than “a rant from a little-known website called Game Revolution (with charts!)”

Note that Mike Sellers, a frequent Terra Nova poster, actually disputes these numbers based on other data he’s found from the Surgeon General. Even though I disagree with his conclusions on the data, such rigorous debate should be applied to any of the data points we hope to take into battle. But I see very little discussion on these data points anywhere.

Which brings us to the American Psychological Association’s examination of multiple game studies between video game violence and aggression in young boys (thanks, J), which suggests strongly that there is a link.

[In one study], teachers of 600 8th and 9th graders, aged 13 to 15, said children who spent more time playing violent video games were more hostile than other children and more likely to argue with authority figures and other students.

Of course, the article does nothing to address the fact that no one has specifically shown this is causal yet – that the games made the kids violent, as opposed to violent kids being attracted to violent media. From what I remember from psych 101, the only reliable way to test something like this is to find several pairs of twins, give one of each set violent video games and movies and deny them to the other (sorry, kid, here’s a Nancy Drew book), and observe how they mature over the course of years. Which is to say, testing causal relationships in kids is really, really hard because you lack a control group to test against.

So lacking that ability, you have to turn to sociology and look for trends that these studies should predict are happening. But the APA article also does nothing to address my central point that if games were really making kids whacko and 6 gazillion copies of GTA are in circulation, we should be knee deep in the dead by now. Instead, according to those statistics from the Department of Justice, we’re near an all-time low. This was, I note, not enough to keep the APA from “prompt(ing) the group to adopt a resolution recommending that all violence be reduced in video games and interactive media marketed to children and youth.”

As soon as more information from either of these studies hits the net, I’ll take a closer look at their methodologies. But in the meantime, if you’re a blogger, do more than just link to these studies and nod approvingly or shake your head in disgust. Dig a little.