The link between violent behavior and video game play is still subject to debate.

In 1982, Surgeon General C. Everett Koop claimed that video games were hazardous, creating aberrant behavior and increasing violence (Glazer, 2006). More than 30 years later, researchers still have not found definitive proof of long-lasting negative effects from violent video game play.

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Game-industry representatives point out that juvenile-crime statistics dropped sharply as the violence in video games peaked (The breakthrough in realistic video-game violence can be traced to the 1992 release of “Wolfenstein 3 D,” the first major “first-person shooter” game, where the player saw the game world through the eyes of the character and enemies fell and bled on the floor). According to University of Pennsylvania criminologist Lawrence Sherman, “just as violent video games were pouring into American homes on the crest of the personal-computer wave, juvenile violence began to plummet”. Juvenile murder charges dropped by nearly two-thirds from 1993 to the end of the decade. A district court in Michigan blocked implementation of a state ban on sales of violent video games to minors. The decision reflected concern that studies had “not provided any evidence that the relationship between violent games and aggressive behavior exists. It could just as easily be said that the interactive element in video games acts as an outlet for minors to vent their violent or aggressive behavior, thereby dimming the chance they would actually perform such acts in reality.” (Glazer, 2006, 949).

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Recent findings suggest that playing a violent video game in a team (relative to playing the same video game alone) counteracts the negative effects of violent video game play. Because cooperative behavior and empathy are antagonists of

aggressive responses (Eron & Huesmann, 1984), the effects of violent videgame play on aggression might be attenuated by playing the game cooperatively in a team.” (Greitemeyer and Mügge, 2014, 585)

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