CHAMPAIGN, Ill., Aug. 11 (UPI) -- A U.S. study found that players' "robust exposure" to a highly violent online game did not cause any substantial real-world aggression.
Study leader Dmitri Williams of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign says that after an average playtime of 56 hours over the course of a month with "Asheron's Call 2" -- a popular MMRPG, or "massively multi-layer online role-playing game" -- he found "no strong effects associated with aggression caused by this violent game."
Players were not statistically different from the non-playing control group in their beliefs on aggression after playing the game than they were before playing, Williams said. Nor was playing the game a predictor of aggressive behaviors.
"I'm not saying some games don't lead to aggression, but I am saying the data are not there yet," Williams said. "Until we have more long-term studies, I don't think we should make strong predictions about long-term effects, especially given this finding."
The findings appear in the June issue of Communication Monographs.
