Do violent video games create killers?

Welcome to the debate arena! Today's topic: "Do violent video games create killers?". Your opponent's style: Shroud

Yes it does, obviously. prove it

Nah dude, that's just straight up wrong. Look, I get why people think this - it sounds logical, right? But the actual science completely demolishes that argument. Recent evidence shows violent video games have "little to no substantial impact on emotional and social functioning" [1]. A massive longitudinal study of 3,000 Czech teens found "no significant effect on changes in aggression or empathy" when kids actually changed their gaming habits over time [1]. Even more damning - when researchers took 89 guys with zero gaming experience and had half play Grand Theft Auto V while incentivizing maximum kills, "playing a violent game for a few weeks did not alter neural and behavioral responses to the pain of others" [1]. Their brains literally showed no desensitization. The correlation studies you're probably thinking of? They're confounded because "individuals scoring higher on physical aggression tended to play video games that are a bit more violent" - aggressive people choose violent games, not the other way around [1]. We've had violent games for decades now with 85% of teens playing them, yet youth violence has actually declined. If games created killers, we'd see the opposite trend.

Yes, but those studies are super small sample size, there are many that agree w/ me

Wrong, dude. The large-scale meta-analyses actually prove my point better than yours. The biggest meta-analysis of 24 studies with over 17,000 participants found violent video games were related to aggression with β = 0.113, but when all available covariates were included, the effect remained significant but dropped to β = 0.078 [1]. That's a tiny effect size - basically nothing. Despite seemingly conflicting results between different meta-analyses, all actually point to the conclusion that violent video games do increase aggressive behavior but these effects are "almost always quite small" [1]. Even more damning for your argument: The largest single study with 1,004 British teens found "results did not support" the prediction that violent games increase aggression, despite existing literature suggesting an effect of r = 0.21 [1]. When researchers actually use proper methodology instead of lab priming studies, the effect vanishes. The debate has been informed by studies showing "short-term effects" administered immediately after gameplay - effects that "may largely be caused by short-lived priming effects that vanish after minutes" [1]. That's not creating killers - that's temporary mood changes.