Most of us would likely file this under “No Kidding”, but a study out of UTA has found that there is no causal link between violent behavior and violent video games.

The study found that the only correlating factor was due to the fact that males, who were more likely to play video games, are naturally more predisposed to committing violent acts.

I think we can agree that this study would have been more helpful a decade or so ago, when the virtue-signaling moral busybodies were making an issue out of this. However, a 10-year study would have been more valuable in providing insight into the longer-term effects of video games. It’s like the difference between waiting a year to hear “you’re right” versus waiting 10 years to hear “you’re definitely right”. At least we’ve won that battle in the time since the study started.

But here’s an idea: Why don’t we wait until after we have the conclusions of studies before considering placing restrictions on content creators?

The usefulness of this study doesn’t just apply to video games. Other forms of entertainment and artistic expression benefit from the case being made that people aren’t influenced by entertainment media. This study bolsters the case strongly, by flying in the face of the expectation one may have that video games might do more to influence one to violence, by their interactive nature. As the study finds, they don’t, and it really seems to be the case that sadism comes from within.

That video games don’t influence a person’s outlook is obvious (putting aside the rare cases of those who are especially delusional). This is because video games are obviously just made-up, and usually don’t even serve the purpose of cultivating a person’s expectations.

I’ll be honest, I had no expectation that I could beat people up with colorful laser-beams and space-ninja acrobatics.