There seems to be a lot of uncertainty surrounding the link between games based on violent content and violence in the 'real' world. Research into this area has been a topic for many professionals who have noted that playing video games of a violent nature could increase the users aggression level.
Anderson & Dill (2000), both carried out research regarding this topic on college pupils and found that students who played violent games whist in their primary and secondary school years engaged in more aggressive behavior.
There are many crimes or acts of violence that have said to been game related, but most have not been proven to be the sole reason that influence these widespread atrocities. Could it be coincidence that the people who have a violent nature and carry out crimes, play these games because of that reason?!
Many games have caused controversy due to their content, one particular game that's making a scene at the moment is called Rapelay, developed by a Japanese games company called Illusion. As reported by Alexander (2009), the objective for this so-called game is to score points by finding and raping victims of choice. The game is banned in most countries, but is available on the black market or as pirate copy from download sites.
There are other game titles that have caused a stir in the past years, one of these being 'Doom', developed by Id software and released in 1993. It is said to have played a major part in the Columbine High School shootings that took place on 20th of April, 1999, The killers' names were Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris. Larkin (2007). Five years following this incident several psychiatrists working with the FBI in the investigation declared that to their reckoning "Harris was a clinical psychopath and Klebold was depressive." They also came to the conclusion that Harris was the main instigator of the attack. Block (2000), is of the opinion that "the killers' actions are not well explained by such diagnoses." He believed however that the video games they played such as Doom may have had a part to play. Harris was a fan of Doom and modified levels of the game enabling the player to have more ammo, up-grades and he also restricted return fire from other players. This was seen as a one of the clues to why the two students went about this massacre.
Not all games have to have violent content to be a possible cause of crime. A local newspaper from Tulare CA called 'The Provence' (Internet), reported a death of a elderly woman named Allison Edburry (86) who was murdered by her grandson and his friend by re-enacting an E-rated game called Katamari Deimarcy that's available on Nintendo wii, Xbox and even Apples I-phone.
