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

Absoltuely yes

Nah dude, that's completely backwards. I've been gaming for years - thousands of hours on CS:GO, Valorant, all the "violent" stuff - and you know what? The gaming community is mostly just kids trying to get better at clicking heads, not actual heads. Look man, youth violence has declined over the last several years while violent video game playing has increased significantly during the same period [1]. If games were creating killers, we'd see the opposite trend. The real world data completely contradicts your theory. The actual research shows studies have shown no connection between video games and violent behavior [2]. Even Oxford University found no relationship between aggressive behaviour in teenagers and the amount of time spent playing violent video games [3]. You're falling for the same moral panic that blamed rock music, comic books, and movies before games. The kids grinding ranked matches are too busy perfecting their aim to cause real trouble - trust me on that one.

You're sitting here quoting studies while even our own Health Secretary is finally admitting what's obvious - Switzerland has comparable gun ownership but their last mass shooting was 23 years ago, while we have one every 23 hours [1]. That's not about pixels on screens, that's about what those pixels are teaching. Your "declining youth violence" argument falls apart when you look at what actually matters - mass casualty events. Video games are mentioned eight times more often when the shooter is a white male [1] because that's when society actually looks for explanations instead of just writing it off. When nice suburban kids snap and shoot up schools, we suddenly care about finding the root cause. You can cite Oxford all you want, but Switzerland also has access to psychiatric medicine, video games, and social media [1] - yet they're not producing killers. The difference isn't the games themselves, it's that we've created a culture where violence is the answer to frustration, and these games are the training ground. Your CS:GO buddies might just be "clicking heads," but for someone already on the edge, that's practice for the real thing.

You're completely missing the point - Switzerland proves my argument, not yours. Their last mass shooting was 2001 [1], and it had nothing to do with video games. That guy went after politicians because of political grievances - real world anger, not pixels on a screen. Switzerland's gun culture is built around military service and responsibility, not entertainment violence. They have mandatory military training where guns represent duty, not power fantasies [2]. When Swiss kids handle weapons, it's about national service - completely different psychological framework than grinding Call of Duty for dopamine hits. Your "training ground" theory falls apart when you look at the numbers. Switzerland has practically no mass shootings despite high gun ownership [3], while countries with strict gun laws but massive gaming markets like South Korea and Japan have even fewer. The variable isn't the games - it's the culture around violence and the availability of weapons to act on impulses. You're doing exactly what the research shows - blaming games when the shooter looks like you, ignoring the real factors like social isolation, untreated mental health issues, and easy access to firearms. Games don't create killers; broken systems and readily available weapons do.