Aggressive video games research emerges from its replication crisis (Sort of)

The impact of aggressive video games (AVGs) on aggression and violent behavior among players, particularly youth, has been debated for decades. In recent years, evidence for publication bias, questionable researcher practices, citation bias and poor standardization of many measures and research designs has indicated that the false positive rate among studies of AVGs has been high. Several studies have undergone retraction. A small recent wave of preregistered studies have largely returned null results for outcomes related to youth violence as well as outcomes related to milder aggression. Increasingly, evidence suggests AVGs have little impact on player behavior in the realm of aggression and violence. Nonetheless, most professional guild policy statements (e.g. American Psychological Association) have failed to reflect these changes in the literature. Such policy statements should be retired or revised lest they misinform the public or do damage to the reputation of these organizations.