As I lifelong gamer, I'm pretty used to hearing about this issue. This column was a very good take on the matter. However, there are some angles that I don't feel it has space to take into consideration.

One is the idea that some games might be viewed as works of art. Naturally, not every work of art is appropriate for children. However, the entire line of research into violent gaming assumes that a video game must either be restricted to an audience over 18 years of age or, conversely, be intended for children. Naturally, there is a huge middle ground here. After all, rock and pop music explore sexual themes that are nominally adult. However, their prime audience is in the realm between adulthood and childhood. Much the same is true of many novels which are regarded as classics for teenage audiences: they explore themes appropriate for adults, which is the reason they are salient to audiences who are becoming adults.

But by choosing to pursue research that evaluates games in a one-dimensional manner, researchers play into the hands of politicians who exploit the fears of a politically dominant generation who is understandable unfamiliar with the medium. The risk is that these researchers will, with the best of intentions, end up supporting the infantalization of a growing medium by forcing developers to choose between making "adult only" or "child only" games. This happened to comics with the creation of the Comics Code Authority in the 1950 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/­Comics_Code_Authority), a law which retarded the growth of an entire medium until comics such as Maus, Palastine, and Persopolis finally appeared to legitimize the it- and then only amoung a select audience.

And for what? There is some evidence that games might make players somewhat more aggressive. However, school shootings are a staggeringly rare and complex phenomenon. Meanwhile, the most damaging forms of real life violence generally takes patterns which greatly predate the existence of video games.

Don't get me wrong: with exceptions (the excellent recent GTA game being one of them), game violence has come to bore me. I want more for the medium if it's going to become one worthy of the weighty mantle of "art." However, there needs to be low or popular art if there is to be high art. And popular art tends to be crude by nature.

Thanks again for this stimulating article.