YORK researchers say they have found no evidence to support the theory that video games make players more violent.

A team from the University of York conducted a series of experiments with more than 3,000 participants who were asked to play games.

They found that video game concepts did not ‘prime’ players to behave in certain ways and that increasing the realism of violent video games did not necessarily increase aggression in game players.

A university spokeswoman said that the dominant model of learning in games was built on the idea that exposing players to concepts, such as violence in a game, made those concepts easier to use in ‘real life’.

She said: “This is known as ‘priming’, and is thought to lead to changes in behaviour.

“Previous experiments on this effect, however, have so far provided mixed conclusions.”

She said York researchers expanded the number of participants in experiments, compared to studies that had gone before it, and compared different types of gaming realism to explore whether more conclusive evidence could be found.