New research coming out of Australia suggest that playing active video games or banning traditional games outright does not help children who live sedentary lifestyles. Traditional and active play games make little difference to how physically active children are throughout the day, says Professor Leon Straker from Curtin University's School of Physiotherapy and Exercise Science.

A press release from Ohio State University proclaims that there is a broad consensus among researchers, pediatricians, and parents that "violent media" increases aggression in children.

This new study of research on the topic (based on a national survey) is headed by Brad Bushman, professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University. Bushman has been trying to make a correlation for years that video game playing can have real world consequences, though a lot of his research focuses on aggressive behavior.

A new study from Florida State University finds that Portal 2 might be better at "brain training" than software designed specifically for the task.

According to new research from Parks Associates - as reported on by Home Media Magazine - 46 percent of all American households with broadband have a video game console connected to the Internet, and about 38 percent use said console devices as their primary means of streaming entertainment content such as Netflix or Hulu.

Civil Asset Forfeiture is the process by which law enforcement can seize private property of citizens without ever needing to charge those citizens of committing a crime. Laws governing civil forfeiture vary from state to state but most states allow officers to seize any amount of money or property and keep the proceeds for department use.

This procedure is highly controversial and has many proponents as well as critics. Most critics equate civil forfeiture with highway robbery, while the proponents consider it another tool to fight crime and pay for law enforcement.

New research suggests that people have more fun playing games due to challenge and unpredictability, as opposed to just winning. In fact, the research seems to indicate that winning without some sort of uncertainty can be pretty damned boring for players.

The study, which appeared in the journal Motivation and Emotion, concluded that uncertainty and suspense often brings players back again and again to a particular game.

Children in Sweden are learning English by playing western games - most notably Blizzard's popular MMORPG, World of Warcraft. This is according to a new study (PDF) by Swedish academics Pia Sundqvist and Liss Kerstin Sylvén.

Earlier this week, a new study began making the press rounds (we caught it at news.com.au) that linked the play of particular video games to teens' propensity for risky behavior.

And no, this one is not from Craig Anderson, Brad Bushman or Douglas Gentile!

A new study from Oxford University suggests that playing video games for one hour a day can have a positive impact on child development. That same research concludes that playing more than one hour a day - or as researchers call it, "high levels of video game-playing " - is only "weakly linked" to behavioral problems in the real world.

New research published in the Journal of Communication comes to the conclusion that some people who try to use media like video games and television to relieve stress instead have feelings of guilt or of "being a failure."

Continuing its series of reports on popular YouTube personalities taking money to promote games, Gamasutra offers details of a recent survey that shows how developers feel about the whole issue. In its survey of developers Gamasutra asked a handful of questions about paying for coverage, if they would consider paying for coverage in the future, and if any traditional media outlets had ever asked them for money.

In an interview with Medical Research, Lynn E. Fiellin talks about how video games are helping to teach young people about risk prevention related to HIV. Fiellin is an M.D., an Associate Professor of Medicine Yale University School of Medicine, and the director of play2PREVENT Lab.

New research from the University at Buffalo Department of Communication, Michigan State University, and the University of Texas Austin, suggests that playing out "heinous behavior" in video games can lead to players being more sensitive to the moral codes in the real world that they violated in the virtual one.

The findings come from a study led by Matthew Grizzard, PhD, assistant professor in the University at Buffalo Department of Communication, and co-authored by researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Texas, Austin.

Financial research firm DFC Intelligence has raised its 5-year video game forecast for the second time this year. DFC predicts that software revenue will climb from $64 billion in 2014 to $100 billion by 2018. This includes revenue from PC games, console games and mobile games, but does not include hardware spending on game devices.

A study of online Call of Duty players found that women who sent out friend requests were more likely to be accepted if they behaved in polite and positive manner during play. Those women who talked trash during matches were less likely to have a friend request accepted. On the flip side, males who talked trash during online play sessions were more likely to have a friend request accepted than those who were polite or remained quiet during a match.

Investment research firm Baird Equity Research has released a report related to E3, providing predications and opinions on the biggest players. One of the more interesting predictions is that Sony will preload digital copies of Bungie's Destiny and Blizzard's Diablo III beginning this fall. The firm says that this will be an optional thing for consumers. This "should drive higher sell-through for Activision, but at the cost of retail sales," the firm notes.

In the latest episode of Stossel, Libertarian host John Stossel tackles what he views as "Popular Nonsense" including Hollywood's use of global warming as themes in movies, income inequality, and video game violence causing real-world violence. At around the 31:14 mark in this YouTube video of the show Stossel talks about violent video games and is joined by disbarred Florida attorney and long-time anti-video game critic Jack Thompson.

A new and extensive report from research firm Newzoo predicts that the global games market will reach $102 billion by 2017. The data comes from Zewzoo's "Global Games Market Report," which also offers a number of other interesting predictions about the global games industry and some of its (current) biggest players including Nintendo, Google, GungHo, SuperCell, Microsoft, and King.

According to a new report from research firm IHS Technology, more people than ever are watching eSports thanks to popular games such as League of Legends and Dota 2. Around 2.4 billion hours of eSports videos were watched during 2013, according to the report - nearly double the 1.3 billion hours watched in 2012. The report goes on to predict that 6.6 billion hours will be watched by fans in 2018, with China representing the largest market for online eSport views in the world, followed by the U.S. and South Korea.

Time spent playing video games is on the rise, especially the devotion to games on tablets and smartphones, according to new research from Nielsen. Homes with players ages 13+ spend more than six hours a week playing games on all game platforms. That's an increase of around 12 percent from the 5.6 hours a week in 2012. The data comes from the firm's annual Nielsen 360 Gaming Report.

Out of 15 countries assessed in a new study, children in Scotland were at the bottom of the rankings when it came to physical activity and at the top of rankings for spending too much time on screen-based leisure activities including watching TV and gaming.

Syracuse University researchers have conducted a study that aims to suss out whether female avatars in games are actually women in real-life or just men role-playing as female characters.

Research that included work at Syracuse University considered 375 people playing a multi-player World of Warcraft quest. Researchers found that 23 percent of the men chose opposite-gender avatars, compared to 7 percent of women who played as male characters.

Medical physicists at UT Southwestern Medical Center are using graphics processors (GPUs) typically found in high end graphics cards and video game consoles to promote research that is aimed at improving patient care. Dr. Steve Jiang, UT Southwestern’s new Director of the Division of Medical Physics and Engineering, and Professor and Vice Chairman of Radiation Oncology are researching new ways to apply the processing speed of GPUs for medical applications like treating cancer patients more efficiently.

Researchers at the University of Adelaide (Australia) are shedding light on the unique problems of supposed "gaming addiction," saying that there is "strong evidence" to suggest that new treatments should be developed for these conditions. One of the biggest problems researchers face is that both Internet and gaming addictions are not recognized globally by mental health professionals as "real addictions." Gambling and sex addictions, for example, are recognized and treatable conditions.

More than 50 percent of American households believe that video games help families spend more quality time together, according to the new Entertainment Software Association report, "Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Games Industry" (PDF). Around 68 percent of parents surveyed who had children under the age of 18 in their household also said that gaming provides mental stimulation and education to children.

On this week's show hosts Andrew Eisen and E. Zachary Knight discuss whether politicians should face the death penalty when convicted of a crime, the Dragon Age Inquisitor controversy related to 'on disc' DLC, Target recommending "M" rated games for children as Easter presents, and video game studies with no control groups. Download Episode 95 now: SuperPAC Episode 95 (1 hour, 7 minutes) 76.5 MB.

New research coming out of Iowa State University (can you guess where this is going to go?) suggests that children who play violent video games will have more aggressive behavior and keep aggressive thoughts regardless of age, gender or parental involvement.

The research results are based on a three-year longitudinal panel study that surveyed (on an annual basis) 3,034 children and adolescents from 6 primary and 6 secondary schools in Singapore. The study notes that the beginning of the survey period participants were in the third, fourth, seventh, and eighth grades.

Using worldwide scholastic results, researchers at Flinders University in South Australia have come to the conclusion that video games do not have a negative impact on the academic performance of adolescents.

Researchers analyzed data from than 192,000 students in 22 countries and found that academic performance and concentration among teenagers were not impacted by video game play.