Video games can make children fat and, in the case of violent games popular among teenage and younger boys, aggressive and even criminal, Swedish experts said on Monday. The games industry, estimated at $200 million a year in Sweden and $10 billion in the United States, is dominated on the hardware side by Microsoft Corp."s Xbox, Sony Corp"s PlayStation and Nintendo Co. Ltd"s Game Boy and GameCube consoles. Electronic Arts Inc., Nintendo, Activision Inc., and Take-Two Interactive Software Inc. are among leading games title publishers.
Take-Two"s Rockstar unit"s Grand Theft Auto -- a game condemned as "horrendous" by former U.S. Democratic presidential hopeful Joseph Lieberman -- is among titles mentioned by a Swedish television documentary in connection with violent youth crimes. "It"s concerning because they (video game players) are rehearsing scripts of behavior that will possibly play themselves out in real life," Michael Rich, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics who has studied the effects of entertainment media on the physical and mental health of children, was quoted as saying in the 45-minute "Deadly Game" documentary.