One of our news stations has reported that a local economist has performed a study on violent video games, and his results were surprisingly in favor of the video game industry.

He has found evidence that correlates the rise in game sales to the drop in local crime rates. His concept runs on the idea that games not only cost money, but time as well. This time can be used to help keep kids off the streets and out of trouble.

The Boys and Girls Club in Ft Worth runs on the same concept- they use games and activities to keep kids occupied and out of trouble. They had children playing a game on the Kinect that was donated to the club by Microsoft. Mike Ward was also compared to the midnight basketball leagues in Chicago.

The statistical analysis is complicated, but one study showed when game stores in a county, including North Texas counties, grew by one percent, crime rates dropped a tenth of a percent, double the amount they dropped because of sports.

Last month Ward expanded on the work by comparing game sales year over year with violent crime rates. No matter how popular violent games were, it always resulted in a drop in violent crime.

This is pretty awesome news, as it can help provide some great backing to the video game industry.

There’s a video on the linked article with an interview with Mike Ward, as well.

[ CBS 11 News – Evidence Suggests Video Games Lead To Less Violence ]