13 arguments in favour of video games

The first video game appeared in 1970 along with the first home computers, and this game was a arcade. Since then, video games have come a long way from roamers to real-time multiplayer strategy games, designed, besides entertaining, to give players real knowledge, gaming experience, the opportunity to earn and form new social networks. In addition, modern genre games – strategies, simulators, puzzles, shooters – have a positive impact on the emotions, mental functions and physical abilities of players.

A few words about mobile games. They are different from computer and console games, even if it is a replica of the computer version, adapted for the operating system of a mobile device. The peculiarity of mobile games is that:

• a mobile game is available in one click,
• one episode of the game contains a self-contained and logically complete story,
• functionally mobile games simply and quickly save the player’s progress at any point in the player’s progression through the game scenario,
• and the game mechanics are available for one-handed or two-handed control and fingers of different player hands.

Due to the low monetary value of mobile devices, it is mobile games that have received the most consideration. This was taken advantage of by mobile game developers: to attract as many new players as possible they realised all areas of human activity in the games.In this article, we are interested in video games from a medical and sociological perspective: how do video games affect the physical and psychological health of players, as well as their professional fulfilment and social integration?
In order to get answers to these questions scientists from Stanford University and specialists from Microsoft have conducted social surveys, laboratory experiments and years of scientific research.

Is it useful to play video games?

Here’s the internet version of the summarised result – 13 arguments in favour of video games.

• Surgical precision – and that’s not a metaphor. If up until now you thought a good surgeon was someone who spends all their free time in a digital library reading the latest issues of medical journals, that’s not the case. The best surgeons were those who played video games for more than three hours a week. They made 32 per cent fewer mistakes than their non-playing colleagues.
• Video games help overcome dyslexia. Recent scientific studies suggest that the cause of dyslexia is a person’s inability to concentrate. People with dyslexia had better reading comprehension after playing active games that required them to concentrate on gameplay, and the games themselves were harder than average to complete. The researchers concluded that the reason for this improvement was the fact that the game environment – locations, characters, actions and tools – constantly changes during the game – they require the player’s attention, and this has a positive effect on the latter’s formation of the ability to concentrate on one subject in constantly changing circumstances.
• Video games improve eyesight. ”Don’t look too close with a thermal imager!” – these words run leitmotif through every adult’s childhood years. But these caring words have no scientific basis, they have nothing but parental fears. Moreover, scientists have found out that video games – they improve eyesight. For 10 days, at the usual distance from the monitor for video games participants had to find a subtle difference between different shades of grey. The participants did it alternately with the right and left gas. As a result of the experience, the participants’ vision improved significantly.
• Career advancement. Some genres of games require the player to have qualities unique to leaders. Researchers have noticed that players adjust their life position – they transfer their game motivation to real life – becoming leaders.
• Fascination with history. Many games use historical facts that actually happened, reproduce historical figures, locations and events – these circumstances can ignite sparks of curiosity, further – entice the player to pursue history as a scientific discipline. The goal is to learn more about the realities of the video game and the context in which the player character inhabits.
• Video games improve physical health. Some games require actual physical activity from the player. Sports simulators – tennis, football. snowboarding, martial arts – can get the player interested in playing sports in real life.
• Active mental activity is known to slow down the aging process. Puzzle, strategy, and role-playing games improve memory, and increase the overall value of the player’s intellectual and emotional quotient. As a consequence, games slow down the aging process.
• Video games as an analgesic. During painful medical manipulations, engaging the patient’s attention in game play reduces the pain effect. Games have been found to have analgesic effects on the human higher cortical system.
• Games in virtual worlds are real social connections. According to preservationists, games immerse players too deeply in virtual reality. The flip side of this assertion is that virtual rheumatisation is the only reality that is accessible to people with disabilities. Moreover, games in virtual worlds are becoming a real environment for the work and creativity of modern people.
• Games improve motor skills in people who suffer from ataxia – a movement coordination disorder. Researchers have found that engaging such people in games that require them to be physically active – has a positive effect on their motor skills.
• Gamers make decisions faster than normal. Some people have a faster thought process than others. The ratio is roughly 10/90%. These numbers coincide with the number of people who achieve significant success in life – the lucky/unlucky ones. But this ratio can be broken by games: in the process of playing, the player’s thinking apparatus is constantly bombarded with new information. New game data should be quickly recorded by the player, processed and on the basis of conclusions the player should make a correct – winning – decision. The participants of the experiment had to describe the image that they saw for only a few fractions of a second. As a result of the experiments, it was found that the video games improved the answers of the project participants by 25 per cent.
• Games help break bad habits.Participants in the experience – some of whom suffer from obesity, nicotine, drug or alcohol addiction – in twenty-five cases out of a hundred got rid of the bad habit, or reduced the abuse of the object of their addiction.
• Games help overcome communication barriers for people with autism.Games allow users to create their own communication algorithm, which participants can keep unchanged for long periods of time, or adjust as they play depending on the game variables to which autistic people respond.

Video games have many undeniable advantages and questionable disadvantages. But one thing is undeniable – virtual games have become an integral part of our reality where modern people have fun, learn, work, earn money, authority and even create families – live. This is a new reality that has to be reckoned with in order not to be unemployed tomorrow and on the margins of history the day after tomorrow.