Psychological Benefits of Video Gaming?

Dear Patric,
We'd like to thank you for choosing our group to conduct the necessary research for your article. Below we have compiled various sources of information and ongoing research related to the topic of psychological benefits found in video gaming. We have focused on the four main genres in gaming: strategy, sports, MOBAs (multiplayer online battle arena), and RPGs (roleplaying games). We hope that the following attached articles provide an insight to how gaming can help one psychologically in various ways such as promoting teamwork and invoking critical thinking.
Cheers!
From your research minions.

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MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena)

A MOBA game (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) is a form of a RTS (real time strategy) game where two teams consisting of five players battle it out to see who can take out the opponents structures and base (nexus) first. The player controls a unit, “hero/champion” who has certain unique abilities and brings perks to the team. Some of these perks include CC (crowd control) such as snares, stuns, knock-up’s, knockbacks, and slows, Utility such as healing and shields, and Damage both physical and magical. Each player is given a hero/champ to control and as a team, he or she has to work together with the four players on their team to secure important objectives and ultimately win the game. Some examples of MOBA’s are DOTA (Defense of the Ancients), DOTA 2, SMITE, Bloodline Champions, and League of Legends.

■ Cognitive Ability and Critical Thinking

By playing a MOBA, the player greatly benefits by increasing their cognitive ability and increasing their capacity to think critically about the current situation under pressure but also improving overall intelligence. This is because when the player is into a MOBA game around the 20 minute mark, everyone begins to reach their power spike and maxed skills leading to ridiculous bursts of damage if one is not careful about their positioning. Positioning is vital in excelling in a MOBA game due to the fact everyone is at the same skill level as you and whoever gets the jump first basically wins the duel. The last reason why positioning is important is because of the tactical line (Frontline, Support, and Carries).

The Frontline are like the tanks and bruisers whose sole purpose is to damage their team (bruise) and survive for as long as possible while protecting the Carries to do as much damage as possible before the opposing Frontline gets to them.

The Supports are the scapegoats only there to take punishment and the only job the support has is to use whatever skills and items they have to protect their Carries and keep the Frontline healthy for as long as possible before dying from so much as a little push. They are the reason the team survives but also the receiver of almost all verbal abuse when they don’t do their job correctly.

The Carries are the damage dealers and their positioning is the reason you win a skirmish or lose one. There are two types of Carries, Ranged Attack Damage (Marksmen or ADC) and Ability Power Carries (APC). These damage dealers do most of the damage but also die instantly if caught out.

The result of the battle is determined by which carry can out position the opposing Frontline better and peel (ward off any threats such as Crowd Control) while simultaneously doing the most damage in a span of three seconds (usually how long a fight lasts) best leads to victor. The reflexes required to maneuver the opposing threat under a small time window also known as, making split second decisions enhances their ability to think critically about a situation and analyze the situation and make the best choice in split seconds. Over years of playing MOBA’s you eventually “rewire” your brain into being more efficient with critical thinking and logic hence the difference in performance is subjects that require logic and application such as Math or Science. Therefore, it is safe to state playing MOBA Video Games lead to players performing well in the real world such as school, work and sports.

  • Prensky, M. (2012). From digital natives to digital wisdom: Hopeful essays for 21st century learning. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.
  • Granic, I. G., Lobel, A. L. & Engels, R. E. (2014, January). The benefits of playing video games. 69(1), 66-78. Retrieved from http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/amp-a0034857.pdf

The article showcases how videogames increase a person’s spatial skills and some have even went as far as to say it is a solution to improving one’s problem solving skills and ability to be creative. Furthermore, the relationship between how complex a game is can be directly related to how much social interaction there is in game.

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■ Communication and Teamwork

It improves the individual’s ability to communicate with their team and work together to secure an objective. Not only does this aid them when it comes to interacting with people in their everyday life but it also helps the introverts converse better and come out of their so called “shell”.

This article demonstrates a vast amount of reason as to how videogames benefit an individual psychologically. However I want to point out how it benefits one when it comes to teamwork and ability to work with others and communicate and exhibiting positive social behaviours such as helping others in need. A study was conducted where they found people who played games which required teamwork and communication, displayed certain behaviour changes.

“More specifically, playing positive social games led to causal, short-term effects on “helping” behaviours, and longitudinal effects were also found, in that children who played more positive social games at the beginning of the school year were more likely to exhibit helpful behaviours later that year.” (pg 73)

The following video will aid you in understanding how important teamwork and communication is in a MOBA game such as League of Legends.

■ Controlling your emotions

When you play a team based game, you’re bound to lose your composure begin to rage and verbally abuse your team. Which is counter intuitive since the reason most of us play video games is to get into a better mood or forget about the stresses in our real life. Playing videogames allow people to become something they dream of in real life. I.E. a skinny nerd playing a character that is big and muscular. Not only do they get to get a sense of what it feels like to be what they want to be but also forget about what it is like to be weak. When you continue to play MOBA games, you begin to develop patience for players who aren’t as good as you and eventually have total control over your emotions and maybe even change yourself to satisfy yourself.

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The article showcases how you should act after losing a game. Instead of abusing your teammates and letting it affect your health, you should learn from your mistakes. “Maybe you thought of ways they all could have played better? Maybe you thought of ways that you could have influenced the game more?” In a solo queue game where the player queue’s up alone in a ladder rank game even though you might go on a 10 game losing streak, you should keep calm and learn what you did wrong. You may think you are the best but there’s always room to improve. It is also very imperative that you know when to call it quits. On average players tend to go on tilt (lose their composure and have extremely low performance) after losing three games in a row. Now you may be tempted to keep playing until you get out of the hole but eventually you’ll just tank your rank and spiral into depression.

This article beautifully displays how your emotions can take a turn for the best when you achieve a certain rank in a MOBA or win a game that seemed like it was almost impossible to win, you feel a sense of accomplishment and your self-esteem rises. By succeeding in a video game, the player can feel positive emotions instead of being depressed or frustrated. Eventually the player will crave this sensation and eventually this leads to this becoming a happier and healthier person due to the player returning to the video game for more. This is why people get so obsessed with videogames and positive reinforcing activities.

RPGs (Role-Playing Games)

Any role-playing game is a game in which players assume the roles of characters in a fictional setting. Players take responsibility for acting out these roles within a narrative through a process of structured decision-making or character development. Originally the sole domain of tabletop games, RPGs have evolved over time with its main successors being massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and single-player offline role-playing video games in which players control a character or team who undertake quests, and may include capabilities that advance using statistical mechanics.

As successors, these two game types share many settings and rules with tabletop RPGs, but emphasize individual character development more than collaborative storytelling; it is harder to maintain a cohesive storyline that affects every character when very large numbers are in play (such as MMOs) and "collaborative" storytelling ends up being only between the player and the AI engine in the case of singular offline play. The main distinction between RPGs and other more linear adventure games stems from interactivity, RPGs typically offer more complex and dynamic character development and progression instead of more restrictive engines where goals and objectives are very clearly provided and deviation is generally strongly discouraged.

■ Adopting New Personas

The hallmark of a RPG is that players adopt personas for their characters rather than playing as one or several pre-established characters. Depending on the game, players may be able to write their character’s life story, choose their character’s specific appearance, and take on a wide variety of personality traits. Some players view this as an opportunity to experience what it could be like to be a completely different person. Men might become women, for example, and young people might choose to be elderly. By adopting a new persona, a player may be able to learn what life could be like for another person, increasing empathy toward people with different lifestyles or appearances. With the many stereotypically masculine content and heavily sexist representations of women within most games, the flexible character creation found in RPGs allows for the exploration and escape of gender, even race, restrictions, granting many players the chance to avoid the discrimination that they might face in their daily lives. So not only do players get a chance to experience the emotional aspect of their character and establish new friendships, they also pick up social skills that can be applied to their lives; 10% of users have indicated experiencing greater confidence and higher propensities to accept leadership positions following their experiences in the in-game world. The study also covers how prolonged time spent playing as their characters reduced the distinction between player and character, many players indicating that they exhibited anger and rage when their in-game avatars faced any sort of exclusion.

  • Yee, N. (2006). The Psychology of MMORPGs: Emotional Investment, Motivations, Relationship Formation, and Problematic Usage. In R. Schroeder & A. Axelsson (Eds.), Avatars at Work and Play: Collaboration and Interaction in Shared Virtual Environments (pp. 187-207). London: Springer-Verlag.

■ Developing Problem Solving Skills

RPGs are primarily driven by quests that are designed to guide players along their way to a solution, providing bits and pieces of information, but it is ultimately up to the player to put together all these pieces of information to enable them to complete the quest. As a rule, quests tend to increase in difficulty as the game progresses, forcing players to draw on more and more of their past experiences with the game to deal with their new challenges. It is from this that Dickey suggests that all these skills are intrinsically inherent in MMORPGs, and that MMO game mechanics can be utilized to create more instructional and educational games if so inclined, as MMOs provide flexible environmental settings that allow multiple combinations and routes toward the same end. However, Dickey does also raise the issue of how MMORPGs are combative in nature, with problematic character designs and stereotypes that should be taken into account and rectified should more instructional designs be desired lest the wrong values be perpetuated.

  • Dickey, M. D. (2007, June). Educational Technology Research and Development. Game design and learning: a conjectural analysis of how massively multiple online role-playing games (MMORPGs) foster intrinsic motivation. 55(3), 253-273. Retrieved from http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11423-006-9004-7

Bowman covers how roleplaying with different personas, experiencing their varying strengths and weaknesses, offers players the opportunity to shift their paradigms and assumptions, even going so far as to encourage higher-level mental processing abilities, including scenario building, and problem solving within limitations. RPGs exist around a detailed set of structures that forces players to adapt to a certain set a rules that might not be the norm for them; in this way, RPGs offer extensive scenarios where the player is encouraged to exercise his/her creativity to develop creative problem solving skills. From tactical to social manoeuvring, RPGs encourage the development and expansion of skills that aren't just useful in the game world, but can be used in every day social situations as players are constantly encouraged to look at things from more than one point-of-view.

  • Bowman, S. L. (2010). The Functions of Role-Playing Games: How Participants Create Community, Solve Problems and Explore Identity. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland.

■ Leadership Skills

In MMORPGs with large player bases such as World of Warcraft, EVE Online, and Guild Wars, games can be so complex and detailed that they are essentially their own mini-countries, each faction with their own thriving economy and dynamics. Guilds are formed, and leaders are made. Originally, mainly used for military training, MMOs have now become applicable to anyone who has any interest in taking on a leadership role. MMORPGs often run PvE (Player versus Environment) battles, where players are forced to collaborate in 5, 10, sometimes even 40-man raids against highly-complex AI bosses, and even fluid teamwork does not necessitate a victory. Players in positions of authority then have to further refine their strategies for each problem faced, whether from their own guild members or from changing game mechanics. What this study covers is that not only do leaders in top positions (Guild Leaders/Masters) gain the leadership experience and skills when it comes to management, any player taking on a leadership role (whether it be a Raid Leader or Dungeon Leader) also stands to develop his/her own skills. In fact, someone in a position of secondary authority stands to gain more experience than two people in primary positions (ie, two Guild Leaders). The article further explores how this aspect can be useful not only to gamers presently, but to their future working lives.

■ Dealing with Unexpected Consequences

While most games advance their plots when the player defeats an enemy or completes a level, RPGs generally progress adaptively according to the choices made by the player, whether intentionally or unintentionally, whether on a large-scale "Should you commit genocide?" sort of dilemma faced in Mass Effect or on a smaller scale "Was feeding the cat behind the store wrong?" in Persona 3. Take for instance, in World of Warcraft, joining one faction automatically locks you out from its rival faction, an action that is irreversible. Saying the right things to the right non-player characters (NPC) will elicit useful information for the player, and may even result in other rewards such as items or experience, as well as opening up possible storyline branches.

RPGs often allow the player to seek out optional side-quests for additional character interactions. Quests of this sort can be found by talking to a NPCs and there is generally no penalty for abandoning or ignoring these quests other than a missed opportunity, though some games employ game engines that create NPCs who will remember your failure to aid in their times of need. There is usually a reward for completing a side-quest, although completing such side-quests in some games can also limit certain choices later in the game, siding with the elves in Witcher during earlier quests results in you having a lower standing when visiting later villages and towns.

Additionally, many RPGs allow players to play as an evil character. Although robbing and murdering indiscriminately may make it easier to get money, there are usually consequences in that other characters will become uncooperative or even hostile towards the player. Thus, these games allow players to make moral choices, but force players to live with the consequences of their actions. In RPGs, the actions that you make now will have consequences that might or might not foresee, and players are forced to adapt and deal with these new circumstances or restrictions unless they wish to reload an early save, an action that could results in hours of commitment being lost. And in the case of MMOs, rewinding is not an option.

The following video provides some examples of situational choices that a player can be faced with in RPGs.

  • outsidexbox (2013, November 14). The 6 Hardest Decisions in Games (That You'll Get Wrong Either Way). Retrieved April 5, 2014, from http://youtu.be/_xtAuo-kSFs

How these ethical and gut-wrenching decisions might be made is covered by Schrier in a study that involved thirty males, with twenty participants randomly assigned to play Fable III and ten randomly assigned to a control group. Skills and thought processes that went into the making of the decision was then classified into categories such as empathy-related, reasoning-related, reflection-related, and information gathering-related. It was then found that the more involved the player became in the game, the more they were able to empathize with NPCs and the less technical they became in their decision-making process suggesting that this might be a similar occurrence with other real-life scenarios. The study also covers the kinds of implications that these kinds of immersion could have in the long-run, when the lines between fantasy and reality become blurred, and fictional characters begin to take on a reality of their own in the minds of their players.

■ Learning to Surmount Obstacles

In contrast to other more linear adventure games, RPGs generally allow players to return to previously visited locations. Usually, there is nothing left to do in an area once it has been cleared of enemies and loot, but some locations change through the course of the game and offer the player new things to respond to. In such cases, players must acquire enough power or certain skill sets to overcome challenges in order to progress to the next area. Although the characterization of the game's avatar will develop through storytelling, characters may become more functionally powerful by gaining new skills, weapons, and magic. This creates a positive-feedback cycle that is central to most RPGs: the player grows in power, allowing them to overcome more difficult challenges, to gain even more power. The book touches upon how such open-world progression helps instil how experience and knowledge can be incremental, increasing with time and effort rather than being an arbitrary figure. Since difficulty level rises as players advance, skills will also improve with use as players are provided with intermittent encouragement so as to keep them from giving up despite growing challenges.

  • Vorderer, P., & Bryant, J. (Eds). (2006). Playing video games: Motives, responses, and consequences. Mahwah, NJ, US: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Publishers.

■ Simulating Real-life Experiences

RPGs also encompass roleplay simulation games that have been used in teaching, training, and academic research that can be far more cost-effective than its real-life counterparts. For instance, pilot simulation games can be run with multiple pilots at the same time instead of having to finance a bunch of planes towards the same effect. Or even games such as The Sims 2: Open for Business can help players improve their real-life business skills in place of having to undergo the same experience. Players get the chance to reload and replay over bad choices if they so choose without having any real lasting negative impacts on their daily lives while reaping the benefits of the experience that they have garnered through playing such games as can be seen in the case of Moroccan farmers and their new irrigation systems, where they have been able to explore farming strategies without having to deal with any losses or pain.

  • Dionnet, M, Kuper, M., Hammani, A., & Garin, P. (2008, December) Simulation & Gaming. Combining role-playing games and policy simulation exercises: An experience with Moroccan smallholder farmers. 39(4), 498-514. Retrieved from http://sag.sagepub.com/content/39/4/498

This has been an application that has been gaining increasing coverage as formal training no longer becomes sufficient. Instead, labour organizations are looking into capitalizing on the efficiency and effectiveness that simulation RPGs are able to provide in utilizing various forms of learning styles to facilitate manufactured "learning through experience" experiences. The article then proceeds to cover the feasibility of such applications to professional learning, thereby bringing benefits of gaming to an even more tangible level.

  • Korteling, H., Helsdingen, A., & Theunissen, N. C. M. (2013). Serious gaming @ work: Learning job-related competencies using serious gaming. In Derks, D, & Bakker, A. B. (Eds.), The psychology of digital media at work (pp123-144). New York, NY, US: Psychology Press.

In other applications, couples in therapy have been able to use MMORPGs as a medium from exploring gender roles while providing them a platform that allows them to communicate through a third party, the screen. In adopting each other's roles and positions in a society, couples potentially able to begin understanding the contexts and background to the actions that their partners have made. However, this method is not beyond pitfalls, as the article also covers the challenges and problems that couples play MMOs together might face, such as personal challenges and addictions and how it might affect their daily lives, and threats to the already problematic intimacy between the couples as they develop different social relationships through the game.

Sports Games

Sports games are video games that simulate the practice of traditional sports. Sports video games are wide in variety and range from all types of sports e.g. Hockey, basketball, football, soccer, baseball, and racing to name a few. Sports games combine many different elements of gaming in the sense that some games will emphasize playing the sport itself while others focus on the strategy and organization aspects of sports. Some notable mentions of sports games include EA Sports' NHL and FIFA series, 2K Sports' NBA series, UFC Undisputed, and the highly succesful Madden NFL franchise.

■ The Ideal Self

Sports games follow the same pattern that all video games follow. One of the strongest appeals of video games is the ability to place the user in someone else’s shoes. In essence, we are chasing our “ideal selves” through video games and sports games are no difference. Sports games give fans some of the best opportunities to realize that “ideal self”. Particularly with the evolution of gaming today, sports games now are able to put players into the shoes (or skates) of their favourite sports stars. Many gamers don’t have the opportunity to make it into the big leagues of sports, either because they don’t have the chance to play the sport in the first place or simply because they aren’t good enough to play at such high levels of sport. Sports games bring fans closer to the sport by giving them control of the best players and their favourite teams in the world. With the advancements in video game production, new game modes allow players to put themselves in the leagues that they’ve always wanted to be in. Franchises such as EA’s FIFA and NHL games are highly successful partly because of their “Be a Pro” game modes. Apart from being a player, sports games also give gamers the means to fill positions of management such as that of a coach or general manager. Giving a gamer the means to pursue their “ideal self” helps make sports games appealing. With no other means to place one’s self in such a position, sports video games give gamers the perfect opportunity to become their ideal self and play with the best players and play in the best leagues of the world.

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A study set to be published in a coming issue of Psychological Science attempts to answer the question as to what makes video games so appealing. “A game can be more fun when you get the chance to act and be like your ideal self,” says Dr. Andy Przybylski, a researcher at the University of Essex who led the study. “The attraction to playing video games and what makes them fun is that it gives people the chance to think about a role they would ideally like to take and then get a chance to play that role.” With that being said, researchers were able to trace said attraction back to childhood, otherwise known as a period where our imaginations ran rampant and we would usually project ourselves as anything possible: athletes, rock stars etc. As a result, it is easy to see how sports video games provide gamers with the means to pursue their ideal self.

■ Escapism and the “Real Reasons” We Love Video Games

Apart from chasing the “ideal self”, a common myth that makes video games so appealing to gamers is a notion termed as “escapism”. Escapism often contains negative implications, usually suggesting that gamers are trying to break free from the regular hardship that is life. The truth is, we don’t always play video games because we want to escape our lives. Of course video games are arguably one of the best providers of escapism, but it is not a reason that can be applied in all situations. Particularly in the case of sports games, gamers often play sports games to experience what they cannot realistically achieve in life. Besides escapism, video games fulfill some of our basic psychological needs. Autonomy, relatedness, and competence provides gamers with the continued appeal of video games.

Competence is a desire to feel good about oneself. Feeling successful and accomplishing things comes hand in hand with sports games as every win that you achieve in a sports game attributes to your feelings of accomplishment and competence. Our inner desires to feel competent are satisfied as we watch our team’s progress through their seasons, much like in sports themselves, but with sports games, the teams are in the control of the user, and this provides additional satisfaction as the gamer plays through a sports game. Even within the skills of the players themselves, it is easy to see the improvements over time as gamers become more proficient with their characters. A particularly unique phenomenon involved with games, games seem to have steeper learning curves compared to other activities. This means that virtually every gamer is able to experience the satisfaction of seeing themselves progress with the game and hone their own skills. Sports games are particularly easy to track one’s progress as points/goals are constantly recorded and increased or consistent point production clearly indicates improvement on the part of the player.

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The second psychological need is autonomy. Autonomy is the desire to be independent and in control of our actions. With the control that video games give players now, it’s easy to see why they are so appealing in this sense. Particularly sports games, gamers are now able to control their favourite players and their favourite teams while guiding them to the championships. Games like EA Sports’ NHL series provide gamers the ability to be a General Manager whose tasks include negotiating contracts, scouting for future talent, trading to improve the team, and last but not least, winning the Stanley Cup. With so many different choices to make, the gamer is truly spoiled with options that encourage autonomy. Whether sticking with the current roster or completely rebuilding the team from ground up, the choice belongs to the gamer and it satisfies the need to be autonomous.

The final psychological need is relatedness. Humans want to feel important to others and feel that they are making contributions to society. So much so that “in a 2003 study, the University of Massachusetts Medical School discovered that people with altruistic tendencies generally have higher levels of mental health and less overall life stress”. The connection between relatedness and gamers is clear when observing gamers who play with friends online but Immersyve’s studies also discovered something interesting. The need for relatedness was also satisfied when gamers interacted with people who were not real. In sports games, players come across all sorts of different in-game characters who are not real people. Players often interact with managers, coaches, scouts and even the players themselves, all of whom provide feedback to the player and satisfies their need for relatedness. There is nothing more rewarding than having a coach encourage and compliment your player after a good play.

■ Games vs Work

An interesting point raised by the article in question is that games and work are alike at their most basic levels. With so many repetitive actions in both work and games, it is truly puzzling at times why work and games are at polar opposites on the fun spectrum. The perfect example, “A man sits down at a desk and pulls up a database of numbers. He looks through the database and compares a list of numbers from one column to a list from another column. He takes a certain number from one cell and reallocates it somewhere else. He clicks a few buttons, waits a few seconds, and then repeats the process. Then he does it again and again. This man could be performing spreadsheet accounting work, or he could be crafting in World of Warcraft”, can also be related to sports games. As a player observes free agents and pulls up their information, he/she also repeats actions such as moving the players onto their team or moving onto a new player. It is suggested that games are more fun because of the fiction involved in the games and the feedback system which continually encourages the gamer to keep working. Something else that games do better than real life is immediate rewards. When it comes to video games, feedback is often immediate and there is never the case of an action being overlooked. In real life, you may be the hard worker who is the first to arrive and the last to leave every day, but never receive reward or recognition for it. Video games provide constant feedback and immediate feedback which makes us feel better and sports games are no exception.

Strategy Gaming

Strategy games come in multiple forms ranging from simple board games like chess and checkers to video games such as HALO wars or Tom Clancy's ENDWAR. Strategy games can differ in difficulty and the mental requirements to play efficiently but all typically require high situational awareness and tree-style thinking, as well as the ability to make use of tactics and strategic models in order to be successful. The term ''strategy'' is derived from the Greek word ''stratos'' or ''στρατηγια''. This differs from ''Tactics'' because strategy puts forth the idea as a whole whereas tactics refer to the organisation and execution of an idea to make an improvement or positive gain in a critical situation.

■ Adaptable cognitive flexibility

Cognitive flexibility is the mental ability to be able to switch between thinking about different concepts and the ability to think about multiple concepts simultaneously and can play an important role in our lives as it refers to the idea of ''flexible'' ways our brain assembles and processes knowledge when we learn something new. The theory behind the idea of cognitive flexibility is similar to the constructivist theory and claims that we construct our knowledge of things by building upon knowledge and experience that we previously know of.

Our 'cognitive flexibility' is adaptable and can be trained to be more flexible through playing strategy games. The research showed 72 female volunteers were split into 3 groups, the first two groups played a real-time strategy game called Starcraft, a game which is fast-paced and requires the player to construct an army to battle an opponent, be able to switch between tasks and tackle different situations through critical thinking, and use tactics to succeed. The third group played a life-simulation video game known as The Sims, it is a lot slower paced and requires less memory, tactics, or cognitive function. The research showed that after 40 hours of in-game playing over a course of six to eight weeks, those who played Starcraft were able to perform cognitive flexibility tasks more accurately and quickly than those who played The Sims.

  • Queen Mary, University of London. (2013, August 21). Playing video games can boost brain power. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 5, 2014

Dr. Brian Glass (Queen Mary's school of biological and chemical sciences) stated that "Previous research has demonstrated that action video games, such as Halo, can speed up decision making but the current work finds that real-time strategy games can promote our ability to think on the fly and learn from past mistakes."

■ Observation power, intuitive ability, and alertness

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Playing games such as Age of Empires, Halo Wars, and R.U.S.E. keeps our brain active and can develop our observation power and intuitive ability because when playing games like these requires a heavy amount of observation. we need to observe situations carefully to be able to act accordingly and in turn plan consequently and react correctly to any situation that occurs. This also helps our intuitive ability as you need to be able to observe your opponent and be able to think and plan ahead about what you need to do and what situations can occur. For example in playing a game of rock, paper, scissors; you know that your opponent is constantly playing scissors, through observation and intuition you know that playing paper would not be a smart move, but playing rock would be smarter move. Alertness is also a large factor which is required and can also be also be developed from the need of response from many surprises that can happen at any moment during a game and being able to react effectively and efficiently to any variety of oncoming situations that occur.

■ Key Terms

Autonomy: the ability to make an informed and uncoerced decision when under pressure or in a critical situation where decisions are required to be made on the fly or when multiple situations are taking place.

Decision Tree strategy: a support tool to help analyse decision-making through using a tree-like graph or model where it presents the possible consequences in the case of a chance event. It helps outcomes, use of resources, costs and utility and is a possible way to display an algorithm.

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