Video games get a lot of bad publicity and take the blame for making kids fat and stupid and violent. The news often has stories of people dying because they chose to forgo nourishing their body in lieu of going on dungeon runs. Despite the negative stereotype that has a hold on many of us, I believe there are many benefits players receive from video games that often get overlooked.
While many believe that video games rot the brain, I believe, depending on the game, they can actually cause players to use a considerable amount of brain power. Players don't just sit there in a stupor for hours on end, they are constantly evaluating their surroundings, picking out enemies, planning the best method for attack, and then executing those plans. Online games like Call of Duty, Halo, and Gears of War improve the reaction time and accuracy of their players, because if you don't have those two things, you will shorten your character's life drastically. The military has been using video games to train soldiers for some time now, and you know the military wouldn't be wasting its time on something that didn't offer some form of benefit.
Not that every gamer wants to be a soldier, but having quick reflexes, staying calm under pressure, and having a better awareness of your surroundings are universally beneficial qualities. Games like Resident Evil may cause people to play with anxiety and force them to react appropriately and correctly when under the stress of a zombie attack instead of just panicking and wasting bullets. You may at first run arround erratically when playing horror games, but over time you start to find composure and can handle the duress such games evoke.
On occasion I do partake in the puzzle or mystery game and I know people who play them and can see the benefits. Puzzle games like Professor Layton or mystery games like the Sherlock Holmes series allow gamers to expand their minds looking outside the box and use logic, not violence to progress through the game. Even more violent games like the stealth-genred Hitman and Thief series, require a degree of finesse from the player to move smoothly through the levels. Planning is necessary and so is timing; patience and intelligence is rewarded with a better rating after the mission.
The Wii is popularizing cooking games thanks to its motion sensing controller, so players can whirl their arms to simulate beating eggs into a bowl on screen. While you won't become a gourmet chef overnight, these cooking games can give people a general understanding of the ingredients necessary for a certain dish, so if they ever try it out in the kitchen, they aren't completely lost. Given age where people love to say, almost braggingly, that they can't cook, a few hints on how to roast a chicken isn't such a bad thing.
Better reflexes, staying calmer under pressure, and thinking more logically are a few benefits that gamers can receive from the right games. While these traits may not completely carry over to the real world. But I just want people to be aware that while the media may always point out the bad in video games, there are also positive aspects to them as well.
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Editor's Note: I will point out a news story in which the training received in at military style game allowed a young man to stop on the road where an accident had happened. He was able to quickly and accurately do triage on the victims before the EMT units arrived. He also was able to inform them of each person's condition, leading them to those needing immediate care. The medics were amazed by his accuracy, calmness and ability to stablize those injured. Later it came out the the young man had taken extra training in game to become a medic for his team. Those extra hours gave him real life skills and having used them fequently in-game, he was confident of his ability in real life when he was faced with a serious situation.
Anyone that says all game play is a waste of time, needs to reavaluate there's judgements. Even some doctors are using games to become more agile, quick and accurate which transfers over to their surgical tasks. So - Got game?
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