Games make you smarter?

[Zeus]

Looks like some real research has been done now

http://xbox.ign.com/articles/627/627505p1.html

[Julius Seeker]

I can agree that videogames improve hand-eye co-ordination, however, I do not feel that interaction with videogames does much for intelligence. Rather, I feel mind numbing games such as sports, racers, and fighters might actually be counter productive for intelligence. Whereas an RPG/Adventure which incorporates problem solving and puzzles would be better for intelligence. Also, I do not believe in the accuracy of the comment about finding tennagers with poor grades who play videogames is rare; it is rare to find ANY guy under 30 who does not play videogames nowadays.

Also, I do not think that people like the Columbine Killers were made that way because of Doom, as I said years before, it is that games like Doom and Quate attract people with those kinds of social disorders.

[SineSwiper]

You obviously don't play fighting games right. Fighting games employ an advanced level of strategy and hand-eye cooridination. They encourage quick thinking, and instinctive problem solving comparible to a faster version of real-time strategy games.

The key to playing fighters is not simply mastering combos, but understanding the opponent, how he plays and what methods are available to counteract his style of playing. Psycological warfare also plays a good part of the game. (A good friend of mine co-wrote a Tekken Psychology 101 FAQ for Tekken 3. Also, the "third time's a charm" rule seems to work a lot: Do two moves/combos in a row, expect the opponent to think that you're going to do it a third time, watch him try to counter the third move, then counter his counter without actually doing the third move.)

[Zeus]

I can agree that videogames improve hand-eye co-ordination, however, I do not feel that interaction with videogames does much for intelligence. Rather, I feel mind numbing games such as sports, racers, and fighters might actually be counter productive for intelligence. Whereas an RPG/Adventure which incorporates problem solving and puzzles would be better for intelligence. Also, I do not believe in the accuracy of the comment about finding tennagers with poor grades who play videogames is rare; it is rare to find ANY guy under 30 who does not play videogames nowadays.

Also, I do not think that people like the Columbine Killers were made that way because of Doom, as I said years before, it is that games like Doom and Quate attract people with those kinds of social disorders.

So, me trying to figure out the correct method of linking skids and taking the right path through the cones (speed, braking, handbrake, etc. are all a part of the equation) in Project Gotham is mind numbing and doesn't use some problem solving/anticipation/observation skills? Sports games such as football and baseball (pitching), which also require strategy in order to play someone else who's good or to beat a difficult computer setting, is counter productive? And Sine pretty much destroyed your "fighters are more than button mashing" implication. You obviously don't really understand those games or are just pitting your own personal bias against them and using this article as ammunition.

These guys are university professors and grad students who did a comprehensive study, they probably noticed things you and I couldn't. I somehow think they wouldn't go public if they didn't do some comprehensive testing and report on it. Speaking of that, I'd like to see the full report now....

[Julius Seeker]

Well, I DO find 2D fighters (3D fighters I like a lot better), sports titles, and racers (which lack weapons) to be rather mind numbing. I find that they have a low learning curve, and do not require a lot of thought to get through. 2D fighters do rely a lot on button mashing (at least the ones I played, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Killer Instinct) because the goal of them is to make as many damage points on a 2D plane in front of an opponent as possible. 3D fighters are different, a player is required to out-manuever an opponent, someone who button mashes in Soul Calibur will get slaughtered, they might get a lucky 1 or 2 hits in, but that is because there is a full 3 dimensional plane. Some sports games are a lot better than others, I enjoy playing soccer, tennis, volleyball, and hockey, but not much else.

Adventure games though, it is constantly a different environment and you need to process in the new information. Some RPGs are repetetive, but I think most aren't. An game like Lufia 2, Zelda, Castlevania, or Vagrant Story always has a player thinking. Games that require a lot of leveling up usually don't though, but during the times when you are moving forward they are. I do believe that Final Fantasy 8 is an RPG that develops intelligence because there is so much more memory work involved in it than any other Final Fantasy game; I've probably clocked in 150 hours into that game alone through 4+ playthroughs; I can tell you just about what anything will refine into, and where to find those items, that's thousands of things to remember right there; and there's more, on higher levels you get better items, or rarer items more frequently, I haven't played the game on a level more than 50 or so before, so I don't really know about that yet, but studying an FAQ could probably get you that information.

Anyways, I could go on, but I don't have time for it at this moment. This is my opinion, it won't change, but don't let that stop you from posting your own opinion on games.

[Don]

I don't know if I can agree playing games make you smarter but I feel that playing RPG makes me feel dumber all the time because to enjoy the plot of most RPGs you've to suspend all logic and reason.

And I don't think playing a puzzle to open a door makes you smarter either.

[Tortolia]

Article in today's Post about the guy who wrote the book mentioned in the IGN article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01458.html

[Julius Seeker]

I don't know if I can agree playing games make you smarter but I feel that playing RPG makes me feel dumber all the time because to enjoy the plot of most RPGs you've to suspend all logic and reason.

And I don't think playing a puzzle to open a door makes you smarter either.

Heh, so Don believes that RPG's make you retarded =)

I can see where you are coming from in that sense. I do feel that really good RPGs should have an interesting story and engaging gameplay of a sort. I do believe that RPGs, platformers, and adventures do expand your mind in a similar way to a book. They force you to use several different portions of your memory (video, audio, etc...) and that causes your brain to change in a similar to when you read a book. I know every inch of a few RPGs, Final Fantasy 8, Chrono Trigger, Earthbound, Skies of Arcadia.... So I do believe that playing those games has forced usage of memory to a fairly large extent. Not only that, but I do remember a large portion of tunes from those games; I can think of almost any song from Final Fantasy 8 whenever I want. Lets just say that the information in one of those large 2 MB FAQs that people write on the game is all in my memory as well, and more. I suppose not all the information because, as I said, there's a lot of stuff I have yet to explore, but do not have the patience for it as I don't think it matters as much to me as the stuff I already do know.

[SineSwiper]

Comparitively speaking, any RTS would be more intelligent than the average RPG. The only RPG I've played that reaches that level of strategy would be Xenosaga 2, and even then, only on a basic level.

It's all a matter of how long it would take to master said game. It takes about 10 minutes to master the battle engine of any RPG. It can take years to master some fighter games and RTS, because there's always some other strategy to beat. Just the simple fact that you're competing against humans already adds a level of intelligence to the game. Competing against a simple monster/boss attack pattern is child-like.

As to your comparison to books, a recent book has challenged the notion that TV is bad for you, since the plot lines and twists are much more complex than 25 years ago. Also, despite the length of most RPGs, they wouldn't even fit a 100-page book, unless you put in 75 pages of fighting in dungeons.

EDIT: Nevermind, same author, same book. Man, this guy has been getting some serious PR: NPR, Daily Show, and now Washington Post.

[Don]

Writing as a whole has not changed much in the last 25 years. I do not see any reason why plot has to have evolved. I see no technological barrier to having the most complicated story on even the NES.

RTS aren't anymore complicated than RPGs due to the real time nature. Most RTS also do not emphasize on defense and hard counters which also reduces the complexity.

Also there's also the assumption that complex is good, which is flawed to begin with. Longer is also not better. You can take a dinner scene in Grandia 2 and drag it out to 20 pages just describing how the food was prepared but this isn't of interest to most people.

[Julius Seeker]

It depends on the RTS as well. A lot of them are just "build 50 Hydralisks and 10 Guardians, and wipe out the enemy. Have your lurkers guarding."

With RPGs though, it is a lot more than just the story or the gameplay system, there is also all the areas to explore, all the people to meet, various other details that require memory.

[SineSwiper]

It depends on the RTS as well. A lot of them are just "build 50 Hydralisks and 10 Guardians, and wipe out the enemy. Have your lurkers guarding."

Gee, that was a grossly simplified description of StarCraft. It may have had its balance flaws, but at least it's the time of strategy that people would talk about. And yes, the speed of the game makes a big difference, Don. Thinking fast requires more training on your brain than thinking slow.

RPGs? "Yeah, just have her heal, use <insert most damaging spell>, watch out for that special attack."

With RPGs though, it is a lot more than just the story or the gameplay system, there is also all the areas to explore, all the people to meet, various other details that require memory.

Why is memory such a big deal, and why would an RPG that much memorization? All of these RPGs baby you into the next plotline, and if they don't, it's usually bad design since you would get lost.

Writing as a whole has not changed much in the last 25 years. I do not see any reason why plot has to have evolved. I see no technological barrier to having the most complicated story on even the NES.

Yeah, because I remember that games like Pong and Frogger had such deep plotlines! Actually, I was talking about TV, but it doesn't matter because it would apply to both. Dragon Warrior isn't exactly the same calibre of plot as, say, any recent FF game, or the XG/XS series. Actually, just about any recent RPG would beat out Dragon Warrior, or FF1, or Wanderers from Ys, or Zelda 1, or any other NES game, in terms of storyline.

I understand you like to play the Devil's Advocate, but at least have some ground to stand on if you are going to do that.

[Don]

The problem with memory being relevant in RPG is that most of the time it's like you're supposed to remember a seemingly completely irrelevant comment 20 hours later after it's spoken to apply it. Things like that are just asking for strategy guides as opposed to intelligence.

[SineSwiper]

Especially today's games. It seems like you're required to have a guide for half of the RPGs out there, or they assume that you already have an Internet connection to GameFAQs.

[Don]

Do you think that since the days of NES people who write the plots for games suddenly become better story writers due to some inevitable technological progress? Maybe on the NES you'd ran out of space to put the words in if things get really big but from SNES on you have 4MB to work with (or was it 4MBits?) which is plenty for text. At any rate why does plot twist need technology to evolve? If you put Xenogears as a text-based game like say Radical Dreamers for SNES the story complexity would still be exactly the same.

As far as RTS goes, fast paced != strategy. If you're locked in a game with dominating strategies then it doesn't matter how fast you think, it's still not going to matter. This is how Warcraft 3 turns out to be where you can build units with complete neglect to whatever the enemy is doing as long as you pay attention to creeping.

Starcraft actually has reasonably hard counters at least in the beginning of BWs (pre BW Zerg anything was the dominating strategy) so you can actually get some interesting games going until the dominating strategies like 36 Dragoons strat that came out toward the end of competitive SC that pretty much automatically counters everything except the 37 Dragoons counter strat.

[Zeus]

Article in today's Post about the guy who wrote the book mentioned in the IGN article.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01458.html

Good article. Just gives you his point of view and leaves their own opinion out of it. Fox could learn a thing or two from this guy :-)

[Don]

I think Terranigma is the only game I've played that make sense in the 'memory' aspect.

For example you go to Loire (the main city) and there's always a flower selling girl at the front who says 'buy a flower, it makes a penguin happy and a little girl smile." This is long before you'll ever get to Penguina or talk to Chika but because she's in the 'first person you should always talk to when you go into town' position, it's easy to remember when you do get to Penguina that there was a flower selling girl in Loire that has something to do with penguins. When you look for the Starstones I never talked to Meihou but some places just stood out more as places you should look first, like Aires Rock, Astarica, Neotokio, and Dryvale. When you go there before you're supposed to look for the Starstones there isn't this big sign like "This place holds the balance of everything that possibly matters, but not right now. Come back later!" but on the other hand it isn't something so nebulous that you've no possible way of figuring it out later (best example I can think of is in BoF1 to get Agni you've to go back to a water spring that has absolutely no significance whatsoever).

RPGs are so much about pieceing useless hints together, it's becoming a game where if you hear someone talk about something totally pointless (e.g. "I saw aliens yesterday!"), chances are it's needed for some secret sometime later.