Positive Aspects of video gaming

[Brutha]

Sometime ago we learned in the past that girls can maybe get equal ability his math as boys through playing the computer game Medal of honor.
We now learned that doctors who play more than 3 hrs per week make 37% less mistakes when the perform surgery.

Playing computer games could be a effective use of time for some people who want to work on their personal development.

[Taikin]

Those findings are very interesting but I'd be hesitant to agree that gaming is 'effective' for PD. At least not any more effective than any active leisure activity.

Older video games do nothing for maths skills but with their lack of save options I think they may well increase a person's patience. The number of times I remember dying on Sonic and having to start from the beginning all over again...it's amazing how often and how well I dealt with that repeated frustration at eight and nine years old.

It's funny you bring this up as only yesterday I was wondering about whether people who are drawn to PD are also drawn to certain genres of game or are inclined to play games a certain way: I'm thinking mainly of RPGs.
In role-playing games, especially the Final Fantasy series, the player spends hours just checking on character stats and deliberating making their characters practice skills such as fighting so the characters gain more and more experience which then improves the characters.

There's a mild strategic element to it, but I personally find levelling characters up just satisfying in itself. As long as there's some enemy yet to defeat, some ability yet to gain or some award yet to earn I feel almost a need to make characters as strong as possible. Similarly there's a term I've heard, 'completionists', applied to gamers who 100% complete their games - which with modern games is no quick or easy task.

So...yeah, I'm more interested in a possible personality link between personal development and gaming - though for the moment it's a very light off-the-cuff idea.

[cardano]

All video games require active participation from the player, which to me is learning (on how to play a game, or to be better at it) and is in some form PD.

Speaking as a professional game designer, I don't know if people who are actively into PD are attracted to any specific game genre. But I do echo Taikin that rpg is more attractive, as not only will a player feel connected to his/her avatar, but the positive reinforcement the rpg can bring when the avatar becomes mentally and physically stronger over time.

[Paul C]

I've wonder about this connection between personal development and games as well, specifically RPG's, as mentioned already. Video games can do their part as a teaching tool. Although, I feel that the potential for the medium, as a whole, is severely under used. Any innovations that do take place within games are more often than not in the minor category, rather than the major one. That's not to say they don't happen, just not often enough (Portal comes to mind as a game that leans far more towards major innovation, rather than just the usual gimmick inclusions that FPS's are known so well for).

Virtual environments could be leveraged so much to teach abstract concepts, or otherwise do things that would be more within domain of a lucid dream (nowhere as potent or immersing as a lucid dream or the imagination, though). Once virtual reality becomes a norm within video games, the possibilities for the medium will no doubt expand greatly, making it's usability far broader than that of just gamers.

It's a matter of how much of your time you're willing to invest within a video game verses doing something more specifically focused on building the skills you want to improve, if that's your own motivation for playing a game in the first place (assuming that fun may not be a high motivation).

[Trezker]

Originally Posted by Taikin

100% complete their games - which with modern games is no quick or easy task.

Depends a lot on what game it is. Some modern games are ridiculously short IMHO, and a lot of gaming of just a grind with no challenge. Now that games is an industry they are made smooth and with established practices a lot of the time. If you beat one you can beat all the others.

I think the old video games where much harder to complete. You couldn't save, there was lots of places where you needed that perfect jump where you can never be 100% certain of success. Try beating Outrun or Ghosts'n'goblins on your first try.

In the old days, no game developer was afraid of making the players so frustrated they could eat shoes. Now most producers don't want to make anyone feel uncomfortable, they want their customers to have smooth sailing through the game and just enjoy the shiny graphics.

There are still some of those really frustrating games though, like Ninja Gaiden.