Can games help people?

[jetpackgone]

Tai_MT, I've never tried Scorched Earth or Gunpei, but I think I've played a similar game before. Physics is definitely a crucial part to playing the game, but I'm not sure how much knowledge in physics the player will take away. They may gain an intuitive feel for classical mechanics with projectile trajectories and how different forces will affect them, but I'm not sure they'll gain an understanding of things like the relationship among position, velocity, and acceleration, or work, or kinetic energy, etc. Would that count as learning physics?

Kaiju Master, I've used Mavis Beacon once waaaay back. Typing games were definitely helpful for me!

BoluBolu, that makes good sense. I guess games provide a form of escapism or just a quick break from everything else going on in life, but playing a game with others is definitely my favorite way to play a game! Even if we aren't playing a video game, spending time with others can be the best stress relief, I think.

hahaha yes, I know exactly what you mean about RPG games causing more stress! That's when I remind myself that it's just a game and not to take it too seriously.

Chiara, yeah, games have helped me through stressful times too. It feels good to just take a break from reality's struggles once in a while, and I think it's even better when you can take something away from the game that will help you with those struggles. I admire games that challenge their players in ways that can actually help them grow as people. I haven't played any Bioware games, but maybe I'll take a look when I have time! Any recommendations of particularly thought-provoking ones?

I hope things improve for you soon Keep fighting and hold onto that drive!

 

[Another Ned]

I haven't played any Bioware games, but maybe I'll take a look when I have time! Any recommendations of particularly thought-provoking ones?

I hope things improve for you soon Keep fighting and hold onto that drive!

I'm not sure about the definition of thought-provoking, but Dragon Age 2 did try some interesting things in regards to Narrative Design. Sadly, the game's not as good as it could have been (rushed product, among other things), but I was kinda intrigued by its "Yeah, you're the hero of the story, but actually, you're not. You're just the guy/gal who fixes whatever your companions broke" mentality.

As a player, your choices affect people (NPCs) more than they do the actual plot/surroundings. And sometimes, no matter what you do, they still make you help them. Feels fascinatingly close to life.

The party members also kind of act on their own. Like real people, they mess up and then ask for help. They do not exist to please the player so to speak and while the game could have executed things better, I applaud the developers' decision to do it this way. Lots of interesting things to learn when playing with a game dev hat on, too (including things not to do).

And thanks for the kind words.

Thanks to you too, @Miffy6000.

 

[Sennie]

No problem,

 

[Tai_MT]

Personally, I think if you do something so much that you can "naturally intuit" how it works in principle and practice...  Then you've actually learned something.  Scorched Earth is basically learning physics without all the cumbersome math and billions of variables.  Like Billiards, Scorched Earth teaches people about trajectories, surfaces, friction, air speed, etcetera.  Likewise, if you play the game and don't come away with the fact that 45º is the optimal angle to achieve the furthest distance on a projectile in a no wind and nearly no friction situation...  Well, then you just didn't learn much playing it.

The game doesn't flat out tell you these things, but when you've got something like 100 games under your belt, you've learned a fair bit about how physics actually works without having to crunch a ton of numbers.  Granted, since the "power level" is fairly vague, you can't actually do very many formulas to begin with.  However, I do think if you've already got a degree in physics or know a lot of the basic formulas before playing, you could actually be pretty destructive and amazing at the game compared to those who "intuit" physics.

 

[jetpackgone]

Hm, you have a point. They would be able to take away a better understanding of physics, but I think that understanding can only go so deep. The mathematics behind physics are important to describing rates and relationships between different parameters. Some of these could be learned through playing the game, but I don't think all of them could, unless the player made an active effort to specifically determine all the rules of physics in the game. But even so, I guess the player will still be able to learn physics through the game.

 

[Touchfuzzy]

Man, I just love hearing someone else mention Scorched Earth. MIRVS! DEATHS HEAD!

 

[Tai_MT]

For a long time, Scorched Earth was my absolute favorite game.  It was so simplistic in execution and I had never played a game before that allowed destruction and creation of terrain...  Then there were the games where I gave everyone the max money and we all bought Death's Heads and just obliterated each other, ourselves, and the battlefield.

Great times.

One of the few games to ever be created where losing can be as spectacularly awesome as winning.  Also, sometimes hilarious.

 

[hian]

I learned English by playing RPGs. If it hadn't been for games like Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy, Suikoden, Breath of Fire etc. I probably wouldn't have had the proficiency I had when I went through my primary and secondary education in Norway.

(Now it's all bonkers though, since I grew up with British English, then migrated to U.S English, and then scrambled my brains learning Japanese)

Having played many of those games growing up (from 6 years of age and upwards) I managed to always get top grades in English at school despite hardly ever studying.

They were also a big part of motivating me to read in general, and probably had some impact on my general problem-solving skills and ability to remember information easily, and for that reason I general had top grades in most subjects at school while never really paying attention in class, or doing homework.
I might be wrong about the last part though - maybe I'm just genetically lucky =P

So yeah, games can definitely be of help to people whether they've been made to be so intentionally or not.

All that being said, I think people should be careful about over-emphasizing the value of secondary benefits from gaming, as that quickly detracts from games having value in and of themselves as entertainment.

Too often, people try to hold games accountable for lacking value above and beyond the visceral entertainment value (especially people among the far right, and far left of the political spectrum), but that is to create (or play into) the false premise that art cannot hold value as just art (as in just being aesthetically pleasing or emotionally gratifying) , but only in terms of its use-value relation to propagating ideas, cultural identity, political messages and so forth.

I thinks that's something we ought to be careful about because all of the latter output can be done without the use of art to begin with - furthermore, there is something pernicious about the use of part to propagate such outputs because it immediately obfuscates what is being said and adds a heavy layer of emotional appeal that detracts from the argument the creator is trying to make by having it looks shady and insincere (there is a reason propaganda I.E blatant political art is viewed in such a negative light).

Take reaction/response-time improvements from gaming - do they improve? Yes. Do they improve in concert with motor-skills needed for that increase to have any practical application? In the vast majority of cases, no.

If you want to get better at catching a pass in Basketball for instance, just having the improved response-time is pointless because you also need the eye-hand coordination, and physical fine motor-skills to match.

So what's more constructive? Spending time playing games, and then playing catch-up by practicing basket? Or just skipping the video-games and focusing on basket? Probably the latter.

Of course, for more academical pursuit, educational games can have a lot of value with kids who have trouble concentrating on abstract problem-solving assignments that don't hold their interest in the slightest.

As a tool for learning languages, math, history and so forth, it can be priceless.

At the end of the day though - it's important to remember, as a player, what you're playing the game for, as a developer, what kind of game you're making, and as a society, that games can exist in many different equally valid formats, and that no one format is necessarily more valuable nor right than the other.

There is room for pretty much everything, and everyone in gaming.

 

[Oddball]

so laughing man, what kind of help are you looking to incoorperate in you game? or are you just wanting a general knowlage to draw from later?

 

[C-C-C-Cashmere (old)]

Yes.

Edit: To elaborate, I think I need to pull from a greater view about art that I have. I think that art is therapeutical and has a huge huge impact on our lives. Art itself is sometimes seen as entertainment, but sometimes it also seeks to make an impression and send a message. I believe that the observation of art shapes us today. Culture is shaped by art.

I would classify games as art, because it is an artistic output from our creativity and it intends to make a statement, no matter how small or how subconscious. Inherently, games help people because they lift their spirits (generally). However, some games are art and they help people to understand higher concepts.

This may seem shallow to you, but The Walking Dead: The Telltale Series changed my viewpoint on a few things. It helped me to understand a father's love for their child, even if it's not their own child, and how much they would go to protect that child. It helped me to further realise what humanity means to each other, because set in an apocalyptic setting where people are forced to survival, what traits emerge? The need for our own survival, or the need to help others? I think that's one of the things that often goes unseen in a person, is their heroism and selflessness. Sometimes I think about the game, even subconsciously, to help me create judgements about the world around me. In that sense, it has become a tool to help me assess life more correctly and live a better life.

Other than providing tools for people to better assess the world, they may also inspire passions in people. For example, Surgeon Simulator might make a person want to be a surgeon because they discover they really like it. Or Farming Simulator might make a person move out to the fields and buy a tractor, thus making them in an occupation that pleases them.

I was helped in a different way. Braid helped me realise that there was massive potential in the field of indie gaming, and became the high watermark of game design that I still strive for. I know that if I come up with a concept as brilliantly imaginative and fully realized as Braid was, then I've done my job. In that sense, games can help game developers by providing a high watermark for them to set their goals towards.

 

[BurningSunMedia]

I don't know if this would qualify as self-promotion but our company ABSOLUTELY believes games can help people for numerous reasons. We just finished an educational game called "Conservationist of the Year" and I have a whole list of things that we learned can help people that we never even thought of when designing the game.

1) The game is science related and can be (and has been) used to help teachers entertain kids that otherwise wouldn't want to learn about crop rotations or forest health.

2) Because RPGMaker allowed us to create a fun game without millions of dollars in software, it allowed low-budget conservation agencies to use our games for outreach items that they otherwise could never dream of affording.

3) It helped us as artists to expand our idea of what "art" is. We've always been told that games are games and nothing more, but that isn't what hours and hours of mapping and character development showed us. Art is putting your passion into something visual that is meant to be shared with others. Even better in our opinion if it also entertains as a video game!!

4) It brought my team closer together as partners as well as friends. Late night dinners discussing spriting and parallaxing actually translated into stronger relationships for all of us.

So yes, unequivocally, games can help people. 

This "2-cents essay" brought to you by Burning Sun Media, LLC haha.

 

[jetpackgone]

Thank you everyone for sharing your thoughts!

Balance in all things and everything has its time and place. I see video games as a medium with its strengths and weaknesses, which I think @hian made this pretty clear. The way they can inspire through immersive experience like @Cashmere Cat described is one such strength.

@Oddball, i was just asking for my general knowledge. I was wrestling with the good and bad of games and what I could do in game development, so I wanted to hear the thoughts of others. I haven't worked the things that were brought up into my current game, but I will seriously consider them in future projects.

haha thanks, @BurningSunMedia. I'm learning similar things about art and building relationships through my project too!

 

[Oddball]

I'm planning on putting memory puzzles into my game. Not too many though, or too difficult because that isn't something most people enjoy. But improving memory can be translated into a lot of things. improving memory can improve the hippocampus, which processes information. this can lead to better inductive reasoning skills

 

[MarikuJunrei]

This topic is very dear to my heart hehe as video games have helped shape who i am and basically raise me,hell i even learned how to read playing FF7 and to fight for what i believe in and pass it on in MGS,  Yes Video Games are seen as merely something to do recreationally just for entertainment but in theory Video Games are the art of experiences, when you make a video game you are making an experience even if you don't arbitrarily think so. for that moment when you play that game you are no longer you you are that character living their life solving their problems whether it be sneaking into an enemy base and taking on giant robots or trying to save your sister from a diabolical madman hell bent on ravaging the world of its resources when you have completed that game that you now possess that games skillset to the [nth] degree 

Just because its a game doesn't mean you can't teach without teaching infact video games are the best teachers without teaching because innately if a person is interested in a game they will study it and learn its ways to get better at it  for instance number crunching and weak points in Rpg's hmm if i use X skill with Y weapon my stats will be Z unless enemy is type A then i should use Weapon Y2  because Enemy type A is weak to this type and thus the player learns how to strategize to maximise their potential.

you can further this by taking real world situations and gamifying them. placing the player in a situation that could possibly happen in real life and reward them for making the right decisions in order to move forward.

you can make games that teach people how to budget and manage resources, games that teach people how to program or how to be better at math, games that can truly expound and stretch  the fabrics of ones imagination and Inspire them to be the best who they ought to be, the moral of your game can address a real world crisis and work towards a way to fix such problem, your game can destroy barriers between race and gender, language and ideal and bring people together because they experienced your game.  these are the things i think about what game development truly is, like music, like art, like literature it can turn into something way bigger than what we planned. they can mold and shape the future by setting a new standard its up to you how you want to make it 

i got a bit carried away with that speech xD  the feels are real 

 

[whitesphere]

I read an excellent article recently about educational use of ARGs (Alternate Reality Games).  For those who don't know, ARGs basically involve real world clues which lead players on a scavenger hunt which involves things like cryptic clues written on noteboards, brief calls from anonymous pay phones, and even people you interact with who are "in" the game but you can only find out by getting a password ---- which comes from these cryptic trails scattered through cyberspace (fake web sites) and realspace.  The clues often require complex puzzle solving to unravel.

A very motivated (and awesome) teacher used an ARG to teach kids about his subject matter (I think it was the Odyssey), by making an ARG which led his students deep into complex puzzles, clues and such, one of which he was wearing (a real-life Mason pin) and he gave a clue when perceptive students noticed that AND gave him a password buried in the ARG.

What he found was, at the end of the unit, the students not only were (obviously) far more engaged in the subject matter, they scored a lot higher on comprehension of the poem, because they all were so engaged in solving the riddles and such (which required perceptive thinkers, puzzle solving, etc).

 

[Oddball]

Mario is missing!

I read an excellent article recently about educational use of ARGs (Alternate Reality Games).  For those who don't know, ARGs basically involve real world clues which lead players on a scavenger hunt which involves things like cryptic clues written on noteboards, brief calls from anonymous pay phones, and even people you interact with who are "in" the game but you can only find out by getting a password ---- which comes from these cryptic trails scattered through cyberspace (fake web sites) and realspace.  The clues often require complex puzzle solving to unravel.