As a 26-year-old man, people often look at me funny when I tell them I’m a gamer. I can almost see the thought bubble arising above their heads saying “a gamer?! What a loser!” For some reason, certain people immediately think I’m wasting my life on a medium that ‘rots the brain’.
Yep, despite the fact that most of these supposedly well-adjusted “adults” who wouldn’t touch gaming with a ten foot pole get home from work and allow reality TV to numb their brains to about four percent above clinically dead, they still feel justified in shitting on how I spend my time.
As you can probably glean, I’m proud to be a gamer. Why? Because gaming is awesome on pretty much every level. Apart from usually being riotously fun, games can take you away from the stresses of modern life, they can provide a sense of achievement, and they can present stories to their audiences that can be just as moving and emotionally resonant as a movie.
But apart from that, were you aware that, according to several recent studies, gaming can actually make you smarter, more sociable and generally better equipped to deal with day to day life? Well they can. That’s why when people tell me gaming is for losers, I tell them that they’re probably about as wrong as they could ever possibly be about anything.
Gaming is for winners. And here are ten reasons why.
We are currently seeking Gaming contributors on WhatCulture. To find out more about the perks of being a Gaming contributor, click here.
16 Comments
i agree on lateral thinking but most games are a bit too rigid. i mean how many games wont allow you to open a door without a key, yet you have various explosives in your inventory ;) or a swift kick could do it!
I am a former classroom teacher and have taught some of the gamers of which you speak; and they are smart and good students IF they can apply the learned gaming skills to educational skills. My 25 year old son, who is now teaching high school business classes sent me this article. You make excellent and I believe valid points – it’s a new world and if this is how children learn, then it is time that teachers wake up and learn to teach to this degree. Thank you.
its a rip off from another site, ive also noticed lately that alot of other reviews and threads pop up on this site, seems someones not actually bothering to do any work and stealing others hard work. but anyway back to the review, i honestly think gaming does effect peoples real life, but i dont think it improves anything, the very few games out there like brain training games are the only ones that really actually keep your brain active, the only other things youll learn these days is how to hide in a corner and shoot at people with a gun…. and you still wouldnt be able to do it real life just because you could in game, games arnt realistic enough yet to actually train people to use or do things in real life, though they could be in alot of senses
Thank you for reading. I think it’s about time people stopped immediately jumping on games as evil, or worse, pointless, simply because they don’t understand a single thing about them. It’s easy to attack that which you don’t understand, but when there are actually benefits to gaming that ignorance is stopping you from seeing, something’s got to give.
Ignorance in point: above.
I find team skills a key factor in gaming/life skills. Being able to communicate to your teamates to accomplish the objective in the quickest and most efficient manner. Being able to share and raison your supplies and brainstorm ideas to accomplish the objective is a life skill that could come in handy even if you don’t know your doing even it. For example Battlefield 3. If you have a support player handing ammo to your recon and your medic always looking out for you, your team will be invincible! This may come naturally because your class is specifically told you to do so (medic-revive people, support-give ammo, engineer-repair vehicles, recon-shoot people who are a long way away).
I have been a gamer all of my life, and I can agree on some of your points.
Thanks to games like Halo, Crash Bandicoot, Kingdom Hearts, and Dragon Ball Z, I learned skills such as observation, memories, timing, treasure hunting, perseverance, etc.
But the bad part of gaming is that I can get a bit aggressive and get irritated (I’m looking at you Halo 3). Of course, I would not get angry like a raging psychopath.
u also left out that games can increase ones hand-eye co-ordination. shooters especially improve this. in a survey it found that doctors who play video games have a 37% less chance of performing an error in surgery than those who dont.
Why isn’t the great Starcraft not mentioned, quite simply disappointed with no mention of Starcraft.
Stanford has numerous published studies which validate and exceed points made in this article .
Fantastic article! I would’ve recommended this article to my parents 10 years ago had it been possible. “All those screens will rot your brain,” they said with a laugh. Haha Mom & Dad.
Oh my, you really did have a very good points Stuart, and all your team here in WhatCulture really got a journalist skills, looks like really did a very concrete research before lining up your words here. First article I read eventually regarding Resident Evil 6, and later this one. Wow, keep up good work guys.
completely agree especially about the point you nrought up about GTA if you move to a new town then you will remember certain landmarks to guide you, such is the way in open world gaming, getting to an area that is new but you remember the landmark then you will rememeber the quicker or safer route from their and the more you explore the easier this becomes and the more you remember, i also agree about creativity i play a lot of forza and spend more time being creative and designing and modifying cars, this creativity lets you step out of the box and can reflect on real life situations explring something first hand can be a bad idea in real life so getting better at it in gaming first learning what goes right will reflect in real life experiences, overall great article!
Excelent article. Congratulations. If you think you are an aged gamer by being 26 years old, what is left for me: I’m a 39 years old hardcore gamer! I thankfully play since 1984 when I get my first Atari 2600… And it has been just great! All my four children are gamers as well and all of us enjoy great times together! Cheers! And sorry for any english mistakes (I’m from Brazil).
i agree with lateral thinking , one example is the hitman series.
This is really true because i played many gamnes and now i understand about how important is friendship,family,and useless wars its better we wars in game were nobody dies dont we?? And games make people experience so they won’t make mistake in real life