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Apocalypse Tribe HQ _ The Lounge _ gamers are good works

Posted by: Alisha Dec 9 2005, 02:04 PM

http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=5883

http://www.gamesarefun.com/news.php?newsid=5885

discuss

edit i fucked up the title and cant fix it

Posted by: HC82 Dec 9 2005, 08:38 PM

Some good reads.

Games make good workers:
Not entirely true for most games and jobs. Games as a genre on whole can have different decision making aspects in them that are beneficial, but just playing games in general will not improve any an individual in any job settings. The decisions that are made in differings jobs are often times too dynamic. The individual who makes this comments fails to take into consideration the procedual process of the brain when making decisions and which part of the brain is actively making these choices when faced with a gaming choices and a RL choice in a job situation. In the corporate world, this point can be argued for or against gaming depending on the job situation.

Allow me to elaborate...
When playing an online game that is twitch based or action based in nature, you make rapid decisons all the time. These decisions, however, are reflex based and more physical in nature. They require less analytical decision making for long term outcomes and more short term decision making that is both visual and reflex based. Now, a decision that can affect the future is considered long term, but the time frame of a such a decision might be made in a short time frame, or is a short term decision. Gamers think of the "now" when playing an action game, not the "then."

"Oh, SHIT. They flanked me on the left and threw a grenade my way."

You quickly look at visually which way to go and make an analytical choice as to which way to go and how to handle the situation. You are ANALYZING, but it's a short term reflex action, that uses little foresite into the future as a whole, but only as each decision you make unfolds, you then make another decision.

So you jump out the way of the grenade... then you think I need to kill the guy, so you aim your gun and shoot... then you see him shooting you, so when you land you strafe.

You don't think of those 3 actions above in one single thought process, but each one flows after the other continuously. These actions are more instinct then analytical.

Example:
It can be likened to a baseball flying at you and you have only seconds to react. Do you catch it, move out the way, or duck under it? At that moment you factor which one is the better. It's analytical in a way that is heavily oriented with keeness of instinct, not the type of short term decision making a manager of Human Resources would make, which could be factoring humanistic and psychological choices that require no physical actions.

MMORPGs on the other hand could be seen as quite the opposite.

My point is that this article's claim is WAAAAAY to vague and doesn't take a multitude of physiological and psychological factors into play for both jobs and gaming. Two different jobs can require a quick short term decision, but the part of the brain that is doing the crunching could be totally different (example: A manager at a Burger King who has to quickly satisfy an angry customer, which is more psychologicslly intuitive versus an athlete playing basketball, which is more reflexive.)

Anyway, I still feel this article is good because gaming gets more bad publicity then good and some points he brings up are true in certain instances

Take Two interactive:

The guy's a douche bag, what can I say?