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Do Videogame Skills Transfer To Real Life?
macshune writes "Lately, I've been wanting to try my hand at firearms, just to see if a youth spent playing Duck Hunt and an adolescence playing FPS games has given me a preternatural shooting ability. This got me thinking, do videogame skills, both reaction-based and of other kinds, transfer to real life? My friends that play D&D are good storytellers, but do games like Counter-Strike build teamwork skills? Inquiring minds want to know!"
Now only if cheat codes transferred to real life!
while true ; do echo this is my sig; done
My first time flying, we flew through a cloud layer heading back to the airport. I flew the approach perfectly, only having to ask where certain knobs were on the kind of plane we were flying.
:-p).
I definitely wouldn't have been able to do that without the hours and hours I spent on MS Flight Simulator (many of which, admittedly, were spent ramming into the Sears Tower in my Cessna
I've found that I've got faster reaction times than most of my friends. I spent a year working at a daycare, and I could consistently catch babies before they fell and hit their heads.
But this discussion begs the question of whether game players develop fast reactions or whether people with fast reactions play games regularly.
I consider myself a pretty good shot (in CS, Day of Defeat, Quake, etc). However, about a while ago I had the opportunity to fire several clips (or magazines? I forget) with a 9mm pistol in a large group of other first time shooters.
When we got the targets back, and the scores were compared, I was significantly below average. I am quite certain that I was well above the average of that groups FPS skills as well.
On the other hand, my good friend, who was a computer gamer but NOT a very good FPS player, joined the military and quickly earned expert marksman qualifications on both rifles and pistols.
There is absolutely no correlation.
no thanks
I found that playing chess on computer has greatly increased my umm... chess playing skills.
They most definitely do. The problem is they get no respect. For example, only people with exceptional leadership and social skills can become great captains in a game like puzzle pirates. But you can't put that on your resume. You'll only get hired on the rare rare rare chance that the person hiring is a player.
Of course other skills go over as well. Problem solving, hand eye coordination, etc. etc. But in this world nobody will care unless you've done something "real".
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
I'd say that many skills from gaming definitely transfer to real world scenarios. Things that I have noticed personally are elements of resource management from RTS's applying to efficient living in the real world. Critical thinking and decision making can be taken away from nearly any game, from snap-decisions in FPS games to strategic ones in Strategy.
I'm not so sure about social skills, but efficient team work definitely grows when playing a team game, regardless of the genre.
Something I've noticed before is that it's not so much the subject of the game that is conveyed to our minds, but the mode of thinking that are minds are forced into after hours of play. We begin to think more like machines, efficient decisions, precise moves, cunning strategies, and these roll over into the real world more than raw knowledge (which is something that edutainment hasn't really touched on yet).
I'd have to say that physical actions are something that have very little chance of transferring to the real world, though. Games are nearly an entirely mental experience, and the player is usually quite detached aside from the usual hand-eye coordination. Firing guns and playing sports are entirely different actions on the screen and off.
I must say from years of FPS, side scrollers, etc... I've become very quick and acurate with my hand to eye (and even foot) skills.
I have played sports for my hole life (hockey, golf, baseball) and I can't deny the relation between the two but I'd have to say it didn't hurt me.
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It depends on what type of shooting you're doing.
Twitch as in skeet or practical pistol, will probably be helped by anything that improves reaction time and hand eye co-ordination.
Logic as in 1500yd or three positional will probably not be helped by having a lightning reflex.
The important question of shoot or not shoot is probably fucked up beyond all recognition in those that play FPS.
"Well officer, the victim suddenly popped up from behind a crate so I fired a warning shot through her chest. Better safe than sorry"
While most PC based sims aren't certified as trainers there is still inherent value in things, like:
*Just shooting landings for a few hours to get the timing and visual cues of things down.
*Planning your cross country and then flying it virtually to make sure you've gotten everthing correct.
*Practicng stalls in a controlled environment
etc... Yes, PC games can give you skills that transfer to real life.
The hands-on aspects of aiming and firing guns probably has nothing to do with FPS skills. On the other hand, I see a strong correlation between people who play FPS's and those who are able to effectively use cover in RL Laser Tag games.
For great justice.
Would you happen to be interested in bowling, too?
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Newton's Third Law (for shooters): Firearms have a big kick. Generally, he bigger the caliber the bigger the kick. Start out with something lower in caliber and work your way up. If you're not careful, your shot will easily go wild and the kick might smack you right in the face. You are resopnsible for where that shot goes! Rather than just running out and buying a gun to try at home I'd suggest that you find an experienced shooter, join a club or take lessons before 'experimenting' with guns, especially handguns. Safety first!
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
Well, as a card carrying member of "I'm most certainly not wasting my time playing video games" club for the last 20+ years, I hope so! ;)
Really though, I think playing all those twitch games (Robotron, zookeeper, etc), racing games (Pole position to Daytona), sports games (Super Breakout (hey, they had a tennis player on the cover) to NFL Street), fighting games (SFII), shooting games (duck hunt to slient scope) etc, have improved my hand-eye coordination skills. In real life, I like to play games which are more hand eye coordination related: golf (10 handicap), tennis, ping-pong, air hockey. Yes, these aren't all the bext example of hand-eye coordination, but more so compared to say sports I hate, such as running, soccer or billiards.
So the question is, do I like these sports because I was born with coordination, because I played video games which improved my coordination and made me better, or did I have coordination to begin with which made me predisposed to video games and hand-eye co-ord related games. I'd like to believe it's the second choice, but as I don't think I have any twins (evil or not) around to have as a control, I'll never know.
0- Eamonman Proud member of DNRC
While I cannot say for certain that skills in video games translate directly into real life, I have personal reasons to believe that they can enhance related skills quite nicely.
Back before college when I used to play a lot of FPS type games, I found that when I stopped to do homework, my ability to do mathematical calculations in my head was significantly improved (albeit temporarily). Some days I stayed "in the zone" even after I was finished with the game and found normally difficult and tedious work to be quite intuitive and natural. Who says video games are bad for your schooling?
It is my believe that this stems from the well known correlation between spatial reasoning skills and mathematical ability. FPS games rely on quick spatial correlations of multiple entities and surrounding barriers, and so it should come as no surprise that many mathematical problems, especially those involving geometry or geometry-based calculus become much clearer after immersing yourself in a dynamic environment like that.
I noticed the same thing with my typing skills improving dramatically while being "in the zone", provided that I did not think too much about what I was typing.
I have fired many different weapons, including an AR-15 with my boss down at the local shooting range, and from my experience it's very different from shooting in an FPS.
Maybe once we have virtual reality the distinction will blur enough that the translation is more evident.
J
Click really fast... not only that, but I can click places on a computer screen very accurately.
...and I can't sit still for more than five minutes.
I can also type "OMG LOL n00b" and "pwned" in an instant (very useful in typing official documents)
...
seem to have a much smaller learning time when using machinery for keyhole surgery, or the various 'scopys.
I can't remember the source (think it was 20/20), but the suggestion was that the abstract skills of manipulating mice/joysticks/etc in games translates well into manipulating the weirdass device used for controlling the camera.
SO that is an affirmative from the medical profession, i guess.
It seems to be on a person-to-person basis. The big problem with analyzing this is you have to see if people are naturally good at something that they have never tried before that is related to a videogame that they do have skill in. You really have no way of knowing if the person would have excelled at the activity without the help of a video game.
A good experiment would be to take two controlled groups of first time marksmen with, say, a pistol. One group with skill at coin op gun games such as Time Crisis and Area 51 and the like. The other group would have no such comparable skill. Send them out to the range and compare the results.
I don't see the correlation, however, between FPS and handgun proficiency, as they are two different types of coordination.
To add my experience to the list: I'm pretty crack at games like Quake 3 but I'm also good at Time Crisis. The first time I went trap shooting and only the second time I had used a firearm I scored 8 out of 10 on the first try.
Xistic
BASE Conflict for Quake 3
If true, maybe "Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?" would be a useful training tool for the CIA and Department of Defense.
I'm fairly certain that the game "Driver" on the (Playstation 1) saved my life - or at least my car.
When you're cruising around the city, Driver is fairly similar to Grand Theft Auto - with the notable exception that the traffic behaves realistically and tries to obeys all the rules of driving - including stopping at intersections for lights. The result is that if you drive up some streets at the wrong time, you get a *lot* of heavy cross-traffic.
At first, when I was driving like crazy and encountered a car in the intersection, I would often swerve the wrong way. If it appeared from the left, I'd swerve to the right. Of course, because we were both moving, I'd T-bone the car almost perfectly. Eventually I learned to judge the speed of the cars and swerve towards the rear of them if their speed was sufficient compared to mine - because I'd have a much greater chance of passing behind them.
Then, one night in real life, as I was driving home on the highway - an elk ran across the road. There was a car in the left lane in front that had just overtaken me, blocking my view of the left lane. The first I saw of the elk was when it entered my lane just in front of that car - it was moving very fast from left to right across my field of vision - several car lengths in front of me.
My instinct was to swerve to the right, but I didn't. I knew that if I did that - and based on the speed that it was moving - I would hit the elk straight on. I swerved left... car submarined to the right, tires loaded up, started squealing... my right wing mirror practically touched the beastie on the backside as I narrowly avoided it... and I straightened the car back up again without going very far out of my lane.
If I'd done nothing, I would have hit the elk on the passenger side of my car. If I'd swerved right (what I know I would have done pre-"Driver"), I would have hit it dead-center at 65mph, a 600lb fully-grown male elk would have come through the windshield of my bottom-of-the range subcompact car - and I'd probably have been made dead. I still think that luck had a little play, but the game "Driver" definitely taught me the reactions that I needed to have in that specific circumstance.
I'm much sexier in my see-through bikinis now that I've played DOA:XBV
I've been an avid FPS gamer since The Catacomb Abyss come out (I was 6 at the time),
and in the past 3 years I've started playing paintball.
I can tell you, being a FPS player gives you no advantage over any other paintball player.
In fact, it might even act as a disadvantage, because playing paintball is so drastically different
both tactically and physically from playing a game, that it is nothing like one would expect it to be.
Paintball plays nothing like a FPS.
In the reverse argument (and going back on topic), I think being a good team leader
in paintball has enabled me to become a better leader in team-based online FPS games.
I was able to practically learn better leadership in real-life, and apply it to computer games.
I've been wanting to try my hand at firearms, just to see if a youth spent playing Duck Hunt and an adolescence playing FPS games has given me a preternatural shooting ability.
You wouldn't happen to be into bowling, too, would you?
Someone arrest this man...
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A friend of a friend bought a Playstation and GranTurismo to learn the tracks. I think he got third in the first race he entered.
Anecdotes are fun, but I'd guess that what you're really asking is if there is any research out there on the transferability of virtual skills into RL. Folks like Dr. Carrie Heeter - http://tc.msu.edu/people/faculty/8 (and no, I haven't asked her permission to post the URL on slashdot so please be kind to her server) might know. I know she did research into a place called "Fighter Town" a few years ago, but I don't think she was looking into transferability of skills.
Come to think of it, I'd bet that DOD has a bunch of solid, repeatable data on the subject; at least as far as driving/flying/submersible simulations go. Any slashdotters out there working in a simulation lab that can talk about their work without being arrested? ;-)
All of those driving skills picked up in Grand Theft Auto (splitting lanes, jumping rivers, shooting pedestrians, etc) come in handy every day!
Seriously though, the ambulance in that game handles terribly compared to the real thing.
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
I think computer games can definitely improve your mental reaction times, and even up your quick tactical thinking skills. Certainly group games can improve your team skills. However, specific physical tasks emulated in a game rarely transfer to real life. Duck Hunt will not make you a pistol marksman, not by far. (By the way, did you ever wonder wtf you were doing shooting ducks with a pistol anyways? Shotguns are for ducks).
Never fear, firearms are an enjoyable hobby that follows the old slogan from that Mastermind boardgame "A minute to learn, a lifetime to master". You'll have great fun with it anyways despite the inapplicability of your Duck Hunt skills.
11*43+456^2
I doubt CS would help much. The recoil effect modelling is pretty bad, there is no gravitational or bullet flight-time effect - the guns are more like lasers than anything else. Day of Defeat is a bit better in the recoil effect, BF1942 has decent bullet flight time modelling.
Personally, I spent a lot of time playing FPSs, and I also got the highest score for marksmanship (Cadet GP) in my cadet days, but I think that's more to do with a childhood shooting air rifles and BBs than Doom.
Many modern gun games at the arcade require you to shoot off screen to reload.
I'd hate to be the guy standing next to the Time Crisis pro at the real shooting gallery. I might just get shot it the head when he thinks his clip is empty.
I think that lots of simulations have some value that is transferrable to the real world, but this tends to be knowledge-based rather than related to motor skills.
I know that formula 1 drivers used to use the old formula 1 grand prix game - not to improve their driving skills, but to learn the layout of tracks. I imagine a golf game could be used in a similar manner by amateurs, prior to playing a course for the first time.
I think that snooker/pool simulations could be useful teaching people the angles involved, use of spin, etc.
For reactions-based stuff I'm not sure... does arkanoid make you better at air hockey?
I guess you not only need an accurate representation of the environment, but also of the interaction mechanism.
gamez mprov my comm skillz!!!1 w00t!
Shooting games. Not your modern FPS mind you, but the old-school overhead dodge-em-ups. Those games require tracking a very large number of objects moving quickly, dismissing anything irrelevant to the situation at hand, estimating positional changes over time, and compensating to avoid collisions. When driving in New York I can feel myself slip into shooter mode, tracking the position of everything moving, calculating collisions, and sliding into open pockets.
Of course, driving in the winter I frequently use years of simulated driving skills when hitting patches of ice. To straighten, let off the gas and turn into the turn. To keep turning, accelerate (assuming RWD) and turn into the turn less. Getting it right is entirely a feel thing.
The ______ Agenda
Ever since playing Daikatana, I've had no problem dispatching the frogs and insects at the bottom of my garden.
Worried you might not keep your virginity forever? Try new Linux(TM), guaranteed twice as effective as LARPing
americas army uses thier video game for exactly this purpose. it is a research tool to investigate if squad based virtual combat will make a soldier that accels "better" in a number of different catatgories. They are not really interested in whether motor skills can transfer. they know they dont and have plenty of research that supports this. the ability of motor skills to generalze to novel situations is well known and somewhat easily predicted. if the simmilarits of the game are close enough to the real thing then the skill will transfer. the question of what is close enough is a minute detail question. common sense can do wonders here, too much theory can muck it up. riding a virtual bike with a joystick is not a skill that will transfer to being able to balance on a bike. but chosing a good route through an envoronment will. the lattter is a more cognitive task the depends on being able to execute the more motoric task of riding a bike. I know studies have shown that general reaction time to targets is improved with fps videogame use but actual transfer of skill such as shooting (aiming at targets) from fps games to actual targets has not held up under scrutiny. you may have a better awareness of targets in a visual field but you will be no more able to shoot them than the average joe. cognitive skills transfer more readily to novel situations than do motor skills. Most of what will transfer from a video game will be cognitive unless the new task involves using a joystick or keyboard/mouse in a simmilar way.
this is not a Sig.
After reading the question, I was prepared to write a response that was very similar. So similar, in fact, that you've pretty much summed up everything that I would have said.
Reading through the many responses, it is obvious that the vast majority of posters are seriously preoccupied with guns. While many games have guns in them, many do not, and, setting all that aside, this is hardly important at all.
What many people fail to realize is that what people really gain from playing games is much more abstract. The things you learn to do don't really have anything to do with actual firearms (or cars, or anything else mentioned). As you have put it, they teach modes of behaivor and ways of thinking.
There are other benefits that deal with general knowledge; that is, you can learned raw facts from a game, but usually this is not the case.
Full Spectrum Warrior is a prime example of a game that'll create skills that will transfer to real life, in theory of course. The game hasn't been released yet, however, the whole idea and concept is to create this realistic simulation. In FSW, you never pull the trigger, its all about strategy. Video games are wonderful for simulating things, they can be EXTREMELY realistic, without the risk of a real situation in life.
Wish I still had mod points, that is hilarious!
While I can't vouch for GT providing me with any real-life reflexes I can say that, after playing it for several days, I start watching road differently when I go for a (real) drive. Things like looking for max-acceleration tracks in curves and corners, finding aggressive passing vectors on the freeway, etc.. Of course, the people in my life think I drive like a bat out of hell anyway, so this is not necessary a Good Thing....
Anyway, my point is that concepts or ways of thinking seem to transfer relatively easily to the real world. But unless the simulator is really, really good and you have access to a simulated environment (eg, a plane's cockpit), you won't get the actual reflexes.
I beleive this last guy hit the nail on the head. The only skills you can transfer from games like CS are the teamwork and other such higher level skills. If everyone in the army could run around and get headshots while shooting from the hip we would rule the world. Thats definatley one thing that dissapoints me as one who was raised beleiving stuff like that. When I get out to the rifle range and my rifle jams 3 times while qualifying I think "Why couldnt this be more like a video game?" However from what I see games are getting better with the teamwork aspect, but they need to stop being so predictable and toss in more variables.
Yarr
Sure they do. I believe my life was saved quite a few times by hundreds, if not thousands of hours I spent playing Need For Speed series. My reaction to the situations was, every time, reflexive... How many times did you put your car into a controlled skid in real life? How many times did you manage to do a 180 degree turn and bring the car to a complete stop without losing control? Do you know what is lift-off oversteer? Can you make your front wheel drive car oversteer? And so on and so forth.
Find out: play paintball! We make a regular yearly outing at my place of work. We're all pretty heavy gamers and first time we did this event we were pretty certain the better FPS players would be the better marksman. Not so. Real life != Video game land. But we have a blast regardless. Definitly recommend performing your own experiment. Maybe repeating several times for the sake of accuracy.
Humans can learn from many things. We learn from text descriptions of things, as well as abstract diagrams or photographs. We can also learn from interactive simulations - depending on how much they deviate from what they simulate. Obviously, learning from simulations (like flight sims) has been much discussed elsewhere, with a lot of anecdotal data to suggest that it helps greatly (and the military's own anecdotes and interest in sims should help make the point - not just flight sims, but things like the game that will be released publically as Full Spectrum Warrior soon).
That accounts for learning of mental skills, but there's also the physical ("twitch") factor. Of course, people here are often failing to apply sound logic. Being good at a FPS doesn't necessarily mean that you'll be good at firing a real firearm. That said, one could argue that the same person might have been even worse at firing the real firearm without the FPS skills. The question isn't if one makes you automatically good at the other. The question is if one helps with the other. But people are answering the question as if it were the former.
The original question asks specifically about teamwork skills. Interpersonal skills are, in my view, totally separate from mental or physical skills. I would argue that, yes, playing cooperative games would help build your cooperation skills more than not playing coop games. Interpersonal communication is a very dynamic thing, and does not exist in a vacuum - working with people in CounterStrike is not somehow a totally different human skill than other kinds of cooperation.
This could be a very good discussion, but there's been too little insight so far. This post here wasn't all that great either, but hopefully it will spark some true insight. :)
Depends on the video game. America's Army obviously has nothing to do with motor skills, but I have a friend who in high school was nothing all the special, wasn't a jock and if anything did more to support the Area 51 arcade games than probably any other man alive. The arcade owner most likely retired because of him.
Well, to make a long story short, after high school he joined the army. No previous weapons experience of any kind. During weapons training for the M16 (just like in Americas Army) he shot hawkeye (that's 40 hits out of 40 possible targets... somethng like 33 hits qualifies you for sniper school, I think). He did a few years of bouncing around various elite army schools (special ops training in the phillipines, sniper school where he would spend literally days inching through the grass to take out a target, etc etc) before heading off to Bosnia, where he had multiple confirmed kills in Bosnia as both recon and a sniper. He later hooked up with some underworld elements and became essentially a hit man for a very large gang in Long Beach (one that you've all heard of), and currently is up near the top of the list of people in organized crime in LA and Orange counties, despite his young age, all because of his abilities to shoot stuff and shoot stuff well. He's also one of the quickest people mentally I've ever known, but nobody would have noticed that if it hadn't been for his skills with a gun.
I'm not going to go into the morals of what he does... he's good to his friends, but not loved by his enemies - I've seen the bullet holes in him to prove that. The point is that with no arms training of any sort other than arcade games he was able to almost instantly become a sought after crack shot. And, in his own words, he credits that to his many, many, many hours of Area 51 and video game firearms in general. I'm not sure if I believe that, but it's what he says and if anything I'm telling his story on the conservative side so people don't think I'm bullshitting it.
If you get nervous, just remember that there are a few billion other people who don't really give a damn.
Every person I know who plays FPS on a regular basis is extremely athletic. On the other hand any friend I have that's obsessed with RPG is just a couch potato.
It's an amazing coincidence.
Of course, being able to shoot in a game is not the same as doing it in real life. But according to this, games can help skills in less direct ways.
those skills deffinately transfer!
I was at a private LAN last summer, out near f-stick Nebraska. My friends there were mostly very good FPS players - DoD and CS. They totally own me at FPS games. I can hold my own against them in BF42 and DC, but that's a different skill set...
.22's and 12 gauge shotguns, but I haven't done much shooting for the last 10 or 12 years. Other than our host, none of the other guys had any significant experience with a firearm.
.22, the host and I were the only ones to hit our targets. Once we moved up to the scatter guns, some of the others did better. With the 7mm, the targets (pop cans) were WAY out there. I only hit one by skipping debris off the ground in front of it. :) Nobody else hit one.
The guy hosting the party took us out for some real target shooting. We started with a Ruger 10/22, moved up to a 20 gauge, a 12 gauge "pumpo", and finally a high-powered 7mm rifle (not sure of the exact size, but it was BFG, much larger casing than a 30-06).
I grew up with BB guns, pellet guns,
On round 1 with the
I do agree that gaming does have some skill transfer to meatspace... like strategy, or driving / flying skills from a simulator (only as a complement with the real thing), but without some real-world practise, I don't think FPS games directly transfer to real firearm skills.
One reason I submitted this Ask Slashdot was because my ass has been saved by video game skuh-zills in the past.
Right after I got my license a few years after age 16, I had a truck and too much testosterone. I was driving down this long, paved road out in the middle of nowhere when all of a sudden I see the stop sign someways off. Now, I'm going about 80mph on what is little more than a long driveway. I hit the brakes and they lock up. All of a sudden I felt like I left my body and did some weird shit with the steering wheel and the stick-shift. All I can remember is something about Daytona USA. When I regained conscious control, I'm about four-feet away from a telephone pole near my door, in the gravel with a car just 10 feet away from my front bumper, probably wondering what the heck is going on.
I suppose this means I did the mother-of-all powerslides without flipping my truck or ending up smashed and possibly killed.
There are other stories too... But yeah, I believe that at least some video game skills transfer to real life, especially sega race car skills:)
I've had my fair share of experiences with Game Skills Real Skills. Here's probably the best 2 (and recent) examples I can provide.
2 Months after joining the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, and a nice safety course later, I was finally cleared to use the rifle range. I had about 2.5 years skill with FPS games, and 0.0 seconds skill shooting a rifle.
My FPS skills did not transfer over. None whatsoever. An FPS teaches you to move a mouse and press buttons on a keyboard. Shooting a rifle requires actual movement. You actually have to squeeze the trigger (not pull it), adjust the sights, reload, and aim. In a FPS, you click the mouse. Big difference.
After 4 months of Practice, I have earned Marksman 1st class qualification. Basically, 20 shots at a range of 10m (32.8ft) were inside a 2.5cm (1 in - about the size of a quarter) diameter grouping. Not an easy task.
As for flying, I had no experience. Zero. No Flight Sim skills, no real life skills, hell, I hadn't even been more than 30m above ground. After months of Ground School and passing the exam (barely, with a 50%), it was time for a flight.
About a week after the flight, my flight instructor burned me a copy of MS Flight Sim 2000. Everything I learned in real life transfered over. Controlling the Eleveators, Ailerons, Flaps, Throttle, Rudder, and other Aircraft controls is a breeze, thanks to the months spent learning how to do it properly.
I suppose to conclude, some skills do, and some skills dont. You have to look at the complexity of the task in real life vs the complexity of the task in the virtual world. Shooting is complex in real life, but overly simple in virtual reality. No transfer. Flying is difficult in real life, and flying is difficult in virtual reality, so there are some transferable skills.
Frink: Nice try floyd, but you were designed for scrubbing, and scrubbing is what you shall do.
Play FPS games and racing sims has improved my reaction time. I'd also say the level of gore and violence has some what desensitised me to violence. I remember watching 'Black Hawk Down' with my friends, and while those who played quake and BF1942 were laughing it up the non FPS friends and the rest of the crowd glared at or glanced with that "wtf is wrong with you" look. Sorry but if you've made a couple head shots, you've seen them all. War isnt fun but this is just entertainment. Recap: 1. Better reaction times. 2. Less likely to be suprised.
After playing Counter-Strike and the like for years, now I can detect and kill about 5 times more cockroachs crawling in my room than before.... That, or there are actually 5 times more roaches in my room.
you support my point. area 51 is not a joystick if memory serves correct. it is a fake gun shooting at a 2 dimensional depection of a 3 dimensional sceene (like duckhunt). the motor skills will most likely transfer in this case. additonaly it looks like some of the cognitive components did as well ;)
this is not a Sig.
The short and long answer: Yes.
Ever since the release of Quake 3, I have been playing like a hobo on a ham sandwich. I love the game, and for what it's worth, I love blowing people into tiny fucking pieces. Coming with this though, is quick reflexes.
Oh sure. "Just because you can kill people faster than they can kill you doesn't mean you have quick reflexes," as some people would say, but indeed it does. Because of this game, I'm excellent at Paintball, Fencing, and just common reflexes in general. Even my doctor told me that I had outstanding reflexes -- he asked me what kind of activities I've been participating in. Not just Quake, but all FPSs in general.
Online games do build teamwork skills though. RPGs build better vocabulary; RTSs build patience and expands the mind laterally; and video games in general just expands the mind, taking it places that you'd never get to go while reading novels or watching movies.
I don't know what'd I do without video games.
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
"Gimmy your lunch money, four-eyes!"
"Uh, hang on a sec. Got a pen?"
"What? What you yappin about, nerd?"
"Nevermind, found one."
"C'mon poindexter, fork it over!"
"One second..."
"What you writing down there?"
"Hang on, hang on! I... D... D... umm... Q..."
Since i'm not quite sure how Degreelessness mode would work in real life, maybe 'IDCLIP' would be a better choice... hmmm...
as I walked away to take the pizza off the delivery mans hands, my mother threw me her checkbook. not something special, but when youre back is positioned to her and the only hand able to catch is a left (for a righty, that could be quite a challeng). not to mention i hadn't looked at her, nor the actualy thrown item (not untill it was caught... acompanied by a matrix-esque 'whoa'). after i sat back down to play FFT:A, I thought to myself (along with the previous post about driver saving one /.'ers life), at what point do we stop offering our gaming skills credit, and contributing the situation to blind luck?
personally, i take San Soo..(any budo bums out there know this has little to nothing with the situation, and besides the point, im only a yellow belt), which brings another varible, did kung fu play a role? was i lucky? is this post useless? whos (and more importantly, where) to call the difference?
#1. Twitch skill. Raw reflexes.
#2. Strategy
#3. Teamwork, patience (and hopefully) maturity
Yes, maturity. I play a lot of Natural Selection, a team-oriented half-life mod. Actually, the team play in that is pretty hard. A lone player (called a rambo) will get killed pretty quick, and be unable to do pretty much anything.
In other words, the little kids who don't want to play as a team get killed, get frustrated than leave.
Just my opinion.
I have fired a gun once. From a long ways away I was able to hit a can on a fence post shooting downhill. My friend who hunts a lot missed. I never let him forget it. I remain 100% in the accuracy department. Now only if I could save a princess.
Sims are awesome ways to create and implement battle tatics for real life situations. Look at the Video Game created for the Army. Some special forces platoons mock up a battle situation in the game to practice for the real deal. Plus, the Army has switched to mostly virtual reality sims for weapons training, including small arms.
were really booming with me playing GTA for over 12 hrs a day. I spent the other 12 hrs driving and killing.
The lunatic is in my head
In a typical working day I am able to:
* sit without moving for 8 hours straight.
* do without food and drink.
* manage without the toilet until my kidneys hurt.
* give full concentration with only 4 cigarettes
* blank out my surroundings, colleagues, and office noises.
The boss must love me. The missus must not.
This post contains benzene, nitrosamines, formaldehyde and hydrogen cyanide.
I feel that playing pac man has greatly increased my pill popping skills.
Based on the fact that the 1st time I went trap shooting (clay pidgeons for those who don't know) I hit 79 of 90 discs with a 20 gauge.
First time shooting like this and first time shooting anything bigger than a paintball gun.
Paintball's more fun though - the targets get to shoot back at you.
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
I believe they do in fact help. I have been an avid quake rail gunner for years, and recently went to the shooting range for the first time. My aiming technique that I have developed over the years on the game turns out to work remarkably well in real life. My frist time at the range I consistantly showed perfect grouping and accuracy on a variaty of weapons from .45 handguns to 9mm rifles (didn't even need the scope). Either there is such a thing as a "natual" shot, or the game helped me a lot.
I'm a deputy sheriff in Virginia and have found that my time playing Ghost Recon has helped me quite a bit. Not with firearms or tactics, but with my observational skills. The hours of quietly stalking along a tree line looking for the slightest of human shapes, movement, breath, shadows and such have sharpened my awareness when working at public events. I've found it much easier to notice small details faster which can make all the difference in those situations.
According to a joint study by both Yale and Harvard, video games are VERY beneficial to children who play them. It seems that all thos hours sitting in front of the screen have SCIENTIFICALLY VERIFIABLE benefits, namely, that sitting in front of a computer/tv all day long builds important LOOKING skills. ;-)
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
Once, I was walking past an old abandon warehouse, when a group of 8 crazed terrorists tried to shoot me in the feet through the half-open bay door.
I popped a flash bang and ran straight towards them all, laying down heavy fire with my TMP. Got em all, except for the one that happened to be sitting on a hostage's head in the upper room...
"That's an idea that I found very interesting because I've never seen an FPS game that tries to mimic this"
I do this ALL the time in Unreal Tournament... and the game calls me... Flak Monkey!
-
A friend and I decided to play some real world checkers. Everything was going fine until he jumped one of my pieces. The damned thing didn't move!
We stared at it for 15 minutes, waiting for it to disappear or leap off the board. Nothing. Finally we managed to prod it off with a stick.
Never will I trust a computer game again.
Escape Pod Films: Sketch Comedy and Web Series
While I won't even for a second believe that 'because anyone played ___ fps they are a better shot in a shooting range' I believe that video games do increase particular abilities in people. Reaction times is just one that people have mentioned, but I know on some of my Sat/Act tests (whichever one tested for this--video games haven't helped my long-term memory :P) I scored considerably high in the 'mental imaging' section and I attribute it mainly to maping out game levels and quake maps in my head. There's also games out there like Pandora's Box, Dr. Brain, and (why not) Typing of the Dead that strive to improve particular functions.
I've also been in a couple of emergency car scenarios where I managed to escape with my hide that I attribute partially to video games, and partially to my previous 'parking lot shinanigans'
There is an actual study on the book "Digital based learning" which talks about the relation between gaming and learning. According the book students who play action games, not only develop fast reflexes but they also develop a "faster logic" they are able to take reactions and analize situations in a short period of time and under pressure, they react well to fast paced activities and timed quizes and puzzles, unfortunately they also get bored easier with slow paced activities such as reading or (worse yet) listening to someone else reading.
While this may seem obvious, do the test yourself, play street fighter (or any fighting action game) in turbo for half an hour and then play it on normal speed again. Normal seems like slow mode now Amazing isn't? thats your brain adapting to the speed of the environment. Thats exactly what happens to kids. (no wonder why they get bored at school)
The book promotes that classes should need to be more pro-active and use fast paced educative meethods including software in order to keep up with this tendence.
Go ahead MOD my day!
More opinions here
From countless hours of playing games my reflexes are sharp, and I can judge distance, speed and predict where things will be when I get there. This has the effect of "scaring the life" out of a passenger in my car. Of course good ol healthy excercise helps the skill transferance even better.
Apparently, a lot of F1 drivers (particularly the new, younger ones who can't drive so much due to modern testing limitations) use games to learn the tracks and get a feel for what they're supposed to do. Some commentators have even said this negatively effects their driving style because they rely too much on visual cues, rather than the 'feel' of the racecar.
I for one though, have noticed the benefit of playing games to improve my driving. When getting in karts for the first time when I was about 19, I noticed I was clearly a lot faster than everyone else I went with, - even people who'd been before. (Bar one guy who'd spent a little while doing it in amateur competition, so had driven a _lot_) - I put this down to the considerable length of time I'd put in on games such as Geoff Crammond's F1GP in it's various incarnations.
"Pokey, are you drunk on love?" "Yes. Also whiskey. But mostly love... and whiskey."
I managed to pull some stupid moves driving too, and all of those times it has been the stuff I learnt from playing Gran Turismo that got me out of it without at least damaging my car.
Just being able to know how it will behave when certain things happen, which I have learnt pretty much from games, as well as the ability to take basic physics and apply common sense (as opposed to my mate who when we were riding his Dad's trike in the field, figured it was OK to take a 90 degree corner, sharply, in fifth...).
All the incidents are basically things like throwing the car into a corner too fast, and being able to keep it under control while braking hard and turning. Knowing that it's a FF car and thus being able to work out what will go wrong, nd how to fix it all came from playing games.
I also however noticed that it goes the other way. I got my license about a year ago, and have been driving a lot since. I visited my brother the other week and we were playing GT3. He , it turns out has started using manual transmission while playing (which makes the Viper a fantastic car for instance), and I decided to try. I'd never even begun to manage, but since driving, I was just able to do it without thinking. Knowing just when to, and how to change to keep the car under control and get the most speed and acceleration.
So yea, skills definitely transfer to real life in some areas (driving and reaction timing mostly I'd think) but also the other way over time. So it's kind of hardly surprising actually, since you'd expect real life skills to apply to games, why not vice versa?
I'd say many skills do transfer (such as driving), but shooting absolutely doesn't since shooting in a game doesn't remotely rely upon the same real-world skills required for shooting an actual gun.
In one of the Doom 3 speeches or interviews last year, Carmack pointed out that they made the Doom 3 targeting code highly accurate, and everyone in the office was stunned to realize that they were really, really bad shots... And you KNOW those guys have a hell of a lot of FPS seat-time...
Slashdot quality declines as the number of hot grits posts decreases. - Provolt's Law, Apr-09-2005
I remember being called a liar by an instructor during gunnery training at Ft. Knox back in '91. He simply couldn't believe that I was not a re-enlistee and had not gunned an M1 before. "M1 Tank Platoon!" I kept telling him. It actually taught me quite a bit and trained me on the basic skills before I ever got to basic training. That game as well as the old Star Wars arcade game (the M1's controls are of similiar design) gave me a leg up on the other recruits and carried over to my development of real life skills gunning the M1A1 in Kuwait.
I suppose if you went to the right club and the lighting was good, meaning the lasers projected little arrows scrolling up the walls, this game could help you look like more of a freak than you really are.
If video game skills transfer into real life skills, I oughta have no trouble going out tonight and pickin' myself up a hooker.
Just remember, take your time aiming and get up extra close for those head-shots. And don't for get to jump around a lot.
;-)
Quack, quack.
So, I had to fall back upon skills I developed in grade school (and beyond) D&D sessions, which was map making. It took a while to actually get the metering correct (I needed to have X number of paces equal one map square, and making uniform paces is harder than one might think [at least at first]). BUT, it worked out great, and while the map wasnt architect perfect, it only took about two days to make and was accurate enough to complete the job.
Who would have thought D&D skills would eventually help in real life?
Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.
I have improved my skill in stealing cars and beating women...
I've learned more vocab from Video games than I have in school! I mean take Hereos of might and magic three, after I played that game I could use words like Mirth and Moral, and I was only 12!
Of course video game skills transfer to real life! Haven't you seen 'The Last Starfighter'? Where would we be today without Alex Rogan?
I am so sick of people like you using the term "begs the question" with absolutely no idea of its meaning or proper usage.
Please look it up.
Skill in a deathmatch != skill in Laser Quest, that's for sure. Even though there's no recoil, physically hefting the laser around does significant damage to your accuracy. I think this may also be partially due to too many years holding the N64 joypad.
The other vast difference between games and real life is in tactics. In the game, you're usually playing to respawn at least twice a minute; you can run all over the place at ridiculously high speeds, jump, crouch, spin, run into walls, all with no ill effects. Doesn't work in reality. Plus, as a reasonably accomplished gamer, when I play against someone I'm usually (until proven otherwise) expecting a relatively easy fight - in other words, being able to walk through a room, shooting everyone to pieces while they grapple with the control system. Doesn't work in the version of Laser Quest I was playing - you get shot, and your laser is locked out for a few seconds, so when I tried the same tactic I just ended up losing a couple of hundred points when everybody shot me and I was unable to retaliate.
The fact that I'm 6'4" and therefore by far the largest target in the arena didn't help either.
The true secret to winning in Laser Quest? Take a diffraction grating. ;)
qntm.org
Anyone who has played long hours of GT3 with a wheel controller knows that it helps with driving technique at the track(although obviously not as effective as real seat time).
Creative Demolition
My roommates and I played a bit of CS in our freshman year, and then went out to play lasertag on campus and with airsoft in the woods.
My accuracy was good, only because I've practically grown up on a range. My roommate had not, and his gaming skill didn't manifest itself at all in marksmanship.
However, we still played very well and quickly became the most feared two-man team on campus. FPS games teach something much more important than how to shoot a gun: How to move properly. We played one lasertag game in one of the massive academic buildings, and knowing how to properly cover your partner, sweep rooms, and predict where a fleeing opponent will make his stand was crucial.
In airsoft, the effect wasn't as great since it was more about shooting skill. But the simple truths of "Keep your freaking head down" and "Reload *before* you run out of rounds" gave us a slight head start on the guys who had never thought about that sort of thing before.
One thing we noticed in both games was that while everyone else made crazy headlong rushes into groups of enemy players, we tended to find good cover and fight an enemy who had to move from poor cover to poorer cover.
As far as firearms go... Counter-Strike, Rogue Spear, and games such as that can get you acquainted with the very basic nomenclature regarding firearms, but not so much with their usage. Something as simple as operating a semi-automatic handgun isn't really transferred from video games. 3 people who have shot mine had never fired a handgun, but they had all played quite a bit of CS and one had played every Rainbow Six game in existance. They didn't quite grasp how to load the magazine (2 of them put the bullets in backwards), how to insert it (Again, 2 of them tried to put the magzine in backwards, forcing it), how to operate the slide (Yes, it's as simple as pulling it back and letting go, but they were expecting it to be easier to pull back), how to release the slide when it's locked back when the gun is empty (Like the Glock in CS), what kind of sight picture to use, and how to hold it. As far as rifles go, the idea of a trajectory is foreign to a lot of people who have played games because few of the mainstream games account for that sort of thing. Nor do they teach you about cheek weld and preventing your eyebrow from getting bloody after you were too close to the scope. At most, games teach you some of the names and terminologies (It's not a clip, it's a box magazine), but tend to add some hollywood in there where it shouldn't be and exaggerate the differences in calibers and the damage they do. If you're thinking about getting a handgun, email me. I've got some tips and suggestions. Overkill_TASF_82 at yahoo.com. Shoot safe and shoot often. A handgun can be your own little piece of homeland security.
I credit my pilot's license to flight sim time, definately, particularly navigation, radio management, and procedures. Had little to no impact on the PHYSICAL skill of flying.
However, RC airplane/helicopter simulators are absolutely invaluable. I wouldn't let my friend fly any of my planes till I watched him fly on the sim for an hour, and then he solod. And as far as helis go, anyone who tries to learn WITHOUT a sim is simply insane.
I believe the problem solving helps a lot too.