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Videogame Driving Skills Don't Apply In Real Life
the digital nomad writes "When driving cars in videogames, you're often forced to see everything from a third-person perspective. Now, what would happen if you tried to drive while limited to that odd view in real life? These folks decided to find out."
I still credit the training I received for playing long hours of Night Driver with saving my life in 1981. I was cresting a hill late at night on a two-lane country road when I was suddenly faced with an oncoming car in my lane. Using the exact same right-left swerve that I practiced so many times in the video game, I avoided a head-on collision by hitting the shoulder just in time, and got off the shoulder before sliding down the ditch.
The real question should be "Would I have still missed him had I not played so much Night Driver?" There's no way to answer that, of course, but for now I'll stick with the "my anecdotal evidence runs counter to your theory" attitude.
John
What? When I play my racing games I'm in my seat with a G25 steering wheel playing "games" like iRacing.
And yes, the skills translate very well into real life. But don't take it from me, take it from the pros.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IRacing.com
Stop playing your driving games in third-person view.
People are never as simple as their stereotypes. This applies equally to Christians, Muslims, and Emacs-lovers.
You mean banana peels DON'T make cars spin out?!
"When driving cars in videogames, you're often forced to see everything from a third-person perspective.
Most _good_ videogame race drivers opt for first person mode. Furthermore, in several expert modes on some games, first person is default and third person is disabled.
On the ride into work this morning, I drove over several pedestrians, flipped my car twice after hitting guardrails at the wrong angle, and took 5 minutes to get unstuck when I drove through the plate-glass window of a coffee shop. I'd say I've learned everything I need to know about driving from video games.
God invented whiskey so the Irish would not rule the world.
http://games.slashdot.org/story/09/12/04/1516204/Gran-Turismo-Gamer-Becomes-Pro-Race-Driver
Granted in his case the main thing that helped him was practicing consistency in hitting braking points and adherence to a proper racing line. I doubt the game actually improved his physical ability behind the wheel.
Jump through two articles to get to the source....here ya go C/O Rooster teeth, enjoying the riches gained from RvB I'm sure.
I enjoyed it, but this is idle/humor material.
import system.cool.Sig;
Can't RTFA since work blocks Gizmodo (seriously? WTF?). However, my first thought after seeing the article summary was "You know, Grant drives this way in real life all the time on Mythbusters."
Haven't the Mythbusters proven again and again that operating a vehicle from 'non standard' driving perspectives is quite difficult?
Well, FPS's turn everyone into real-life Delta force operators, and makes them all experts on weapons and combat tactics. Certainly playing racing games will make you an excellent driver in real life too, right? Right?
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
Overhead view is always useless... and if you actually know how to drive... no, I don't mean what they teach you in driver's ed, overhead view is a hell of alot more difficult. iRacing and GranTourismo (last one I played was 3) if you're playing cockpit view, the basics to translate rather accurately. iRacing especially. Maybe not to street driving, but certainly accurate for learning lines and whatnot around a track.
Macs, Linux, Windows... who cares, they all suck at something.
You were very rarely forced into 3rd person, it just gave you an advantage of situational awareness, wrt other cars and seeing into corners. And it was better, because the perspective of 1st person was so shit because of tech (640x480 and even 1024x768 does NOT cut it), and so now - take EA Need for Speed SHIFT or GT or Forza, those games give you working cockpits that still have enough resolution out the windscreen to see into corners and feel speed properly, and dirve in a more realistic manner.
The death of 3rd person is coming, the tech is now here to simulate proper driving - so we are doing something in real life that was anachronistic to begin with....
In real simulation games you are forced to view the game through driver's view, which is LOWER than the field of view you would have in a real car, because 2d screen cannot accommodate a human's fov from a first person perspective.
so, argument is formulated wrong. its not 'videogame driving skills dont apply in real life', but, 'videogame driving skills in games that allow 3rd person view do not apply in real life'.
otherwise, all the simulators the military is using to train tank drivers, pilots, captains etc would mean bullshit.
Read radical news here
While the participant's driving skills were impeded, their ability to hit prostitutes with bats remained sharp even in third person.
Having practiced the art of driving by controlled sliding in video games for many years of my adolesence, I was able to retain control of the vehicle after coming off of a plowed and salted highway onto a completely unplowed off ramp. I should note, the off ramp merged back onto another highway. If it had ended in a stop I would've been screwed regardless.
As for this, give those drivers a playstation control or keyboard and mouse and see how they fair then. The third person view in GTA is not fixed directly behind you like it is on that truck and most people don't use a steering wheel in GTA. Their brains are overriding their GTA driving algorithims with real driving algorithims because of how they are seated and the implements they are using their hands.
Yea, while control of the car in a video game isn't quite the same as what you'd get from real life, there are other timing issues, such as manual shifting, that can benefit from video game based learning. When I was first learning to drive a stick, Gran Turismo was crucial in helping me figure out how to get the best acceleration while shifting. Not to mention, it was A LOT better for my car!
Rooster Teeth Shorts, Immersion (Pilot)
Not cool that Gizmodo didn't give them credit. These are the same guys that do the Red Vs Blue machinima.
While on the way to work this morning I was stuck behind a driver going five mph under. Luckily I had collected a gigantic turtle shell from the shoulder next to me. I launched it at the car in front of me, and it sent him careening off the road and into a side rail.
I made it to work on time. Thanks, Mario Kart.
I find that the Simpsons Road Rage point system for pedestrians is very accurate.
It's what I base my vehicular homicide priorities on.
Contrary to the opinion of most overweight gamers, martial arts skills also do not carry over into meatspace.
Damping absorbs vibrations. Dampening is caused by moisture.
Don't tell me that all the years I spent with military training in Operation: Flashpoint were just as pointless....
Ezekiel 23:20
That's soooo 20th century.
Next, let's have them do 80s-era race-car games with sky/overhead view!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
Third person view is implemented in vehicle games so you can see the extent of your car/plane/F-zero and not hit stuff. You could make a game where there was no third-person view, and you were forced to learn through practice with your full view inside the vehicle. But this would be hard to implement and not as fun.
While this does mean that the mechanics are going to be a bit different from "real" racing, it doesn't mean that there's nothing to be learned. There's going to be a learning curve to anything you have to control, virtual or real. As long as the physics are not generous like an arcade racer, I'd say it would still give racers a leg up.
Beaten to the punch again!
That said. I think the lack of a decent field of view has much more to do with the difficulties. In a car, I can see just over 180. Most of that is motion sensitive. However, it's more sensitive than nothing at all!
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
but everytime I run over a hooker and take the money of her bloody corpse, I definitely thank Rockstar games for making the GTA franchise!
Sig Follows: "Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself." -- Mark Twain
Next you'll be telling me that walking and fighting skills in third-person games don't apply in real-life when I'm walking. I think my walking and fighting skills have improved immeasurably due to third-person games.
When you look at the video driving and the real driving, with the real driving you do not see the front of the car. With the video, you do, although trough the back window.
Looks a bit like sailing a huge container ship. Makes me wonder how long it would take to learn to drive that way. because honestly it looks a lot like the first time I drove third person on a computer.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
There's a video on youtube of a guy who tested real vs virtual drunk driving by playing GTA 4 sober while Nico was virtually drunk, then driving with Nico sober while himself being totally smashed. Unsurprisingly, the drunk Nico-sober player combo was much more accurate, while the opposite resulted in much more destruction and mayhem.
I don't know about the view, but the handling of the car in the old Daytona arcade game is freakishly similar to that of a Miata at about half the speed. This led to an interesting drive home; bad enough that I started driving the Miata like the Daytona car, worse that it actually worked.
Outside of Mario Kart type games I never liked that view and I've never used it. I never saw it's appeal given that it's difficult to position the car properly on the track or get a proper sense of distance. And that's not to mention you can't even see what's immediately in front of your car. About the only benefit I see is that you could spot another car hiding in your blind spot. It does allow for more of a spectacle when racing. Undoubtedly someone could get good with this view, but that doesn't make for the ideal camera position. Then again, I also never liked the dashboard crowding my view in games. In real life the dashboard isn't as intrusive in my field of vision as it is on the screen.
I contend that even an aerial view game, specifically Spy Hunter, aided my driving ability. I became skilled at making very subtle, controlled movements with that game, and it definitely translated to driving my parents' Fiero once I got my license.
Humor often uses misformulated arguments.
I make a high 6-figure income emulating Grand Theft Auto in real life.
I bet if they had a ps3 or xbox controller that would have worked better.
I once lost control of my car in high speed sharp turn. I played a lot of Need for Speed these days and I learned to press gas in those situations. Instinctively, I pressed gas pedal, wheels got traction and I stayed on the road. If I pressed brake, like many people do, I would've ended in a ditch.
Video games helped me out. How else would I have learned to get away from the police after running over pedestrians?
The Internet has given stupid people the resources of intelligent people.
It's not just the view angle, which can be changed and enhanced with multiple screens. But you can't replicate the feel of accelerating. It would take essentially anti-gravity technology.
I learned how to drive by playing uberous amounts of Mario Kart -- I always keep a wary eye out for Banana peels and green shells.....
"i lost my dignity on a slippery wiener"
I was playing Carmaggedon when I first got my license. I am pretty sure that skills do not transpose.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
that is a horrible angle, you cannot see anything unless it is like 20 feet or more in front of the car.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
So there's no doubt that there's little, if any, physical correlation of video game driving skills to real-life driving skills, even in the most realistic games. However, more abstract skills learned in video gaming, such as situational awareness and reaction times, certainly do apply to real-life driving, especially in high-pressure accident-avoidance situations, where the split-second reaction times honed by racing games are clearly advantageous. Clearly, that was outside the scope of this "study", but the conclusion stated by the title of this post is entirely erroneous.
I assumed both participants in the video had played grand theft auto. How do they know their experience with grand theft auto didn't contribute to them performing better than someone who had never been exposed to driving from 3rd person. It looks pretty hard, but for all i know, they might have been amazing for their first time driving a real car this way.
I don't think anyone questions that digital simulations can improve real world skills. Most of our airline pilots seem to gain valuable skills from a sim.
I also wonder how they would fare if they had an xbox/ps3 controller instead of the standard car interface.
I practiced driving in Carmageddon. Now, no old ladies with a walker or any cow is safe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carmageddon
http://www.edge-online.com/magazine/the-making-of%E2%80%A6-carmageddon
Now, get off my road!
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
If I paid attention to driving in the movies, you need to constantly sway the steering left and right in order to stay in a straight line, and every time you declutch and shift a gear you need to do an elaborate jump-cut to a close up of your foot on the pedal, and then your hand on the gearstick. Neither of those seem like particularly safe practices to me.
Still, at least I've taken their advice about caravans to heart - those things are death traps! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaiA9ksZGS0 (5:30)
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
That blond chick is kinda hot... Hey! What the Hell is that in her nose? Oh, gross!
"The ferrets, they're every where I tell you!"
... a real study would be to take say a real racing wheel device, hook it up to a decent game with semi-real driving characteristics and see if it improves one's driving ability.
What about people using logitech's G25?
http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm/gaming/wheels/devices/131&cl=gb,en
When I was driving a state-owned vehicle and a truck cut me off (~1 foot gap between his back bumper and my front bumper, and perhaps 5 ft between his front bumper and a barricade) getting on an on-ramp...
the BANANA PEEL he threw at my windshield also made me spin out (from laughing).
I have often said that driving is the world's most boring video game. Get to your destination, while avoiding a multitude of hazards. Think about it: there is nothing positive that can happen during a drive, and the media keeps us relentlessly up-to-date on the negatives. Driving: "stay between the lines, stay between the lines, stay between the lines...*sigh*..." And if you don't pay attention for just one moment: tragedy. The famous video game Desert Bus is actually a more accurate simulation of driving than any Gran Turismo.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Over a decade ago, I found that playing a demo of Midtown Madness set to simulate traffic on the 'other side' of the road helped me to drive in urban areas in other countries IRL where they do that. It's a different driving skillset, but if you're going to a country where the steering wheel is in (what you would call) the passenger seat, it helps you build confidence so you have a head start.
Shiny. Let's be bad guys...
I've driven a real vehicle through a remote link. We could run our DARPA Grand Challenge vehicle through a WiFi link. Originally, we tried using a joystick, which worked very badly. Everybody overcontrolled. We had to get a Logitech USB steering wheel and pedals. With that, the vehicle could be driven remotely.
Driving through a game pad is hopeless. Most video game cars on consoles have their CG below ground level (which is physically impossible in the real world) to make them stable when overcontrolled.
Studies prove that playing Call of Duty Modern Warfare does not increase a soldier's ability to survive an actual firefight or roadside bombing.
Compare the angle and field of view of GTA shots (27 seconds into the video) and the angle and field of view they've used for the test.
Over half of the screen is missing and the driver is trying to navigate the car from a "frog's-eye view" as if sitting on a chair being dragged behind the car.
Ergo - he can't see anything directly in front of him in the radius of about 50 meters.
What's next?
"Proving" that you can't drive a tank through a wall by trying to do the same with a van?
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Yah, I'm sure that flight simulators don't help pilots any either...
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
They should've tested whether 3rd person like they did is better or worse than first person, if you don't look out through the window but instead at a feed from a camera placed for first person view. I think that would be much harder since the FOV is so limited and only 2D.
I don't think any racing games have improved my driving, but I do think some flight simulators have. I find that it's really easy to just drive fast and run into small things without issue in a lot of driving games. But flight simulators tend to require more concentration on a wider variety of things. I find myself checking the view, flight speed, fuel, altitude, and back to the outside view again on a regular basis. That same sort of back and forth focus on several things is also important when driving a real car.
Wrong! I know for a fact that I taught myself how to drive standard by pumping cash in to Race Drivin' and eventually Stunt Car Driver. This was a first person driving simulator 'Video Game'.
...if you're driving a Chevy Spark.
http://images.thetruthaboutcars.com/2009/10/chevrolet_spark_1.jpg
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
These folks decided to find out.
Why?
As soon as the first driver begins you can see that this test is flawed. The camera is positioned way too low and does not have a view of obstacles directly in front of the vehicle. The camera should be twice as high as it is in this demonstration. I'll bet the drivers would fare much better in that case.
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Does this mean that because of the overhead aerial view, Spy Hunter was not a good indicator of my driving skills?
I guess I should get a refund on the oil slick kit and the rocket launchers I purchased.
Damn!!!
I find the 1st person view in Gran Turismo 4 to be a decent driving simulation. I've driven a couple of cars similar to real ones I've driven, and they seem about right. You can easily tell the difference between front/mid/rear-engine cars. My favourite is the Honda Beat, a car I could never drive in real life, because I'm far too tall.
I also have X Plane 9 on my Mac, and find it limited compared to the real thing. The cockpit visibility is inferior, you can't feel the plane or (easily) determine its attitude, there is little (if any) force feedback, and I've seem some major discrepancies between the performance of the models and the real thing. The Cherokee 140 falls out of the sky in slow flight, and won't stall. The real one stalls very nicely, thank you, and you can putt-putt-putt along hanging off the prop all you like. The 172SP stalls about like a real Cherokee does (albeit with no buffeting), and will spin if you insist.
You can do all the VOR navigation and ILS approaches you like in X Plane, however. That works fine. This is common, that they work better for instrument flight.
...laura
Does this mean my tentacle amine Japanese school girl raping skills don't apply to real life either? :-(
Flight simulators are more realistic for even everyday flying because a lot of the time, especially when you are on instruments, what you feel with your body and see out the window has nothing to do with actually controlling the plane. Commericial pilots spend a lot of time with their heads down, the view out the window is irrelevant.
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
Geeks w/ hex-weights and a babe with a nose-ring?
Now that's unrealistic.
I learned how to drive a manual on Race Driving and/or Stunt Driving (I can't remember anymore). You had to depress the clutch before you turned the key, and you had to shift (if you weren't a wuss who used "automatic" mode! :-P). Not all racing games were third-person POV.
I still remember the look on my friend's face when he learned I had only ever driven a stick via the arcade after he let me drive the car one evening (and, no, I didn't grind or fry the gear box). That was just awesome!
I use irony whenever I can, but my shirts are still wrinkled...
Now I have to use my superior geek powers to make this computer box thing work. It's not turning on and there's smoke coming out of it. I think it's a virus.
If you played racing games with a steering wheel input (e.g., Daytona USA), it might have been a lot easier for you. In many arcades the controls were "broken in," so turning the wheel slightly did hardly anything unless you were at top speed, which is very similar to a real car.
I always play racing games 1st person. 3rd person games are the worst kind of shit.
Yeesh, who doesn't like running through a bunch of zombies in a taxi?
Fucking seconded.
It's like playing an FPS with 30 degrees FOV. Or 3PS with your head obscuring all the track.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
"These folks"? Why not say, "The guys at RoosterTeeth"? Oh right because it wouldn't be "science" and would have ended up on Idle instead.
I happen to know girls good at Gran Turismo
the Twisted Metal series has certainly improved my driving. I'm always wary when I see an ice cream truck, a big rig, or a cop car, because who knows when they are going to whip out some homing missiles and open fire on me.
The key in driving, as in many other things in life, is to shoot first and ask questions later. Preferably asking the questions of their next of kin.
I run out of "boost" way later in real life....
Where is the much-needed 'No Shit- Sherlock!' tag, when you need it...
There is a lag in their video setup, delaying the reactions of the driver. He is seeing things maybe a half of a second (?) after the vehicle has done them.
This has nothing to do with the 3rd person view or applicability of video games to learning driving skills.
(off topic) Does anyone know of a video camera/display setup that would have less than a 60th of a second lag (LCD refresh rate) between what is really happening and what you see on the screen?
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
There is a top gear video a few years back where Jermey Clarkson ran laguna seca in gran turismo then drove the same car on laguna seca. His gran turismo time was something like 15 seconds faster per lap which he equated to the fact that you do not get the same sensations as you do in a car, and that you don't have to worry about any self preservation in a game itself so you take risks that you would NEVER do in a car.
As a track junkie i pretty much agree with this.
Bring back the old version of slashdot.
"Real" racing sims don't even allow for a third person view like this. This story validates why serious sims don't have that view. I used to race in online leagues where it was illegal to enter races without a steering wheel/pedal and the game forced the in-car view on everyone in the race.
I think you mean commute.
After all, Formula 1 teams don't spend money building car simulators for the fun of it.
I can't play driving games with the external view for the life of me. I never picked up Forza2 for this reason. But as soon as I have a cockpit view I can play perfectly.
POKE 36879,8
This is a link to a link to a link to the source. Next time, link to the source, please.
Am I the only one who is an ace driver on real cars but can't do jackshit on almost any car racing game except for road rash which i played when i was young (sigh!) Why don't my real life driving skills translate to in game skills ?
I've done this in real life. Sort of. I drove a combat vehicle while serving in the military and used a thermal imaging system at night as my primary means of guiding the vehicle through the streets of... some well-known Iraqi cities. The point of view given is from above and behind the driver's hatch, and since it was pretty much pitch black outside, my only means of seeing where I was going was the thermal camera, called a DVE. Using the Driver's Visual Enhancement meant I was not looking directly at the road at all, but at a LCD screen displaying the output of the camera over and behind my right shoulder (about two feet to the right, a foot or so behind, and three or four feet above, to be specific). It was a little trippy at first, but by and large, it wasn't a problem once I got used to it, which didn't take long.
For me, the value of driving games depends on the accuracy of the physics engine. The arcade version of Hard Drivin' was originally made to be a driving simulator for instructional purposes, and even after 20 years, it's still one of my favorite racing games ever (it's a shame the PC/console ports were rubbish). Other accurate games like Viper Racing and any of the Papyrus classics are good, too. Most other racing games play like a bumper car arena. IMO, Gran Turismo doesn't quite make the grade.
Of course, there's also the issues that people who play racing games are probably a bit more aware of how cars function than your typical daily driver, and the fact that gamers tend to have better reaction time, too. Playing games improves your awareness and coordination? What a surprise.