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Your StarCraft II Potential Peaked At Age 24
An anonymous reader writes "StarCraft II is popular among competitive gamers for having the depth necessary to reward differences in skill. A new study has found that your ability keep up with the game's frantic pace starts to decline at age 24. This is relevant to more than just StarCraft II players: 'While many high-performance athletes start to show age-related declines at a young age, those are often attributed to physical as opposed to brain aging. ... While previous lab tests have shown faster reaction times for simple individual tasks, it was never clear how much relevance those had to complex, real-world tasks such as driving. Thompson noted that Starcraft is complex and quite similar to real-life tasks such as managing 911 calls at an emergency dispatch centre, so the findings may be directly relevant. However, game performance was much easier to analyze than many real-life situations because the game generates detailed logs of every move. In a way, Thompson said, the study is a good demonstration of what kinds of insights can be gleaned from the "cool data sets" generated by our digital lives.'"
A better study would be to analyze how the SC2 pros perform as they age. There is a big difference between the amount of free time a college student has to devote to playing a game and improving his skill vs. someone with a family and job to maintain. The article suggests that age is the factor in the decline of skill, when what it really shows is that most folks are likely to have less time to devote to a game once they leave college and take on real jobs and have kids.
You don't need to play StarCraft to be able to play StarCraft.
... that these measure brain decline since RTS is a game with the worst interface. i.e. it measures your ability to keep up with a poor interface.
I still play RTS regularly and place in the top spots and I'm much older than 24. Same goes for any high reflex game, I'm well within the top 100 in many global scoreboards for many high reflex games. Many games come down to things more complex than the brain, like the aging of the nervous system itself. Not to mention mad dedication and practice.
Maybe someone can explain what they actually tested here(besides reaction time), the paper and the summary both state that they matched players of similar skill level but found the younger players were better....well then if that is really the case you didn't match players of similar skill levels did you? If they are at the same skill level then how is the younger player any "better"? They seem to be quantifying it by measuring reaction time, but is a faster reaction time always better, especially if the results are the same? Maybe the older players are taking slightly longer to consider their options rather than just clicking like mad.... I'm not sure what they are trying to say here.
Monstar L
I score high on the Get Off My Lawn game.
Table-ized A.I.
I played Brood War semi-professionally when I was younger and had a go at StarCraft II as well. Although I was a competent player consistently in the top 20 on the EU and US ladders with some minor secondary accomplishments, I never felt like I could adapt or react quickly enough to really be a force. Building on my experiences playing Brood War at the highest level in my teens, I had an advantage going into StarCraft II in my late twenties. I was quickly overtaken (within a year of the game being released) by many people over a decade younger. Some of them having little RTS experience. My ancient, petrified brain simply couldn't compete with their brain elasticity.
That being said, there are some StarCraft II players that do (or did, I haven't kept up with the scene in a long time) well despite their age. WhiteRa and NesTea come to mind.
There's a reason I barely play online multiplayer games (either strategy or FPS) anymore. I can't keep up with the kids who have the time to sink into becoming basically perfect while morons like us with jobs and families are brutally taken to task. All I want to do is casually play for an hour or so like I used to, but it seems there's no room for online multiplayer anymore unless you're really skilled and practice a shitload every day. I've gone beyond wanting to invest that level of passion into a computer game so apparently there's no games suitable for me anymore.
My feeling is that a lot of older computer users suffer from ergonomic injuries as a result of repetitive stress. Eventually this won't be a problem for us as we move computers into the mind-space but for now when we have to physically interact with computers it's one of those injuries that can really lower the quality of life, let alone the scoreboard.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
I mean isn't there a saying in the physics world "if you haven't made a big discovery by the age of 30 you never will." I think there's been a lot of research that basically says people peak in their mid to late 20's on most things.
Did you know 80 to 90% of the moderators on slashdot wouldn't recognize a troll even if one dragged them under a bridge.
They calculated the mean time between switching to a new screen and then clicking on something on that screen.
Here is the data they collected. Look at it and see if you can figure out where it peaks. What are the things that strike you most about that data? The primary correlation is between skill-level and mean time, if age matters at all it is a far weaker variable.
Looking at the actual data, I would say they've found the age when people stop playing Starcraft; it's a fairly sharp drop-off. And the change in mean-switching-time is not a real effect, merely an artifact of the suddenly smaller data they have around that age. This paper is probably relevant (suggesting scientists often need to improve their statistics).
Furthermore, if you read the actual paper, you have this quote: "A second analysis of dual-task performance finds no evidence of a corresponding age-related decline." So I'm going to say there's not a story here.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
It's called "Logan's Run"
I love gaming and gamers. Platform, console, CPU, mobile app, web based, javascript, retro, LCD one-color sports games...all of it...played it, usually loved it. I even love ridiculous vaporware like Duke Nuke 'em 3D or w/e it was...b/c LOL...right?
I just stopped gaming after I finished college.
I think this study needs to take into account that high-level gaming can taper dramatically due to age/interest.
I'd like to see people who have a financial stake at being good at games over 5+ years compared.
I have mini-renaissances...I taught my dad how to play the Tiger Woods golf on xbox & he became better at it than me, with a whole bunch of online friends...I still pwn at Mario Kart no matter what anytime anywhere and can pretty much hang with Tetris grand masters on the game boy version...
see...i used to be a gamer...but now I just don't really give a shit...
Thank you Dave Raggett
I'm minded though of a saying: "The superior pilot uses his superior piloting judgement to avoid needing to demonstrate his superior piloting skill.". The study tends to bear that out too, as they comment that the decline disappears when you look only at the end results (the score). And in the end, if you're better at juggling dozens of things at once and react faster than your opponent and consistently lose to him, you're consistently losing to him.
Orrrrrrrrrr, perhaps the investment needed to maintain gaming skills is no longer maintained due to, you know, growing up and having many more responsibilities?
I love Starcraft; both the original, and StarCraft II. I'm not all that GOOD at it, and now we know why; I'm on the high side of 60. I can still beat the computer, most of the time; I just can't beat the other players! :-)
That would be me. Yup.
I'm 55, I played my first video game of arcade Pong in 1970 and still play video games regularly today. It's not injury that reduces performance, it's age. My 25yr old self had less fat, more muscle, faster reflexes, a steadier hand, sharper eyesight, better hearing, etc, etc. Consequently my younger me was faster (but not nesissarily better) at just about everything. Age related injury is responsible for things like the fact I'm no longer able to kneel on a hard floor.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
They're about strategy as much as rock paper scissor is about strategy.
Actually, that's not fair. Rock paper scissors is balanced - SC2 is meta-balanced by blizzard to achieve a desired win ratio.
AKA nerf Terran every patch until no one wants to play them.
It would be like making scissors break rock because more people choose rock.
Starcraft may be popular for strategy game players, but give me a FPS any day. I cut my teeth on Doom, Quake, Unreal, etc. In my opinion, if you want to measure reflexes, spacial awareness, and situational awareness, these are the games to study and would be closer to sports situations where muscle memory and learned strategy kicks in. Starcraft would be closer to what coaches have to do (i.e. football, making play decisions, etc.) than the athletes.
In any case, no matter what game I play, I do play differently than I used to. Much of this has to do with the compressed time I have available. For example, in FPS games I'm a bit more circumspect as I move through levels because I just don't have the time to start over from scratch multiple times. I used to re-play a game several times just to beat my last score or find the last 3 hidden treasure areas. This made me a much better online player as I would know each level completely by heart. Now, I'm lucky if I remember where I picked up that last weapon...
I've never enjoyed competitive gaming much, except some rounds at a multiplayer FPS every now and then.
When I play a RTS like StarCraft I like to calmly build up my bases and defenses, create an army, secure chokepoints... take my time and enjoy the game. The twitchy online experience is not for me. I'm playing to have fun and relax, not to experience stress.
I suppose this is why I mostly enjoy single player RPG's in which I can enjoy the game at my own pace.
Lindberg flew 50 combat missions at age 42 in the pacific-- in both the corsair and the lightning.
The preferred age for pilots then was also very young (19-22) due to reaction speed.
But he not only held his own, but his experience allowed him to change the entire war by recognizing how to improve the mileage of the planes by 300 miles. He also shot down a japanese pilot who had managed to run several younger pilots completely out of ammunition because they were able to fire quickly but lacked the judgement when NOT to fire.
Speed matters. But experience and good judgement also matter and they take time to accumulate.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
In my experience, 24 is the peak & it's downhill from there. However, for the talented, it's a very slow decline. Back in my Quake, then Quake 2 gaming days doing league play & setting up matches, it seemed to me that the 20-22 year old players ruled. I was 38 at the time. I could compete with them until we got into the top 10 teams. Then I just set up the matches & coached haha. Quake 3 was the end of it for me really, but then I got sucked into MMOs by my wife & lost what little skills I had left.
SLOWER TRAFFIC KEEP RIGHT
"If you find yourself in a fair fight, you haven't done your homework."
Fuck this frantic shit, build the biggest, most powerful, most advanced, best-trained military. Bigger and better than the next dozen countries combined. Sail the seas and keep the trade routes open.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I used to be one of the best players, by sheer coincidence when I was exactly 23, but now I can't stand the game. Here's my summary of SC2. You're super intelligent and have the best strategy. The only thing getting in the way of you doing it is how quickly you can click the mouse and scroll and issue keyboard combinations. That's SO ANNOYING! The game might as well just be called "click the button" and see who can click the button faster. I prefer Realtime Strategy games that focus on strategy in realtime but not that ridiculously realtime. Otherwise it feels like stressful work. Oh and everyone you play against is an arrogant asshole, in case you were wondering what the player culture is like.
That pretty much works in Starcraft, too
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
If you are 25, earn a decent wage (+60k $ a year) and are able to save 20% of your income, which you invest in stocks that pay dividends of 3% on average, which you reinvest, and assuming that you get a moderate wage increases of 3% a year, being a millionaire at 65 is doable.
At least that's what my financial planning Excel sheet says.
Alas, youth is wasted on the young.