There’s been a lot of negativity centered around gaming and “gamer culture” of late, some of it justified but most of it not. Rather than continue fruitless arguments about why objectivity is important and that gamers consist of more than just socially-repressed tech nerds and violent frat boys, I thought it might be a nice change of pace to talk about some of the positive aspects that have come out of video games and the people who play them.
A couple months ago, as I was working on a writing project and listening to the shenanigans of my friends playing Artemis, it struck me how much they were able to accomplish in a short amount of time just by working together. The thought wasn’t all that revolutionary – teamwork is a key component to the success of any group, and especially in games like Artemis (where the entire point is to work together to pilot a star ship). So it follows then that having good teamwork skills can make you a better gamer, but does that necessarily mean that being a gamer can make you a better team player? While the logical part of my brain wanted to say “yes” to my question and help amplify the positive aspects that come out of game play, I didn’t want to just run to the Google and toss out whatever opinion pieces justified my argument. Fortunately, there have been plenty of studies over the past several years that not only support the idea that gamers exhibit better teamwork skills, but also that gaming can help build certain social skills, problem solving, and decision-making abilities.
For example, two separate academic studies, one in 2008 from the University of Sunderland (UK) and another in 2014 from Brock University (Ontario, Canada), showed evidence that violent video games can help improve teamwork skills. The 2014 study focused on an experiment where two groups of students were invited to play Call of Duty: Black Ops on a mode where players shoot and kill zombies. While each group was actually playing with fellow students, one group was told they “they were playing with a student at the University of Buffalo, just across the border, which was false.”
The article continues:
The findings are significant because other studies have demonstrated that when people play violent video games in which enemy characters belong to other social groups, prejudice against those groups goes up, the researchers wrote.”(1)
In a 2008 interview with the Darlington, UK Northern Echo, student researcher Chris Whitehead talked about his findings. Specifically, he argued how violent video games can actually be a very useful learning tool in developing not only teamwork, but in developing spacial skills, coordination, and leadership skills as well. When asked about the research suggesting video games made gamers more aggressive, he refuted the argument as follows:
The student claims that when age restrictions are correctly adhered to, games can have a positive impact.(2)
Another ongoing research project, this time from the University of South Carolina, focuses on creating educational video games to help teach social skills to students with autism. Why is this important? According to the researcher:
He has used these video games to assess teamwork in normal populations and to make them kid-friendly, but he is currently in the process of testing whether or not they complete their purpose for autistic children.
Although parents and autism academies are often hesitant to experiment with new treatments for the social deficit disorder, the South Carolina Autism Academy has announced that it will use the games in the fall alongside their traditional therapy. Newman-Norlund will measure the interpersonal skills of the children at the beginning and the end of their treatment.” (3)
Whaaaaaaat… games can be used to *gasp!* EDUCATE PEOPLE? Blasphemy. However, as Erin Vlasak and Michelle Ranaldo (2012) point out, “Video games challenge students to think and solve problems. It also helps build their confidence, where they might translate what their character does in a game to real life… The office of Naval Research has conducted their own research on how video gaming can help soldiers prepare for war. ‘We have to train people to be quick on their feet.’ Gamers performed 20% higher in terms of perceptual and cognitive abilities than nongamers.”(4)
And here we grew up thinking the Oregon Trail and Math Munchers were just fun.
So there’s a lot of evidence to show and support that video games possess the tools needed not just to build teamwork skills, but also to help with areas like leadership, logic, problem solving, socialization, and reducing prejudices. And that’s just from a learning standpoint – whole articles are waiting to be written on the good of gaming, running the gamut from using games in mental health therapy to the charity events run by various gaming communities to raise funds for organizations that make the world a better place.
In a world driven by ever-increasing technology, games bring us together in ways that were never possible before while at the same time allowing us to try new things in an interactive medium. As I’ve argued in earlier articles, anyone can be a gamer. The “gaming community” as a whole is so diverse, so vibrant in its nature that yes, there is a place for anyone and everyone in it – if they’re willing to look. I saw a quote on Pinterest not too long ago that read “When you find people who not only tolerate your quirks but celebrate them with cries of “me, too!,” be sure to cherish them, because those weirdos are your tribe.”
And a lot of those weirdos are some pretty amazing people.
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Reference notes (edited):
Because I used an academic research database to find my source material, I can’t direct-link readers like I can with a public web source. Some of these sources can also be found on the web, but following academic protocol the point of this reference list is to show exactly where I got my source material from – I can’t guarantee that web sources are the exact same copy. Interested readers who would like to read the articles as I pulled them should email me at jen.mccafferty@rivalcastmedia.com and I can send you a PDF copy. Any other questions, comments, disagreements, or whathaveyou’s should be brought up in the comments section below.
To mitigate confusion from earlier regarding the Proquest document ID tags showing up as web links, I have pulled those tags out and substituted simply the database source from whence it was retrieved – not exactly APA standard, but sometimes clarity is more important.
1 – Quan, D. (2014, Sep 20). Violent video games can improve teamwork: Study. Edmonton Journal. Retrieved from Proquest database.
2 – Willis, J. (2008, May 13). Violent video games ‘can boost teamwork’. Northern Echo. Retrieved from Retrieved from Proquest database.
3 – USC professor using video games to build teamwork in autistic children. (2014, Sep 02). University Wire. Retrieved from Proquest database.
4 – Vlasak, E., & Ranaldo, M. (2012, 06). VIDEO GAMES. The Exceptional Parent (Online), 42, 36-38. Retrieved from Proquest database.
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