What kind of advantage could video games give?

[Ors]

I can start by telling that the biggest advantage in my opinion is that anyone who spends a lot of time online, will learn to speak English better than anywhere else, except if it's your mother tongue.. (especially if you spend time on forums and talk with foreign people. Then you'll be able to use the English skills abroad, there you'll need it to live.

 

[clairebun]

Oh, you mean what kind of skills does it teach the player in real life?

Well, one obvious one is increased eye hand coordination (especially if you play PC shooters), then there's reflexes, cognitive, planning.... Video games are very much a mental exercise, especially depending on the type of game you play.

 

[Jellybones]

Reading/writing and speaking a language are different battles.

Personally, I'd say vocabulary depending on what you play. I've learned about lots of nice words that probably wouldn't get usage in a book. I've heard about games like Pokemon motivating younger children to learn how to read, so that's really something.

 

[Saturn Ross]

What about Science, Culture and Philosophy? Just look up The Game Theorists on YouTube and you'll see. Also, my sister got me a book titled "The Legend of Zelda and Philosophy: I Link therefore I am", so that's another thing you could look up.

 

[Wombatwarlord777]

I like to play SimCity. I'd like to think that the game teaches you the extreme basics of how land use, land value, taxation and funding work together to affect how a city operates. Especially in the fourth game, where excess funds are much more difficult to come by, so you have to really prioritize what auxillary services you'll have or won't have and to what extent you can sustainably fund them.

I really think blatantly educational games have a place too, especially for younger kids. I remember that I taught myself division with one that managed to hold my attention and was so proud of myself at the time.

 

[MellowJacket]

Really, games have near unlimited potential for education and skill building in the same way any form of media does. To ask this, you may as well ask "what advantages do books have?"

It's really a question of what the author/director/lead designer has in mind. But as a good game example, the Civilization series got me into history as a kid as I was intrigued by all the nations, world leaders and world wonders you can build. In fact, Civ V even has an in game encyclopedia if the player is curious and wants to look it up.

 

[Monster Iestyn]

I can think of a few other things everyone else here has missed out so far:

• Being designed as entertainment devices, they do a good job of helping one pass the time when you're bored. =P
• Since online gaming is now a thing, would it not be a stretch to say that many video games provide a means of social activity? Heck, SRB2 itself has online netplay, we can totally get with this I'm sure!
• So far everyone's gone on about the side of people receiving and playing the video games - i.e. the consumers... but what about the producers of video games? No doubt the video game industry, especially for Nintendo and the like, gets plenty of money out of selling these things. Though, I don't know it works exactly for those employed in such businesses then again. *shrugs*

 

[Billy]

Video games can certainly teach about concepts you normally wouldn't think about. As a random example, I learned a lot about objectivism by way of Bioshock. The game itself doesn't really go out of it's way to teach you about it, but you get the idea when you pay attention to dialogues from Andrew Ryan. I don't agree with the philosophy of objectivism, and I'd wager that neither do the developers, since it's cast in a pretty bad light throughout the game.

 

[Tamkis]

Jesse Schell, a local video game developer rock star in my town of Pittsburgh, has a ton to say about transformational video games, and using video games for learning.

(OT, but so wish I could get hired and work at his company Schell Games for a VG Dev internship, but alas, didn't stand a chance against the competition :( )

 

[Niupai]

It also has the advantage, before I did not realize it, it is indeed that it is very helpful for my English

 

[MrBreada]

As a Smash Bros. player, I have MAJOR hand-eye coordination skills. I'm better at basketball in real life. That's a plus! :D