Should You Let Your Kids Play Video Games?

It is not my intend to say how much is too much. My view is that it is quality you should be worried about. 

Games bring entertainment which is good on its own, but if your kid games a lot you might ask yourself if he is failing to develop other skills critical for success in life. Leaving school aside, let’s consider 6 elements of your kid’s development that should be monitored. Let’s have a look on how will video games affect them. We will forget educative games, we want real fun here. 

Health

This is probably the best argument to get her or him off the screen. Let us be clear, not even Wii Sport is enough. Most of the time you will stop before sweating and you know the saying, “no pain, no gain”. I am not big on muscles, but health is different. Cardio-vascular well being is a life long struggle, but the individual potential is created in no small part during the childhood. Muscles can be created later, but heart and lungs can’t be train as efficiently as an adult. Sure you can make progresses with hard training, but you will never be a great marathon runner if you did not exercise as a kid. 

Note that these little devils, with the help of Google, will counter your arguments with 2 true facts backed by scientific research:

First Person Shooters develop some reflexes.

Vision agility is increase by a large variety of games

But really, what do you do with lightning reflexes when you can’t outrun a grandma in wheelchair?

Advice: No game replaces sport, but try console games with some physical movement (Wii Sport, Guitar Hero etc…)

Sociability

Here, it is important to realize the huge progress that have been made in the past 10 years: Tactical coordination per Skype (player to player voice conversation), guild role plays in World of Warcraft, Online tournaments, forums, school yard discussions:  It so happens that you can make friends playing games. But like in real life, it takes some efforts to make friends. Be attentive to what you hear: Is there social talk involved ? Some games call for tactical efficiency, no to say very poor language “left! Shoot! Go, attack” but what matters is what is said after the game. Does your team connect with his team, laugh, tell stories, analyze the game or is it the end and everybody disconnect to watch some internet site or TV show? You have to be attentive to see if video games allow your kid to stay isolated or if he builds relationships with them.

Advice: Almost all games can lead to social interaction nowadays, just encourage him to discuss what he does.

Self-Image

Challenged in class, low performance in sport, difficulties to fit in with friends: Life can be tough at school. Video games won’t solve that, but they give you another opportunity to shine. Reflexes, fast clicking, fast decision making are only partially correlated to traditional academic or athletic success. There are really a lot of opportunities across the many games, tournament and ranking to be “good” somewhere. It may be a micro community but it is still great to feel success and may help to develop psychologically. Of course, there are also losers online. One cannot describe how often the word “noob” (new player but in reality more like “unskilled, stupid player”) in typed in game chat rooms.

Advice: So again, watch out, and don’t limit yourself to “he plays too much”. Ask what he does, why he does it. Once in a while he can be late at lunch for a tournament if he warned you in advance that it is important. What you do not want is an unfocused gaming that is merely passing time.

Creativity

Just search for images of Minecraft and see what happens. Google the name of any game character and see the massive amout of fan art. Look at the websites dedicated to guilds and group of players. Look at the graphics or at the quality of the role-playing texts. How many kids have begun learning more about computers while modifying “modding” games to make them better? Creativity is really were gaming shines. Not every kid will embraces these aspects, but if he does, encourage him. It’s a gateway that will let him develop many other skills.

Advice: Take interest. Don’t force a focus on traditional arts if he is already doing something creative around gaming.  

Logic

Games can really shine here. If you want to win, you need to think. It may look obvious for some strategy games, but most games require thinking. One could argue that even shooting game played in team require the elaboration of a strategy. On top of that, a deep understanding of the game is often required to optimize the play. Sure online guide dumb it down to basic information, but in many games it’s useful to know how the game engine calculate health, damages, bonuses etc… It helps to invest in the most efficient units/objects/strategies etc…

Advice: Ask your kid why does he win? “Skill” should not be the only answer. Does he have a plan? Let him explain why this or that strategy is superior (even if you clearly don’t care), and see if he is applying is brain to the game or is merely reacting to the images.

Culture

Well, first gaming is becoming a cultural object in itself. Some storylines or arts are up to the better standards. But what about the rest? I believe there are quite a few opportunities for learning through gaming. A lot of games have historical or real life setup. It’s possible to learn a considerable amount of history and geography through gaming. Sure some of these games are not exact depiction of reality, but they trigger interest. How many kids end up arguing about History after playing a game? Well, quite a lot!

Advice: Civilization (for overall culture), Paradox games (for more accuracy), Mount and Blade (for more action) and many many others…

Final words,

Gaming can be a self fulfilling hobby. It is definitively be better than TV, chilling with a beer, social networking or watching hours of funny videos on Youtube…  But to be sure:

1.       Check and challenge, why is it great, and what does he do?

2.       Try yourself, if it looks stupidly hard, maybe there is something to it?

3.       Link it to other things: Player gatherings, Book or movies about the historical theme of his games, art, programming…

To prove my point, go to my small quiz about historical knowledge, and see if you can do better than a young Civilization player?
EuroExark

Could the Indians have resisted - a Gamer's view

While surfing on one of my favorite forum, I came across this question, again. Games are meant to explore the possible, what do they tell us about this question. I selected 3 games that offer different perspectives.

• Civilization: Why wouldn’t they  be able to survive?
• Europa Universalis: 400 years of struggle for survival.
• Colonization: The brutal confrontation

Civilization: This game asks us what must a nation do to survive the tides of time. You are dealt with an open hand and you can freely choose your path. Terrain is the only limit, but the start in Central / North America is as good as any in game terms. Like real life Pre-Columbian nations you are able to thrive in your new environment. Like them you can focus heavily on mathematics and astronomic after the construction of your first pyramids. However in our timeline, these technologies did not lead to many practical developments for the Indians. No sailing with the help of the stars for example.  In game terms it is like rushing astronomy and religious technology without taking time to invest in libraries, commerce and machinery… You won’t score high, and the IA might crush you.

They already have gold and silver. Development of tools and weapons in iron was one of the possible next step. What if they had? They might have expended just as we have.

Europa Universalis: For those who do not know, I encourage you to try one of the Europa Universalis. It is historically quite accurate with a lot of depth. Here you can start 100/200 years before contact with the Europeans. You might think that with historical foresight you will be able to prepare and expend before the clash. You fool! You are already doomed by your slow moving culture. Despite a very limited technological lag at start, you will not be able to compete. Why? Is it unfair?

Look at the technology panel:  First you get a large malus for isolation. True you don’t a lot of caravans from the Orient nor Arab traders selling you old greek books.  Then you get another malus for being a Theocratie. I guess that this kind of regime is less progress oriented that an Italian Renaissance Republic. On top of that your “society sliders” are geared heavily toward conservatism. You can change them, but the game rightly force you to do it slowly (1 slider change every 10/15 years), you can’t revolutionized a country in 1 year!  So even with an heavy investment in technology, will not be able to keep up with the Europeans. These malus will decrease with time and contacts with other nations, but it will be hard to survive long enough for it to have an impact.

To add insult to injury you, it will be harder for you to colonize America. Your society sliders indicate that your population is not very willing to go out colonizing. So while you can increase your empire, you will not be able to color the continent as fast as the new comers. Your only option is to overwhelm the conquistadors. You have to send hordes of warriors to stop them on the beaches but as if technological underdevelopment was not enough, you have no cavalry. Like real life Indians you have to wait for Europeans to master the art of horse riding. As you imagine, there is an important malus in battle when you can’t field any horse during the XVI Century...

In conclusion, you game survive with a perfect gameplan, including in radical revolution and intensive efforts toward administrative and military technologies. But does it feel right to invest all the gold of the Incans in funding colonies and researching better tax authorities?

Colonization:  Here they are! And it is too late. Despite being IA only, you can learn a few things about the Indians in this game. Sure they will adapt very quickly to gun and horses but their main weakness is that they are very naïve and unorganized. They will accept gifts, welcome your missionaries, teach you how to survive in the wild even sell you lands. Sure they will raid your settlements when unhappy, but that doesn’t mean that the whole tribe will launch an extermination campaign against you. Surely the Europeans who dealt with the Arabs in Spain and then with the Turks across the Mediterranean had a much more cynical view on inter cultural experiences. They were prepared for a relentless campaign with no compromise. Indians come unprepared to this clash of civilizations.

Historical addendum: A major aspect missed by all these game is the genetical diversity enjoyed by Europeans. We had dealt with much more viruses and bacterias during our History (from Asia and Africa), so that our diseases had a much larger effect on Indians that their on us. The scale of their losses (80% for some nations) was such, that no recovery was possible.

Various Links

Spanish Conquest of the Americas

Population History of indigenous peoples

Epidemics in the Americas

Download:Civilization

Paradox Interactive and their superb catalog of historical games

Aztec After Action Report EU3

Did gaming help you understand History? Or on the contrary do you think that games distort reality too much?

EuroExark

The historical knowledge of a 7 year old gamer!

Clues

I won't give you the answers because I'm mean, however I still like you to experience the same journey as me:

Civilization Still good!

Civilization V The same but much newer!

Banking, Copernicus, Republic, Alpha Centauri, Carthage, Aegis, Hoover, Hammurabi

Did you well? Have you learned History with another game, which one?

EuroExark