Spades<\/a>\u00a0enhance critical thinking, strategic planning, and decision-making skills in children by teaching pattern recognition, card combinations, and basic math concepts. Moreover, they are easy to play in person or online.<\/p>\nCard games are beneficial for adults as they promote cognitive engagement and relaxation that help contribute to mental stimulation and better well-being. For seniors, card games maintain mental acuity through mental agility, memory, and problem-solving, while also combating isolation. All groups benefit from stress relief and relaxation, as well as the overall positive impact on mental stimulation, skill development, social interaction, and leisure.<\/p>\n
Three Invisible NeedsAfter earning his Ph.D. in clinical and social psychology from the University of Rochester, Scott Rigby helped found Immersyve, a research company designed to examine some of these basic human needs and discover what makes video games so appealing. After collecting several years\u2019 worth of behavioral data and conducting numerous in-house studies from companies like Sony, Activision, and Warner Bros. Interactive, Rigby feels Immersyve has nailed down a few key motivations behind our addiction to fun.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe all have basic psychological needs,\u201d explains Rigby, who detailed gaming\u2019s intrinsic allure in his book Glued to Games: How Videogames Draw Us In and Hold Us Spellbound. \u201cThese needs operate all the time \u2013 when we\u2019re at work, or when we\u2019re engaging in a softball league, or on weekends while we are -playing a video game. These needs are always operating. Games perfectly target several of these needs.\u201d<\/p>\n
According to Rigby, Immersyve\u2019s complex needs-satisfaction metrics narrow down to three basic categories. The first of these needs is a need for competence<\/strong> \u2013 that is a desire to seek out control or to feel mastery over a situation. People like to feel successful, and we like to feel like we\u2019re growing and progressing in our knowledge and accomplishments. This need plays out in real life when people switch careers or return to school because their current job isn\u2019t rewarding or challenging enough. It\u2019s also easy to see how video games make us feel more accomplished. Every time we level up in Final Fantasy or defeat a challenging boss in God of War, games fulfill our desire to feel competent.<\/p>\nOur second psychological need is autonomy<\/strong>: the desire to feel independent or have a certain amount of control over our actions. This need pervades nearly every facet of our culture. The drive toward autonomy is why people instinctively dislike being manipulated; it\u2019s why imprisonment is a punishment, and we feel an innate urge to rebel against slavery. This need explains why game series that offer players a wealth of free choices \u2013 such as The Elder Scrolls or Grand Theft Auto \u2013 are so popular.<\/p>\n\u201cThe terrible twos are a great example of the need for autonomy,\u201d Rigby says. \u201cIt\u2019s not terrible for the kid. It\u2019s terrible for the parent who has to listen to their kid say \u2018No\u2019 all the time. What is that kid doing? The kid is showing their autonomy. They want to control their destiny, and they\u2019re verbally flexing that muscle for the first time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The final psychological human need is relatedness.<\/strong> We like to feel like we matter to others and feel like we are making a significant contribution to society. In a 2003 study, the University of Massachusetts Medical School discovered that people with altruistic tendencies generally have higher levels of mental health and less overall life stress.<\/p>\nIt\u2019s easy to see how gamers can fulfill this need for relatedness by playing games with friends online. Still, oddly enough, Immersyve\u2019s studies have found that this need for relatedness can be met even if gamers interact with people who are not real. \u201cThe way that games are written, this need can generally be met when players are talking to an in-game character,\u201d Rigby says. \u201cThat\u2019s why a lot of quests are often structured around helping a particular NPC find an item or collect a treasure.\u201d<\/p>\n
Over the centuries, we\u2019ve gravitated towards experiences that make us feel more competent, autonomous, and related because these experiences make us feel good and mentally healthy. These needs can be fulfilled in many ways: through work, school, friends, sports, and hobbies. However, sociologists are beginning to understand that video games are one of the most seductive of all of these activities because they fulfill our psychological needs more efficiently than almost any other activity.<\/p>\n
Games Are WorkAt their most basic levels, work and play look a lot alike.<\/strong> The difference between the two is that games couch this kind of work in a fiction that makes them enjoyable. A game\u2019s narrative makes our choices feel significant enough that we buy into the game emotionally, and the feedback system encourages us to keep working.<\/p>\nPeople often view games as the opposite of work, but some sociologists believe games are an idealized form of work. \u201cMost people find work rewarding; we have built-in emotional reward centers that encourage us to complete tasks,\u201d says Andrew Przybylski, Ph.D., a lecturer at the University of Essex whose papers have appeared in journals like Psychological Science.<\/p>\n
This built-in desire to feel accomplished often pushes sports stars to return to the game after retirement. People don\u2019t like to be idle. Work meets our three invisible needs in some of the same ways that games do. Games are just more efficient satisfiers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe connection to how hard we work is often mismatched with the feedback we get from the real world,\u201d Przybylski says. \u201cSometimes we think we really knocked it out of the park, and really you just phoned it in. Other times you might have burned the midnight oil, but no one seems to give a crap. One of the things that\u2019s really powerful about video games is the level of connection between how hard you work and the feedback you receive for your behavior.\u201d<\/p>\n
Games are more consistent at rewarding us for our choices and provide a diversity of choice that the real world doesn\u2019t provide. Gamers can go places and enter into situations that are closed off to them in real life. Games are immediately rewarding, providing instant feedback when we do something right, and telling us how well we perform every step along the way. These highly tuned feedback systems are the key to turning video games into an indispensable tool for bettering our future.<\/strong><\/p>\nStudents of the GameWe\u2019ve exploited one of gaming\u2019s most useful applications for centuries. Chess was used in the Middle Ages to teach war strategies to noblemen. In the \u201870s, computer games like Oregon Trail did a better job of getting kids excited about American history than most history professors. Today, hundreds of web portals like Kidsknowit.com offer teachers a reservoir of tools to help educate students. Games are an indispensable learning tool, but we\u2019ve only begun to scratch the surface of their teaching potential.<\/p>\n
\u201cAlmost all educational games suck,\u201d<\/strong> says Iowa State University professor Douglas A. Gentile, who has spent his career researching how video games affect children. \u201cThey don\u2019t put nearly the same level of attention and resources into them as something like Halo.<\/p>\nI\u2019d be surprised if they get 1\/100th the resources Halo does. So much of the public debate about games has been sidetracked by tragedy. We wring our hands about the cause of violence in society,\u00a0and there really is no one cause. Our ability to move forward with intelligent approaches to studying and discussing games really keeps getting sidetracked by media violence.\u201d<\/p>\n
Many modern \u2013 even violent \u2013 games might be better teaching tools than we realize. The Assassin\u2019s Creed series allows gamers to explore classic locales sprinkled with real historical details. Rocksmith teaches people how to play guitar, and The Typing of the Dead improves horror fans\u2019 typing skills. The upcoming indie title Code Hero even hopes to teach young programmers how to design games.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think games can provide a framework for understanding contemporary issues such as governmental budgets and spending,\u201d Przybylski says. \u201cI\u2019d bet SimCity veterans have a less distorted views of current city\/state\/federal expenditures compared to the general public.\u201d<\/p>\n
Building blocks of a better worldGamification is a buzzword often tossed around the conference tables of Fortune 500 companies. The concept promotes the idea of rewarding virtual currency to consumers who complete simple tasks. Foursquare users are familiar with the concept of gamification and its slow drip of new badges and awards. However, gamified services don\u2019t meet our invisible needs on the same level as mainstream video games. Instead of razzle-dazzling customers with extrinsic baubles and badges, in the near future, businesses may fine-tune their feedback systems to tickle our psychological needs. Someday, filing accounting spreadsheets could be more like playing World of Warcraft. But games are already helping people get better at their jobs in many practical ways.<\/p>\n
See The Difference Between Gamification And Game-Based Learning<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cThere are a number of great studies showing that first-person shooters increase our visual perception and help gamers pick information off of a screen quickly, which is the kind of skill that an air traffic controller needs, for example,\u201d Gentile says. \u201cA couple other studies with microscopic surgeons show that surgeons who have played games in the past are better at advanced surgical skills \u2013 that gaming is, in fact, a better predictor than how many years of training they\u2019ve had or how many surgeries they\u2019ve performed.\u201d<\/p>\n
Aside from the physical benefits of gaming, video games excel at setting clear goals and showing a player\u2019s progression toward<\/strong> those goals. This approach already radiates across the social networking where progress bars litter sites like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Spotify. Other businesses have developed feedback mechanisms that allow customers to track their progress toward improved social, financial, and physical health. Unique puzzle games like Foldit and EteRNA encourage problem solvers to fold the structure of selected macromolecules differently, which will help further scientific learning and possibly cure diseases.<\/p>\nThat they lower the barrier of entry for people to get behind new social causes is one of the reasons why people play video games. For example, the simple online quiz game Freerice has encouraged gamers to collect more than 90 billion grains of rice for the World Food Programme. Much like Twitter allows its users to interact with celebrities and businesses unlike any other medium in history, future game-like services and tools could encourage new social team building, allowing users to voice their opinions and affect societal change in myriad new ways.<\/p>\n
No one believes that every facet of our lives would improve if it adhered to the rules of video games. Life can\u2019t be all fun and games; sometimes, effort is needed to produce results. Some work is work. However, most industries and human endeavors may prosper if they do a better job meeting the psychological needs of their audience. No form of human expression understands needs satisfaction better than video games.<\/p>\n
When used correctly, video games hold the potential to show us the world through a different set of lenses \u2013 to craft experiences that engage our minds both cognitively and socially, and ultimately make us feel like active participants in shaping our destiny.<\/p>\n
Do we need a better reason to play games?<\/p>\n
If you enjoyed this article, check out 50 of the Best Video Games for Learning<\/a>.<\/p>\nThis article originally appeared in issue 235 of Game Informer Magazine;\u00a0Why People Play Video Games<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n