WHY VIDEO GAMES AND WHAT’S eSPORTS? Part 1

This will be a two-part post on the two subjects; delving into to the abyss that we have been brought up to kinda look at as taboo, especially from our parents and authorities. Whether it’s a brick-game that you first laid your hands on and introduced you to the world of video gaming, a Sega, a Pentium 1 computer (yeah… we came from that era), or you just had a feel of the experience from snakes on a Nokia 3310, the narrative was the same… “Don’t play too much, it’ll rot your brain” they said. Well, research is proving contrary to that belief and we’ll give you the get-out-of-guilt-convince-your-parents-about-video-gaming free card to keep playing you favorite video game and at the same time, show you why we are doing what we are doing as PSG.

Aside from the MAIN fact that just playing video games in crazy fun and is what we love doing, we have our TOP 5 scientific facts that actually show it helps in major way, especially in brain development:

  1. Action Games do way more in improving brain functions that the so called “brain games” – why? Action games have quick decision making, quick interpretation of large amounts of information and demand a high-level of attention. Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, (https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/2372732215601121)
  2. Hardcore players of violent video games, contrary to popular belief, do not have blunt emotional brains. The gamers exhibited the same emotional response when they saw images of suffering human beings. This refutes the notion that gamers become violent. - https://digest.bps.org.uk/2017/07/18/hard-core-players-of-violent-video-games-do-not-have-emotionally-blunted-brains/?o=6
  3. Gamers have an advantage in learning – doing much better with high uncertainty, performed better in categorizing facts and generating new knowledge compared to people who don’t play. According to a research done in Germany. https://news.rub.de/english/press-releases/2017-09-29-neuroscience-gamers-have-advantage-learning?oi=84
  4. Awesome stress release (wading through the scientific jargon used in the report) - https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0018720817715360?url_ver=Z39.88-2003&rfr_id=ori%3Arid%3Acrossref.org&rfr_dat=cr_pub%3Dpubmed&t=2
  5. According to brain scientist Daphne Bavelier, gaming (especially action games) leads to - Improved vision, Improved attention & concentration and tracking multiple object (higher than normal people) – We said TOP 5, so yeah.

Are we saying there are no negative implications to gaming? Of course not. Everything in moderation, monitor your consumption, don’t binge on it. Just like anything out there, food is good, but don’t over indulge or you’ll mess your whole digestive system and bring health complication… You get the point. Mounting research in coming out in support of gaming, so game away fellow enthusiasts.

So next time someone tells you video games are bad, just pull out this link quick. In our next part, we’ll get into eSport, getting all the good stuff of gaming and making it a competitive sport, and what that industry has to offer for our continent.