Andrea Bell
Scientists have always speculated that games could improve certain levels of the brain that help the players improve their lifestyle. In the past few decades, studies have been conducted on this issue, and the consensus was in favor of games.
Most studies found a positive correlation between games and cognitive skills. Some games improve the cognitive process, while others affect overall performance. Almost all studies conducted in the domain concluded that games do improve decision-making skills.
After running more tests, scientists and researchers were able to tell about the genre of games that improved the decision making of players. The games include MMPORGs, role-playing, action and adventure, and strategy games.
Why Games Make You Smarter?
The field of gaming has become very advanced. Games nowadays are designed in a way to improve the behavior and actions of players. Most scientists have concluded that 50 hours of game-play is enough to kick-in the spontaneous decision-making process.
With that said, let’s say you are playing a racing game, and you see a huge boulder in front of you. You have to take quick action or you are out. These types of spontaneous decisions can improve the inference process, something we need in our lives to make regular decisions when we don’t know the results.
List of Action Games to Improve Decision Making
We decided to create a list of all those games that were found to increase the decision-making level of their players.
Grand Theft Auto
The first game on our list is Grand Theft Auto (GTA). It is an open-world game series. The player starts as someone living in a slum, and the goal is to become the mafia boss of the city. He has to pass various levels. The game is self-explanatory, with 50 main missions.
However, players can choose to select their missions based on the type of game they want to play and how they want it to end. This game has been proven to enhance cognitive skills.
Unreal Tournament
Unreal Tournament is an action game in which the player starts as a rookie soldier who wants to become the champion of the Unreal Tournament league. It also offers many gaming series, just like GTA.
However, it isn’t an open-world game, and you will have to select a mission before starting the game. The unreal tournament is a hit among action and role-playing game fans.
Unreal Tournament support ended in 2007, and the team decided to develop Fortnite. It is an online multiplayer game. Fortnite is available on smartphones as well.
Call of Duty
Call of Duty is another series of role-playing action games. The game series is based on real-world scenarios. Its first four games were based on World War I, World War II, and the Cold war.
The rest of the games were against non-state actors such as the Taliban, ISIS, and many others. Its latest version, Modern Warfare, is based on criminal syndicates of Russia, Uzbekistan, and the Middle East. Players start as CIA operatives and infiltrate the syndicate bases to sabotage their missions.
Dota
Defense of the Ancient Arts (DOTA) is a strategy game based on the Warcraft series maps. In War Crafts, players follow a storyline to save the world from the clenches of an evil witch. The game is based on the novel World of Warcraft.
However, the Dota multiplayer game has a straight storyline. Two teams play to destroy the base of the other one. Both teams start with one (or if multiplayer) multiple heroes. Each hero has 1 level. They get to upgrade the players and weapons by destroying enemy soldiers and collecting more manpower.
Dota is played around the world as a league game. Top players of Dota are considered a star among the gaming community. ESPN Esports organize all event matches of Dota.
Red Alert
Red Alert is a strategy game series by Command and Conquer strategy game developers. The story of Red Alert revolves around World War 2. The game starts when Albert Einstein kills Adolf Hitler by traveling back in time to avoid World War 2.
However, the plan fails when Joseph Stalin leads an invasion of Europe instead. The game includes missions from both the Allied and Soviet sides. You can also play skirmishes to hone your skills further.
Since it is a strategy game, it takes hours to complete a mission. However, you can increase the game-play speed to conclude the game faster. Red Alert is all about making the decisions and then bearing their consequences.
Age of Empire
Age of Empire is a strategy game series based on real-world events in the world occurring in different timelines. The game starts with the Stone Age, where the people used to live in tribes. It then upgrades the game to Iron Age, the Bronze Age, and then the start of civilizations.
The game then focuses on how various civilizations used to rule the world by enhancing their skills, improving technology, and focusing on education and cash flow. You can pick from 12 different civilizations and use the missions to move from each age while witnessing the technology that is used to advance that civilization.
In a way, the Age of Empire also enhances the knowledge of its players by providing short history lessons throughout the game-play.
Need for Speed
Need for Speed is a racing game in which you have to beat your opponent in racing. It consists of tournaments, drag races, drift battles, and many other similar games. The game is simple, and you get new cars and money after beating other players. You have your mechanic shop where you can upgrade your car by adding new parts to it.
Asphalt Series
Asphalt Series is a mix of multiple racing games. It was developed for mobile phone users and to provide them a stunning graphic experience. No other video game was focusing on mobile users at that time. Asphalt has a mix of Need for Speed, Shift, and Burn Out.
It offers races in all terrains. The game focuses on multiple racecourses, which are modeled after real-world scenarios.
Tactical Squad
Tactical squad by Unlimited Gamez Mo is a precision shooting game. The player in this game is equipped with a sniper and has to eliminate enemies from a distance without being sighted.
You will progress in the game by eliminating the enemies. However, there is a catch here. While killing your enemies, you have to be very accurate because you cannot afford to shoot civilians. If you kill an innocent person, you will lose points.
Benefits:
1. Video games may make us better individuals:
Slow-moving approach matches may alter our thinking behavior, so we could learn how to make wiser, more moral conclusions in real-life scenarios. That’s the thought behind Quandary, even a game that puts human colonists on the Planet Brazos and demands the participant, or even captain, to work out issues one of the settlers. Scot Osterweil, creative manager at MIT’s Education Arcade, clarified on Boston.com: “We do not feel that playing with the match can automatically help players shoot far better views in their lives. However, we believe the game reflects a lively method of introducing ideas, which may be further improved through reflective dialog with other people and through other actions provided on the site.
2. Video games boost eyesight:
Another study headed by Daphne Bavelier at the University of Rochester study demonstrated that video games enhance vision by producing gamers more sensitive to somewhat different shades of color, called contrast sensitivity.
Individuals who played with action-based video games, particularly first-person-shooter matches were 58% greater in perceiving sufficient differences compared, the investigators stated.
“When folks play games, they are altering the mind’s pathway in charge of visual processing,” Bavelier said in a declaration. The training may be assisting the visual method to make far better use of this data it receives.
3. Video games may improve memory, concentration, and multitasking capacity in elderly adults:
A movie game named NeuroRacer that entails swerving around automobiles while selecting road signs in precisely the exact same period was utilized to “enhance the short term memory and long term attention of elderly adults,” The New York Times reported, citing a study published at the journal Nature. From the analysis, many adults between the ages of 60 and 85 were invited to play the sport for 12 hours within a month. Six months later, enjoying the game, the elderly adults had been much better at multitasking, kept more info in a brief period, and had more powerful focus abilities.
4. Dentists enhanced their laparoscopic skills by playing with video games:
Playing video games on the Nintendo Wii enhanced abilities required for laparoscopic surgery. In this process, a slender tube with a camera is placed into the stomach to observe organs onto a display, rather than cutting patients wide open.
The analysis, published in the journal PLOS One, found that physicians who spent a month playing with Wii Tennis, Wii Table Tennis, or even some balloon warfare game named High Altitude Battle performed simulated activities created to examine eye-hand movement and coordination accuracy.
The Nintendo Wii” could be embraced in lower-budget associations or even at home by younger surgeons to maximize their practice on simulators prior to performing actual processes,” the investigators concluded.
5. Kids with dyslexia had improved reading skill after enjoying video games:
A little study from the journal Current Biology discovered that playing video games helped kids with dyslexia read quicker and with greater precision.
Twelve hours on the other side of the control “enhanced children’s reading rate, with no cost in precision, more than 1 year old spontaneous studying development and much more than equal to exceptionally demanding traditional hearing remedies,” the investigators write.
By enhancing attention span, video games contribute to improved reading abilities.
6. Pre-schoolers who play video games have improved motor abilities:
A little research from Deakin University in Australia found that kids ages three to six who played interactive games, such as Wii, had improved motor abilities than people who played non-interactive games. Including capabilities such as twisting, grabbing, throwing, and breeding ball.
Gambling matches likely enhance hand-eye manipulation. Still, investigators also note that kids who have more excellent motor abilities might have been drawn to interactive games in the first location.
7. Video games will teach us concerning biological methods:
Video games aren’t only for amusement.
They could also “help resolve instructional and cognitive difficulties,” according to Stanford physicist Ingmar H. Riedel-Kruse, that made a group of action titles to educate folks about biological methods.
The games include a single-celled receptor contained within a liquid fluid room. The participant succeeds or “controllers” the dwelling paramecia by employing electrical fields employing a hand-held apparatus that looks like a video game control.
Since this paramecia response is real rather than simulations, the matches may educate players on micro-organismal behaviors, diffusion, and other biophysical theories. The writers write in research published in the diary Laboratory on a Chip.
They include: “Pupils may be encouraged to talk and understand that the observed phenomena so as to recognize other winning approaches in these matches.”
Bottom-line
While games do improve the decision making and inference process, no guarantee playing a game alone will make you smarter. So, don’t rely too much on simply playing games and also focus on other activities such as reading, drawing, and other muscle memory exercises for a wholesome experience.
