The Advantages Of Playing Online Games
September 3, 2010 by Mark van Diggelen
Filed under Games
For a very long time games have been unfairly criticized for a very long time as they have been seen as turning people into couch potatoes and discouraging real physical activity. The main criticism against games are that there is no physically opponent and there is no social relations that are being developed.
Another porblem mentioned regularly is that players play at all times of the day and that this disrupts their sleeping patterns a lot. There are however many things that players of all ages can learn from the many video games out there. It is reported that games can actually improve and help to develop certain skills in the players and this has been proving by testing various different games. Some of the combat games for example like Metal Gear and Full Spectrum Warrior envolves real life war tactics and tests your strategic and logical planning.
Civilation and even games like Simcity teaches you how to manage a large number of people and look after their welfare. There are other games that teach you basic family values and you advance by keeping your family happy and running a clean house. These games leave a lasting impression and they are easy to relate to for those playing. These games can usually also be played by kids. Some of the most interesting games are ones like Tactical Iraqi where you get to learn the language and find out about the culture and preferences of another society. This is a much more interesting way of learning cultural sensitivity than sitting in a boring lecture.
Another distinctive feature of games over schools is that the gaming framework is based on the philosophy of putting performance before competence. In a game, the player learns things by doing it rather than relying only on reading. On the contrary, in a school environment, a child is more likely to learn by reading and may or may not have an opportunity to have hands on experience. This is even true of simple games like forklift games or even 3 in a row games. Also, in a schooling environment, the child is under the constant pressure of performance and is most likely to follow the traditional norm whereas in a gaming environment the child is not under such pressure and is likely to explore newer techniques which contribute to the intellectual growth of the child.
Life throws many things in your path and you have to try and make the right choices, while identifying where you have gone wrong and correcting it. One of the most interesting ways to learn how to improve this is through video games as they are designed to constantly offer challenges where you need to make choices and live with the results. It is actually very uncanny how similar video games can be to real life. Through playing video games you train your brain to learn how to solve problems and do so much faster. It is noticeable how dedicated children are in spending loads of time to master a game and get better constantly. If there is a way of integrating the concepts of playing games into schools, the effect can only be amazing as children would spend so much more time on improving their school work.
There many types of games that can have this effect and there are some you can play at Skillpod.com at no cost, like forklift games and 3 in a row games