Do Videogame Skills Transfer To Real Life? 207
macshune writes "Lately, I've been wanting to try my hand at firearms, just to see if a youth spent playing Duck Hunt and an adolescence playing FPS games has given me a preternatural shooting ability. This got me thinking, do videogame skills, both reaction-based and of other kinds, transfer to real life? My friends that play D&D are good storytellers, but do games like Counter-Strike build teamwork skills? Inquiring minds want to know!"
instrument flying and flight sims (Score:5, Interesting)
I definitely wouldn't have been able to do that without the hours and hours I spent on MS Flight Simulator (many of which, admittedly, were spent ramming into the Sears Tower in my Cessna
FPS skillz != firearm skills (Score:5, Interesting)
When we got the targets back, and the scores were compared, I was significantly below average. I am quite certain that I was well above the average of that groups FPS skills as well.
On the other hand, my good friend, who was a computer gamer but NOT a very good FPS player, joined the military and quickly earned expert marksman qualifications on both rifles and pistols.
There is absolutely no correlation.
Yes they do (Score:4, Interesting)
Of course other skills go over as well. Problem solving, hand eye coordination, etc. etc. But in this world nobody will care unless you've done something "real".
Definitely (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not so sure about social skills, but efficient team work definitely grows when playing a team game, regardless of the genre.
Something I've noticed before is that it's not so much the subject of the game that is conveyed to our minds, but the mode of thinking that are minds are forced into after hours of play. We begin to think more like machines, efficient decisions, precise moves, cunning strategies, and these roll over into the real world more than raw knowledge (which is something that edutainment hasn't really touched on yet).
I'd have to say that physical actions are something that have very little chance of transferring to the real world, though. Games are nearly an entirely mental experience, and the player is usually quite detached aside from the usual hand-eye coordination. Firing guns and playing sports are entirely different actions on the screen and off.
Firearms (Score:5, Interesting)
Twitch as in skeet or practical pistol, will probably be helped by anything that improves reaction time and hand eye co-ordination.
Logic as in 1500yd or three positional will probably not be helped by having a lightning reflex.
The important question of shoot or not shoot is probably fucked up beyond all recognition in those that play FPS.
"Well officer, the victim suddenly popped up from behind a crate so I fired a warning shot through her chest. Better safe than sorry"
Laser Tag (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:instrument flying and flight sims (Score:5, Interesting)
(Posting AC as I've already moderated in this thread.)
Re:FPS skillz != firearm skills (Score:5, Interesting)
I have, however, actually taught people to sight using a light gun. The sighting is somewhat less accurate than you'd get with a real weapon (light guns are more charitable), but you can definitely learn the principles of accurate shooting. I hadn't fired a weapon in nearly 20 years, but was impressing the hell out of my future father-in-law three months ago using a heavy frame 22 pistol, something I largely attribute to continued practice with light guns over the years (although the fact that I was on the pistol team in college may have had something to do with it).
Yes, definitely. "Driver" helped save my life. (Score:5, Interesting)
When you're cruising around the city, Driver is fairly similar to Grand Theft Auto - with the notable exception that the traffic behaves realistically and tries to obeys all the rules of driving - including stopping at intersections for lights. The result is that if you drive up some streets at the wrong time, you get a *lot* of heavy cross-traffic.
At first, when I was driving like crazy and encountered a car in the intersection, I would often swerve the wrong way. If it appeared from the left, I'd swerve to the right. Of course, because we were both moving, I'd T-bone the car almost perfectly. Eventually I learned to judge the speed of the cars and swerve towards the rear of them if their speed was sufficient compared to mine - because I'd have a much greater chance of passing behind them.
Then, one night in real life, as I was driving home on the highway - an elk ran across the road. There was a car in the left lane in front that had just overtaken me, blocking my view of the left lane. The first I saw of the elk was when it entered my lane just in front of that car - it was moving very fast from left to right across my field of vision - several car lengths in front of me.
My instinct was to swerve to the right, but I didn't. I knew that if I did that - and based on the speed that it was moving - I would hit the elk straight on. I swerved left... car submarined to the right, tires loaded up, started squealing... my right wing mirror practically touched the beastie on the backside as I narrowly avoided it... and I straightened the car back up again without going very far out of my lane.
If I'd done nothing, I would have hit the elk on the passenger side of my car. If I'd swerved right (what I know I would have done pre-"Driver"), I would have hit it dead-center at 65mph, a 600lb fully-grown male elk would have come through the windshield of my bottom-of-the range subcompact car - and I'd probably have been made dead. I still think that luck had a little play, but the game "Driver" definitely taught me the reactions that I needed to have in that specific circumstance.
FPS Games and Paintball (Score:2, Interesting)
and in the past 3 years I've started playing paintball.
I can tell you, being a FPS player gives you no advantage over any other paintball player.
In fact, it might even act as a disadvantage, because playing paintball is so drastically different
both tactically and physically from playing a game, that it is nothing like one would expect it to be.
Paintball plays nothing like a FPS.
In the reverse argument (and going back on topic), I think being a good team leader
in paintball has enabled me to become a better leader in team-based online FPS games.
I was able to practically learn better leadership in real-life, and apply it to computer games.
Re:instrument flying and flight sims (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:instrument flying and flight sims (Score:5, Interesting)
X Plane [x-plane.com], on the other hand, is FAA-certified. In fact, its physics model is so extensive that it is able to determine handling characteristics based on aerofoil shapes (and has been used to model such characteristics before). It still isn't quite realistic in every regard, but it's a far sight better than MS Flight Sim.
Re:Laser Tag (Score:3, Interesting)
As I watch people play while I am on the job, I marvel at how some people are basicly clueless as to how to effectively use the cover that is provided in the arena. I doubt such people play FPS games on a regular basis, if at all. OTOH, there are people that instinctively use the cover effectively, and in many cases it's people that had never played before. I wouldn't be surprised if they do play FPS games, or perhaps have military training.
How this translates to useful real life skills I don't know, but there is something to be said for being good at on-the-spot tactical thinking.
cognitive skill will transfer, but not motor skill (Score:4, Interesting)
Driving sims? Oh yes, baby! (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:cognitive skill will transfer, but not motor sk (Score:3, Interesting)
Depends on the video game. America's Army obviously has nothing to do with motor skills, but I have a friend who in high school was nothing all the special, wasn't a jock and if anything did more to support the Area 51 arcade games than probably any other man alive. The arcade owner most likely retired because of him.
Well, to make a long story short, after high school he joined the army. No previous weapons experience of any kind. During weapons training for the M16 (just like in Americas Army) he shot hawkeye (that's 40 hits out of 40 possible targets... somethng like 33 hits qualifies you for sniper school, I think). He did a few years of bouncing around various elite army schools (special ops training in the phillipines, sniper school where he would spend literally days inching through the grass to take out a target, etc etc) before heading off to Bosnia, where he had multiple confirmed kills in Bosnia as both recon and a sniper. He later hooked up with some underworld elements and became essentially a hit man for a very large gang in Long Beach (one that you've all heard of), and currently is up near the top of the list of people in organized crime in LA and Orange counties, despite his young age, all because of his abilities to shoot stuff and shoot stuff well. He's also one of the quickest people mentally I've ever known, but nobody would have noticed that if it hadn't been for his skills with a gun.
I'm not going to go into the morals of what he does... he's good to his friends, but not loved by his enemies - I've seen the bullet holes in him to prove that. The point is that with no arms training of any sort other than arcade games he was able to almost instantly become a sought after crack shot. And, in his own words, he credits that to his many, many, many hours of Area 51 and video game firearms in general. I'm not sure if I believe that, but it's what he says and if anything I'm telling his story on the conservative side so people don't think I'm bullshitting it.
Re:Laser Tag (Score:3, Interesting)
On my summers, when I was still in High School my parents would take me to Hilton Head where they had a deathmatch laser tag setup. Between my experiences in paintball for a couple years and playing FPS games since Wolfenstein I would absolutely clean house. Even the owners were impressed when I would beat them when they would cheat by wearing two vests or putting clothing overtop their sensors.
Tactics learned in deathmatch FPS games are vital for a good laser tag player such as: keeping on the move, learning the movement/attack patterns of other players, reducing the ability of your opponent to hit you by changing height (ducking or going to one knee) or rotating your torso to present a minimal target, randomly increasing or decreasing your speed to throw off the leading of other players, and most of all, establishing kill-priorities (knowing the chances someone has of killing you in a situation, so you can kill your opponents in the most efficient order.) Nearly none of these are skills you can learn outside of laser tag or first person shooters in civilian life.
There is no doubt in my mind that these skills, given some further refinement, would easily transfer over to real-life combat situations. In fact, if you want proof, look at the game America's Army. It makes perfect sense that the army would want to attract FPS gamers because of this.
-Grym
Re:instrument flying and flight sims (Score:2, Interesting)
It was tricky too... Had to get completely sideways with enough speed to get level again.
Some xfer, not for target shooting (Score:3, Interesting)
The guy hosting the party took us out for some real target shooting. We started with a Ruger 10/22, moved up to a 20 gauge, a 12 gauge "pumpo", and finally a high-powered 7mm rifle (not sure of the exact size, but it was BFG, much larger casing than a 30-06).
I grew up with BB guns, pellet guns,
On round 1 with the
I do agree that gaming does have some skill transfer to meatspace... like strategy, or driving / flying skills from a simulator (only as a complement with the real thing), but without some real-world practise, I don't think FPS games directly transfer to real firearm skills.
Re:I don't think so (Score:5, Interesting)
Bullets in games don't ricochet, and shooting at brittle objects nearby (concrete walls, for example) never seems to spray you with high-velocity debris, nor does shot bounce around dangerously in enclosed spaces with hard surfaces.
I had the opportunity over the summer to talk with a solider in the U.S. Special Forces, and, being a paintball player I asked him some questions regarding actual combat.
What surprised me the most was when I asked him how they handle people at the ends of long hallways. I know from paintball and FPS games that this can be one of the most frustrating situations.
He told me that what they do is "skip" bullets off the walls so they don't actually have to come around a corner to shoot the other soldiers. I immediately asked him "So, real bullets will bounce off regular walls if you shoot at a shallow enough angle?" His response? "You're daaamnn right they do...", with a smile.
That's an idea that I found very interesting because I've never seen an FPS game that tries to mimic this, and it's not really applicable in paintball where the balls have to be soft. I really hope that some games/mods in the future try to model this kind of stuff because it would definitely have an impact on the tactics and realism of the games.
-Grym
Daytona USA saved my ass... (Score:4, Interesting)
Right after I got my license a few years after age 16, I had a truck and too much testosterone. I was driving down this long, paved road out in the middle of nowhere when all of a sudden I see the stop sign someways off. Now, I'm going about 80mph on what is little more than a long driveway. I hit the brakes and they lock up. All of a sudden I felt like I left my body and did some weird shit with the steering wheel and the stick-shift. All I can remember is something about Daytona USA. When I regained conscious control, I'm about four-feet away from a telephone pole near my door, in the gravel with a car just 10 feet away from my front bumper, probably wondering what the heck is going on.
I suppose this means I did the mother-of-all powerslides without flipping my truck or ending up smashed and possibly killed.
There are other stories too... But yeah, I believe that at least some video game skills transfer to real life, especially sega race car skills:)
My Experiences (Score:5, Interesting)
2 Months after joining the Royal Canadian Air Cadets, and a nice safety course later, I was finally cleared to use the rifle range. I had about 2.5 years skill with FPS games, and 0.0 seconds skill shooting a rifle.
My FPS skills did not transfer over. None whatsoever. An FPS teaches you to move a mouse and press buttons on a keyboard. Shooting a rifle requires actual movement. You actually have to squeeze the trigger (not pull it), adjust the sights, reload, and aim. In a FPS, you click the mouse. Big difference.
After 4 months of Practice, I have earned Marksman 1st class qualification. Basically, 20 shots at a range of 10m (32.8ft) were inside a 2.5cm (1 in - about the size of a quarter) diameter grouping. Not an easy task.
As for flying, I had no experience. Zero. No Flight Sim skills, no real life skills, hell, I hadn't even been more than 30m above ground. After months of Ground School and passing the exam (barely, with a 50%), it was time for a flight.
About a week after the flight, my flight instructor burned me a copy of MS Flight Sim 2000. Everything I learned in real life transfered over. Controlling the Eleveators, Ailerons, Flaps, Throttle, Rudder, and other Aircraft controls is a breeze, thanks to the months spent learning how to do it properly.
I suppose to conclude, some skills do, and some skills dont. You have to look at the complexity of the task in real life vs the complexity of the task in the virtual world. Shooting is complex in real life, but overly simple in virtual reality. No transfer. Flying is difficult in real life, and flying is difficult in virtual reality, so there are some transferable skills.
Better reaction time, and less suprises (Score:2, Interesting)
3 levels of game learning.. (Score:4, Interesting)
#2. Strategy
#3. Teamwork, patience (and hopefully) maturity
Yes, maturity. I play a lot of Natural Selection, a team-oriented half-life mod. Actually, the team play in that is pretty hard. A lone player (called a rambo) will get killed pretty quick, and be unable to do pretty much anything.
In other words, the little kids who don't want to play as a team get killed, get frustrated than leave.
Just my opinion.
Re:Definitely (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I don't think so (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I don't think so (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:FPS Games and Paintball (Score:3, Interesting)
One day, some mates from my CS course and I went paintballing, just for kicks. None of us had gone. One girl brought along her boyfriend, who was formerly of the Austrailian SAS.
It was interesting to note that he either always died first (generally while trying to get the rest of us into some sembalance of a good formation and cover) or died last (generally after singlehandledly annihilating most of the other team.)
It was also interesting to note that we throughly trounced the squadron of 'weekend warriors' who played every week, had their own equipment, and thought themselves pretty bad-assed.
Carmack's take on this (Score:3, Interesting)
In one of the Doom 3 speeches or interviews last year, Carmack pointed out that they made the Doom 3 targeting code highly accurate, and everyone in the office was stunned to realize that they were really, really bad shots... And you KNOW those guys have a hell of a lot of FPS seat-time...