It would seem that the world of video games belongs to the young. The first video game “Spacewar!” was invented by 23-year-old Steve Russell in 1962. The U.S. military quickly became interested in gaming technology, using a game called “MechWarrior” for staff officer training. First-person shooter games like “Doom” are still an essential part of training in the naval and armed forces. Today, Games2Train has developed employee-training games for American Express, Bank of America, IBM, J.P. Morgan Chase, and Nokia.
The way video games increase focus and concentration — and also become addictive — interests financial institutions. A plethora of science shows that people who regularly play video games have 10 to 20 percent better perceptual and cognitive ability than the norm, and better visual attention skills than non-gamers. Organizations as diverse as the World Bank and Disney have even created games around banking and finance for those in developing nations and schools. “The Great Piggy Bank Adventure” from Disney to become “a finance smarty pants” was as entrancing for adults as it was for children. It teaches players lessons like “Setting Financial Goals,” “Saving and Spending Wisely,” and “Asset Allocation.”
Some banks are experimenting with using video games to school clients in finance. For example, you can enhance your chances of getting a bank loan if you perform special moves, complete levels — like financial training — and rack up points, your credit profile can improve and with it your cost of borrowing. European small-business lender Amikod and U.S. payday lender LendUp are paving the way. LendUp, which counts Google among its backers, runs a “LendUp Ladder” that rewards high-scorers with better loan terms.
The average gamer is 31 years old and has been playing for 13 years, according to the Entertainment Software Association. Most games are sold to people over the age of 35. 48 percent of regular gamers are women. 44 percent play on their smartphone and 33 percent on a wireless device. By 2013, Americans spent $21.53 billion on video games, hardware and accessories. Approximately 59 percent of Americans, it is estimated, spend at least 10 hours a week on gaming.
But gaming has its downside, and it’s a very serious downside. High military investment in gaming research has seen a tendency toward violent first person shooter games. Studies like those conducted by psychologists from Iowa State University’s Center for the Study of Violence found that fast-paced, violent games — like “Halo” and “Unreal Tournament” — reduce the player’s ability to curb aggressive behavior, even if the same games fine-tune the player’s ability to make quick decisions. Research shows that in many cases of school shootings, the perpetrators, including the Columbine killers, have had addictions to violent video games, like “Halo,” ‘Grand Theft Auto,” “Counter-Strike,” and “Doom.” Elliot Rodger, who killed six people in 2014 before killing himself, was addicted to “World of Warcraft,” one of the most lucrative video games of all, with more than seven million subscribers, more users than “Call of Duty: Black Ops,” a favorite of the Newtown school shooter, Adam Lanza.
Shortly before he went on a killing spree, Rodger wrote: “I hid myself away in the online ‘World of Warcraft.’ It was the only place I felt secure.” To some disturbed individuals, people become less real than gaming figures, they become “other,” those for whom there is no compassion. “Murder is against natural human inclinations, but violent and first person shooter video games destroy those inhibitions,” says Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, a psychiatrist who studies the effects of violent games.
However, violent crimes have dropped across the developed world over the last four decades. Police argue that crime is down because officers now target criminals in a smarter way — concentrating on the 5 to 10 percent of people who commit over half of all offenses. In New York City, there were 417 murders in 2012, down 2,262 in 1992. Some say the reason is because jail populations in the U.S. and Great Britain have doubled between 1993 and 2012. Video games, however, keep kids off the street. They allow a safer way to express anger. Additionally, just 0.4 percent of American males between the ages of 10 and 24 get arrested for violent crimes now, half the rate in 1995, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And from video games came drones. The Predator is considered the best drone in the world, developed by aeronautics engineer Abraham Karem, out of his California garage. Karem’s prototype, the Albatross, was used by the CIA to gather intelligence during the Bosnian War. NATO attached bombs to its wings for the 1999 Kosovo air strikes, transforming the Albatross from a spy plane into a killer drone.
Today, law enforcement officers use drones. So do farmers, filmmakers, and if Jeff Bezos of Amazon has his way, they’ll be delivering parcels at your doorstep.
Video game technology certainly has significant potential for good, but we can’t celebrate without being aware of the harm it has also caused. It’s an amazing new world, one that arouses excitement, but also caution. It’s all too new for us to know precisely what it does to the brain.
This article was first published in Brain World Magazine’s Fall 2014 issue.
More From Brain World
- Experience on Demand: What Virtual Reality Is, How It Works, and What It Can Do
- Games for Health: Exploring How Video Games Can Improve Health and Health Care
- How Do Video Games Change Your Brain?
- Living Mobile: 5 Ways Technology Supports Healthier Lifestyles
- Rewire Your Life: Looking Closely At Your Media Use
- Virtually Better: How Virtual Reality Is Helping Treat Social Anxiety
