The Economist likes WOW

[kandrathe]

I saw this in the Economist today -- Why World of Warcraft is good for you.

Based on research published in Current Biology -- Improved Probabilistic Inference as a General Learning Mechanism with Action Video Games.

"A neural model of this task establishes how changing a single parameter, namely the strength of the connections between the neural layer providing the momentary evidence and the layer integrating the evidence over time, captures improvements in action-gamers behavior. These results were established in a visual, but also in a novel auditory, task, indicating generalization across modalities. Thus, improved probabilistic inference provides a general mechanism for why action video game playing enhances performance in a wide variety of tasks. In addition, this mechanism may serve as a signature of training regimens that are likely to produce transfer of learning."

Now we need to follow up the cognitive training regime with a physical one. Perhaps the reward for the 50 pushups, 100 situps, and 1 mile run would be a few hours of HALO Reach, or WOW with some friends.

[Jester]

I Hate Science Reporting, episode 4819208451.

Only those who played fast-moving action video games such as "Call of Duty 2" and "Unreal Tournament" saw an improvement in their decision-making skills.

Yet the article is titled "Why World of Warcraft is good for you." Was "Why Unreal Tournament is good for you" too unsexy? Did this research actually say a single damn thing about WoW?

Apparently, action gamers are better at identifying moving dots and picking patterns out of white noise. (Amazing!) They then somewhat arbitrarily extrapolate that to a mechanism, and then riff about how that mechanism would work in other situations. By the time we're done, we're nowhere near what was actually demonstrated by the research, and might as well be guessing randomly.

Did they even have a control group? I don't have access to the full article until it's a year old, so I can't check, but it sounds like their two group were "exciting" and "boring" games.

-Jester

[--Pete]

Hi,

I Hate Science Reporting, episode 4819208451.

They then somewhat arbitrarily extrapolate that to a mechanism, and then riff about how that mechanism would work in other situations. By the time we're done, we're nowhere near what was actually demonstrated by the research, and might as well be guessing randomly.

I reduced your post to a fundamental truth. What is really scary is that that process used to happen at the local newspaper level. More and more now, it is the researchers themselves who are guilty of this. And most of them don't even realize what they're doing. Too much religion, not enough logic. It is an established fact that pure drivel drives out ordinary drivel. I fear for the future of science.

--Pete

[Treesh]

I think the majority of these studies are done by "researchers" to assuage their own feelings of guilt for enjoying something that used to belong to the realm of children and make it feel more acceptable for adults to enjoy computer games as well, but I have absolutely no data to support my hypothesis.

[Nystul]

I Hate Science Reporting, episode 4819208451.

Only those who played fast-moving action video games such as "Call of Duty 2" and "Unreal Tournament" saw an improvement in their decision-making skills.

Yet the article is titled "Why World of Warcraft is good for you." Was "Why Unreal Tournament is good for you" too unsexy? Did this research actually say a single damn thing about WoW?

My thoughts exactly. I haven't played WoW since the original beta, but it was not an action game by any means. You didn't need precise aim or particularly fast response to most situations, as long as you didn't fall asleep. If you had a good approach to the situation you would be fine. If you don't have fast reactions and masterful control of your input devices in a game like Unreal Tournament, you are finished.

To put it another way, nobody ever freaked out over a few milliseconds of latency in WoW. Nobody ever thought, if I had the right headphones, or a more precise mouse (or mouse *pad*), or a more responsive monitor, I would be so much better at WoW.

[Jester]

My thoughts exactly. I haven't played WoW since the original beta, but it was not an action game by any means. You didn't need precise aim or particularly fast response to most situations, as long as you didn't fall asleep. If you had a good approach to the situation you would be fine. If you don't have fast reactions and masterful control of your input devices in a game like Unreal Tournament, you are finished.

To put it another way, nobody ever freaked out over a few milliseconds of latency in WoW. Nobody ever thought, if I had the right headphones, or a more precise mouse (or mouse *pad*), or a more responsive monitor, I would be so much better at WoW.

It's clear you haven't played WoW since beta. Arenas, and even some cutting-edge raid encounters, definitely make the miliseconds of latency matter, along with the setup, the hotkeys, the "fast reactions and masterful control."

-Jester

[weakwarrior]

Only those who played fast-moving action video games such as "Call of Duty 2" and "Unreal Tournament" saw an improvement in their decision-making skills.

Yet the article is titled "Why World of Warcraft is good for you." Was "Why Unreal Tournament is good for you" too unsexy? Did this research actually say a single damn thing about WoW?

The Title of the original "Current Biology" article is: "Improved Probabilistic Inference as a General Learning Mechanism with Action Video Games." There is something wrong with the supplementary material link so I can't tell if WoW was involved at all.

Did they even have a control group? I don't have access to the full article until it's a year old, so I can't check, but it sounds like their two group were "exciting" and "boring" games.

They had people who didn't play games at all, people who didn't play and then were introduced to non-action games, and people who didn't play and were then introduced to action games. I presume that counts as a control group.

[Nystul]

It's clear you haven't played WoW since beta. Arenas, and even some cutting-edge raid encounters, definitely make the miliseconds of latency matter, along with the setup, the hotkeys, the "fast reactions and masterful control."

Interesting. I take it that the game no longer auto-aims and primary skills no longer have lengthy timers/refresh rates?

[Jester]

Interesting. I take it that the game no longer auto-aims and primary skills no longer have lengthy timers/refresh rates?

Aiming isn't the only thing you need reflexes for. Targeting accuracy is not such a large issue, although if you get into crazy enough arena fights it can be. You don't have to "aim" your weapon/spell/whatever, but you do have to pick a target, and that can be a nontrivial decision that has to be made in a split second.

"Primary" skills is difficult to define. Most skills are on cooldowns, yes. But especially for PvP, spell interrupts are incredibly important, and they're off the global cooldown - you either hit it at the right time, or you don't. Very skilled players do fakeouts to get their opponents to try to interrupt at the wrong time, and so on. Movement is also not on any kind of cooldown, and if you're not changing your position constantly when fighting a melee DPS, or reacting with split-second timing to incoming raid damage, you're going to get splattered.

-Jester

[PizzaSHARK!]

My thoughts exactly. I haven't played WoW since the original beta, but it was not an action game by any means. You didn't need precise aim or particularly fast response to most situations, as long as you didn't fall asleep. If you had a good approach to the situation you would be fine. If you don't have fast reactions and masterful control of your input devices in a game like Unreal Tournament, you are finished.

To put it another way, nobody ever freaked out over a few milliseconds of latency in WoW. Nobody ever thought, if I had the right headphones, or a more precise mouse (or mouse *pad*), or a more responsive monitor, I would be so much better at WoW.

It's clear you haven't played WoW since beta. Arenas, and even some cutting-edge raid encounters, definitely make the miliseconds of latency matter, along with the setup, the hotkeys, the "fast reactions and masterful control."

-Jester

Compared to the demands of shooters like UT2k4, TF2, and L4D(2)? Not so much. Both demand rapid response times and the ability to think ahead, but twitch-based shooters add the ability to aim precisely while moving in multiple directions to the stack.

RTSes like Starcraft shift the focus away from hectic mouseplay to being able to track several different, varied things at once - monitor your base, attack the enemy, control your individual units to maximize their effectiveness, continue scouting the map, and expand, expand, expand.

WoW, by comparison, is child's play. Though, yes, hard mode raiding and high-rating arena do demand quick response times.

[Jester]

WoW, by comparison, is child's play. Though, yes, hard mode raiding and high-rating arena do demand quick response times.

My argument is not that WoW is some kind of maximally difficult reflex game, only that it is decidedly nontrivial in a way that might not be obvious to someone whose experience was in the beta.

PvP, of course, will almost always become a difficult twitch reflex exercise. Unless the whole thing is turn based, if you're playing against someone else, you have to be faster than they are.

-Jester

[kandrathe]

There is probably a continuum of game intensity from FPS/high twitch, RTS or brain bending rapid decision types, to the almost non-games like SIMS. Intuitively, we can agree that it would seem reasonable to expect that people who stretch their mental capacity, by practicing making rapid decisions in a low risk environment like gaming would have a higher capacity for exhibiting the same mental skills in real world activities. There are times in WOW where you hang out at town chatting in guild chat, or wander around and pick herbs. That's not the high stress point of the game.

Being the parent of two boys, who are avid console gamers, and who'd spend their life in the virtual world if I let them, I'd say that no more than two hours of gaming per day is sufficient. During the school week for them it's less, and on weekends we need to limit it to 2 hours at most, otherwise they'd never get chores done, homework completed, or spend time playing with friends outside. Yes, yes, I AM AN OGRE!

[Bob the Beholder]

My thoughts exactly. I haven't played WoW since the original beta, but it was not an action game by any means. You didn't need precise aim or particularly fast response to most situations, as long as you didn't fall asleep. If you had a good approach to the situation you would be fine. If you don't have fast reactions and masterful control of your input devices in a game like Unreal Tournament, you are finished.

To put it another way, nobody ever freaked out over a few milliseconds of latency in WoW. Nobody ever thought, if I had the right headphones, or a more precise mouse (or mouse *pad*), or a more responsive monitor, I would be so much better at WoW.

It's clear you haven't played WoW since beta.

-Jester

This is precisely what went through me head when I read Nystul's post. While other people are absolutely correct that it's certainly not at the level of the more competitive FPS games, the complexity of both PvE and PvP encounters has increased by a ridiculous degree since the content of early classic. Predominantly because once people were used to the mechanics the early classic content was trivially and mind numbingly boring. And partially because a fair amount of the truly competitive players also play, or moved from, the same high complexity FPS games, and have spent the intervening six years begging for content that suits them, or in the case of PvP, becoming that content.