NEW: Video Games Develop Strategic Thinking

NEW: Video Games Develop Strategic Thinking

Games provide low risk, real-time feedback.

With immediate feedback, explicitly expressed in scores or implicitly by means of a competitor’s behaviour, gamers can learn far more quickly by experimenting in games rather than in the actual world.

Additionally, unlike in reality, failing in games has no real drawbacks, making them the ideal testing grounds for different approaches to problems. They are”sandboxes” where incorrect behaviours can be undone, and different decision paths can be attempted or refined. Executing a lousy strategy in real life, and there will be consequences; implementing it in a game, and there will be a lesson learned at the cost of frustration.

Strategy games can simulate environments targeting a specific skill tailored to the situation. Depending on the user’s activities, a game can adapt the difficulty to the player, creating a learning curve and as the player’s ability increases. This sort of intelligent game design keeps the player in what psychologists call the “stream” zone, an optimum corridor between challenge and skill, promoting intellectual development in the process.