Can You Learn Anything Useful By Playing PC Games?
I have played PC games since I was ten years old. I still, remember the first games I played on PC – Prince and Break out. These are some of the time-worn games that used to run from floppy drives. But, they were magical, and it felt out of the world to use a keyboard to play games. We are talking early 90s.
Computers were not common in those days and I have to go to my father’s office on holidays to play games.
All these years I have played many games and learned many new skills and qualities from games.
Let me share with you 25 Things I learned from Playing Games:
Why should you play Games? Let’s See what they taught me.
1) Total WAR
Total War showed me a lot about the medieval history of Europe and the UK, the later versions of the game explained Alexander and Roman Empire. Also give proper lessons in managing resources, supply chain, managing economy, and creating army and strategy. Excellent Game Series. They also are great to learn the world map and which country is located where.
2) Capitalism LAB
Capitalism LAB is another excellent game to learn some elementary economics. I learned a lot about money management, cash flow, and supply and demand from it.
3) Wing Commander: Privateer
An old Game, Privateer – a sci-fi space pirates and smuggling game that taught the basics of supply vs. demand and risk vs. reward.
4) World Geography Games
World Geography games are flash-based good games to teach (Geography), if you are weak in geography, can try your hands on it. When someone asks, where is Seychelles island, in the class, you may be the first one to answer. An excellent game for kids to learn the world map most easily.
5) Gran Turismo (Driving) & Need For Speed
Did I ever tell you I was unbeaten in the Reliance hosted national competition years back in the Need for Speed Underground 1. I learned right driving in real life as well from playing Need for Speed. Studies prove it improves your reflexes. Pilots are trained on flight simulators; most race drivers play racing games in real life to understand cornering, which helps the improvement of reflexes.
5) Formula 1
Formula 1: Would have never figured out the rules without playing the game. A lot of things I learned, like DRS, pit stop strategy, fueling your cars at the right time, track weather impact. The most important thing was how to drive inch-perfect.
6) Sports games – FIFA EA Sports
You wanna learn soccer, and remember all player names, teams, stadium rules, FIFA 2015 is the game to play. All previous generation of EA sports FIFA taught me so much about the game, players, and regulations.
7) Age of Empires/Mythology (History/Mythology)
Another classic like the Total War Series, teaches you about history, mythology, Kings, inventions, multiplayer & team cooperation.
8) Simutran
It is a transport simulator, and the goal is to build an efficient transport network. I have played a lot of simulation games, but this deserves a special mention. Passenger transportation(Passenger behaves very much similar to real life, they have a destination and switch between stations and transports to reach it).
9) Sid Meier’s Civilization
Sid Meier’s Civilization series, in particular, really helps one visualize historical dynamics. While the civilizations and personalities are ancient, the game gives you an insight into how the civilizations evolve over a period. Civilization, especially its tech tree. This was a genuinely great intro to world history, but it went even beyond that. The best way to learn about human history and the development of our technologies, social systems, and other vital discoveries.
25 Things I learned from PC Games: Games are not Waste of Time?
Let us see some of the most interesting Sports game without which half of the rules of the sport and know-how would have been missing.
10) Chess
Sharpen your brain, playing against the nemesis PC Opponents. The chess master is a classic. Chess is the real game of thrones that can put your mind to real tough exercise.
11) BOXING
I played it a long time back, a very cool game to understand how boxers train for endurance, and defense is as essential as Offence.
12) WWE
Ya, I know you are grinning, the most entertaining sports game ever. Even on an old Sega console had so much fun with Combos and non-stop hitting of players, a real stress buster to play it on PS4.
13) Tennis
All the court rules and pointing system can be too much for a tiny brain, play tennis, and you will learn all shots and regulations of the game with maximum enjoyment.
14) Golf
Loved the Golf game which used to come with the old media consoles and even modern-day golf games are cool. Who can imagine poor kids playing golf on a Saturday morning?
15) Baseball
Do they play it in India, I have never seen anyone playing it? I played it with friends on consoles, an entertaining game an American version of cricket. I learned everything about baseball.
16) Cricket
You want to sharpen your skills in real-world cricket and learn some more tips and tricks; Don Bradman Cricket is the game for you. I played all the previous generation of Codemasters and electronic arts cricket games; they were legendary. Learn all the player names, stadiums across countries, best commentator dialogs.
17) Ice Hockey
Would imagine playing it in real life living in India, learn the game, learn the rules enjoy it with the EA Sports ICE hockey. Maybe one day will visit Russia to play it for real.
18) Basketball
Even girls play the EA Basketball, a great game to learn about the legends, rules, and strategies.
19) Mario
Now it was the biggest stress-buster like the Candy crush of modern times, to which everyone is glued all the time. The music for Mario was super awesome and can make grins.
20) Music: Eternal Sonata
I learned a lot about Frédéric Chopin and classical music in general from playing Eternal Sonata. The game is a Japanese RPG in which Chopin is a playable character in an adventure that takes place in his dreams while he was on his deathbed (Chopin died of tuberculosis at age 39… yup, I learned that in the game).
21) Sim City
As a kid, SimCity (game franchise) was a great intro to cash flow. At just 15 years old or so, it was a thrill to micromanage all these variables, especially balancing budgets, making sure you raised income through taxes or ordinances, and keeping costs down through regulating services or not overbuilding.
22) Civilization: Alpha Centauri
It was also a great game to learn from. But more than being educational, it was inspirational. It got a young kid’s mind to start thinking about the challenges, constraints, and wonders of interstellar space colonization.
23) Tomb Raider or Siberia
They make you apply brain and solve 3D puzzles, portal 2 or other detective games like Sherlock Holmes, Postmortem, challenge your mind, to solve challenging puzzles. The cleverly designed problems can help expand your thought process to answer some of the real-life issues.
24) Multiplayer online Games like Battlefield or Call of Duty
Teaches you a lot of teamwork and how to stay aligned with the team objectives rather than just focusing on your success, are handy life lessons while working in teams in college and work. FPS (First Person Shooter) increases observation power and broadens the vision like Call of Duty and Battlefield.
25) Counter-Strike: GO
Now what we learn from it is a real skill. Your brain’s responsiveness increases and reaction time decreases. You make more sharp and agile to the stimuli as you keep playing. The professional players have their skills vastly improved compared to non-gamers.
If anyone has any doubt about how games make you better, you can also read this report published in the Business Insider. The article tells about 11 ways how playing games make you better.
