do video games improve problem solving

Playing these 6 video games could help improve your problem-solving skills

Jane McGonigal , a world-renowned designer of alternate-reality games who has a Ph.D. in performance studies, wants to change people's conception of video games as " just escapist, guilty pleasures."

" My number one goal in life is to see a game designer nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize," McGonigal writes on her website . 

She tells Business Insider she wants people to realize that games can be "powerful tools to improve our attention, our mood, our cognitive strengths, and our relationships."

And research is on her side. 

Studies suggest that mainstream games like "Call of Duty" may improve our cognitive abilities significantly more than games specifically designed to do so by designers like Luminosity.

To help spread the truth about common misconceptions, seven neuroscientists from around the world signed the document "A Consensus on the Brain Training Industry from the Scientific Community" in 2014 to say they "object to the claim" that brainteaser games can improve cognitive abilities, as no scientific evidence has been able to confirm such a claim. 

Even better for gamers, research from North Carolina State University and Florida State University suggests that mainstream games geared toward entertainment can help improve attention, spatial orientation, and problem-solving abilities.

In her book, " Super Better ," McGonigal writes that the researchers she talked to about this seeming contradiction offered a simple explanation: "Traditional video games are more complex and harder to master, and they require that the player learn a wider and more challenging range of skills and abilities."

If you want to have fun and stimulate your mind, McGonigal recommends playing one of these six games three times a week for about 20 minutes.

McGonigal says playing fast-paced games like "Call of Duty," a first-person shooter game, can help improve visual attention and spatial-intelligence skills, which can lead to better performance in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

Another fast-paced game, "Forza," a car-racing game, may help improve your ability to make accurate decisions under pressure.

Taking on the role of a criminal in a big city in "Grand Theft Auto" may help train you to process information faster and keep track of more information — up to three times the amount as nongamers, some studies suggest — in high-stress situations.

Strategic games like "StarCraft," a military-science-fiction game, can also improve the ability to solve imaginary and real-life problems, possibly because they teach users to both formulate and execute strategic plans.

Games that require strategic thinking, like science-fiction third-person-shooter game "Mass Effect," also test and refine your information-gathering skills.

Lastly, "thinking games" like "Final Fantasy," a fantasy-role-playing game, can help train you to evaluate your options faster and more accurately.

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Well-designed video games can enhance problem-solving skills and make learning more effective.

• May 29, 2013
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The tragic December deaths of 20 first-graders and six school staff members in Sandy Hook, Connecticut, along with the Boston Marathon tragedy and other recent attacks, have brought the decades-old debate over the behavioral effects of video games back onto legislative floors throughout the nation. Citing the fact that gunman Adam Lanza, 20, played violent video games, members of the U.S. Congressional Gun Violence Prevention Task Force detailed their plans to address “our culture’s glorification of violence” through media, and commentary stemming from reports like Katie Couric’s May 2013 video game violence exposé has highlighted the need for greater clarification of how we should read and interpret video game research.

Clearly, it’s a complex and emotional issue further complicated by discussions that focus almost exclusively on the negative effects of gaming. The reality, however, is that there’s little research outlining whether or not violent video games beget actual violence: many existing studies, like one described in a recent edition of the UConn Today , focus on aggression without explicitly acknowledging the complex relationship between cognition, transfer, and real world behavior. This has led to two major problems, the combination of which throws a wrench in the socially and politically-charged rhetoric surrounding violence: 1) the dismissal of other, more influential factors common to violent criminals—biological predisposition to mental health issues, instability at home and/or work, lack of positive role models, having no one to confide in, access to weapons, and in-the-moment opportunity versus need; and 2) neglect for how learning in all types of games—violent or not—actually happens.

While the first problem may better fit sociologists and psychologists who have direct experience with individuals who commit violent crimes, the second is something that we as teachers, administrators, and researchers can tackle head on. There’s general consensus in the educational psychology community that the nature of environment-learner-content interactions is vital to our understanding of how people perceive and act. As a result, we can’t make broad assumptions about games as a vehicle for violent behavior without attending to how environment-learner-content interactions influence transfer—the way learning and action in one context affects learning and action in a related context.

It might help to think of transfer in terms of what we hope students will do with the information they learn in our classes. For example, you might teach geometric principles in your math class thinking that those techniques will help your students craft a birdhouse in shop. However, one of the most well-cited studies of the subject (Gick & Holyoak, 1980) showed that only one-fifth of college students were able to apply a particular problem solving strategy—using ‘divide-and-conquer’ to capture a castle—in another, almost identical context less than 24 hours after exposure to the first. Even with explicit direct instruction explaining how the same strategy could be used to solve both problems, fewer than 50% of students were able to make the connection. Though links between situations might seem self-evident to us as teachers, they usually aren’t as obvious to our students as we think they should be.

This gives us reason to believe that, regardless of subject, students—or in the case of video games, players—are rarely able to take something they’ve used in one context and independently apply it in a totally different one. Put another way, even if violent gaming raises general aggression, increased aggression doesn’t automatically translate to real world violent behavior . Gamers might use more curse words while playing Call of Duty , but they won’t learn to steal a car solely by playing Grand Theft Auto —there needs to be a mediating instructor who can provide well-guided bridging between the game and reality, especially for in-game activities that aren’t isomorphic with real world action (i.e., firing a gun).

This relationship between environment-learner-content interaction and transfer puts teachers in the unique position to capitalize on game engagement to promote reflection that positively shapes how students tackle real-world challenges. To some, this may seem like a shocking concept, but it’s definitely not a new one—roleplay as instruction, for example, was very popular among the ancient Greeks and, in many ways, served as the backbone for Plato’s renowned Allegory of the Cave . The same is true of Shakespeare’s works, 18th and 19th century opera, and many of the novels, movies, and other media that define our culture. More recently, NASA has applied game-like simulations to teach astronauts how to maneuver through space, medical schools have used them to teach robotic surgery, and the Federal Aviation Administration has employed them to test pilots.

To be clear, this is not a call for K12 educators to drop everything and immediately incorporate violent games like Doom or Mortal Kombat into their classrooms. Instead, it’s a call to consider how we can take advantage of game affordances (including those of violent games) to extend beyond predictable multiple-choice materials that leave students wishing they could pull out their smartphones. It’s a call for legislators to give greater consideration to the role of transfer before passing sweeping bans on violent video game play. It’s a call for all of us to use games as a vehicle to talk about racial, social, gender, and other inequities that are very much a part of the world we live in.

It’s a bold idea that can feel scary, but the potential benefits are beyond exciting. Research generated by people like Kurt Squire, Sasha Barab, and James Paul Gee suggests that interactive games can be used to teach children about history, increase vocabulary, challenge them to set and achieve goals, and enhance their ability to work in teams. They expose students to culturally diverse casts of characters in addition to providing instant feedback about goal-oriented progress. Most importantly, perhaps, they can be powerfully engaging, giving students a reason to pursue learning beyond the classroom.

To maintain a positive trajectory, teachers looking to make the most of the instructional affordances of video games should keep an eye out for games they feel comfortable playing alongside and discussing with their students, take advantage of opportunities to participate in university game-based learning research studies, and remain open to modifying their instructional approaches. Parents should connect with teachers for up-to-date research coming from organizations like Games+Learning+Society and have their children reflect on material they’ve been exposed to during play—for example, social and cultural stereotypes, gender roles, and ways of thinking presented in each game. Legislators should consult university researchers in both communications and educational psychology to get a wider perspective on how play and learning merge to generate behavior in the real world.

Our collective understanding of game-based learning is evolving at lightning speed, and we need to dispel false information that ignores how games actually affect player thinking and action. More work, involving teachers, administrators, researchers, designers, parents, and politicians, is needed. The next step is to enhance our collaboration by working to create multi-disciplinary games that incorporate not just academic content but educational practices that lead to broader critical thinking and problem solving. Though far from complete, our combined effort has the potential to move beyond the swamp of video game violence and excite kids about school before they say “game over.”

Stephen Slota is doctoral candidate in educational psychology at the University of Connecticut’s Neag School of Education as well as an unashamed gamer. An educational technology specialist and  former urban high school teacher, he has a bachelor’s in molecular and cellular biology and Master’s in curriculum and instruction. His research interests include the situated cognition underlying play, the effects of gaming on student achievement, and prosocial learning through massively multiplayer online role-playing games ( MMORPGs).

The Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation (CAEP) accredits the Neag School of Education at the University of Connecticut. Read more about CAEP Accreditation, including the programs covered and the accountability measures .

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Monday, October 24, 2022

Video gaming may be associated with better cognitive performance in children

Additional research necessary to parse potential benefits and harms of video games on the developing brain.

On Monday, April 10, 2023, a Notice of Retraction and Replacement published for the article featured below . The key findings remain the same. The press release has been updated, in line with the retracted and replacement article, to clarify that attention problems, depression symptoms, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) scores were significantly higher among children who played three hours per day or more compared to children who had never played video games.

A study of nearly 2,000 children found that those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or more performed better on cognitive skills tests involving impulse control and working memory compared to children who had never played video games. Published today in JAMA Network Open , this study analyzed data from the ongoing  Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study , which is supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and other entities of the National Institutes of Health.

“This study adds to our growing understanding of the associations between playing video games and brain development,” said NIDA Director Nora Volkow, M.D. “Numerous studies have linked video gaming to behavior and mental health problems. This study suggests that there may also be cognitive benefits associated with this popular pastime, which are worthy of further investigation.”

Although a number of studies have investigated the relationship between video gaming and cognitive behavior, the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the associations are not well understood. Only a handful of neuroimaging studies have addressed this topic, and the sample sizes for those studies have been small, with fewer than 80 participants.

To address this research gap, scientists at the University of Vermont, Burlington, analyzed data obtained when children entered the ABCD Study at ages 9 and 10 years old. The research team examined survey, cognitive, and brain imaging data from nearly 2,000 participants from within the bigger study cohort. They separated these children into two groups, those who reported playing no video games at all and those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or more. This threshold was selected as it exceeds the American Academy of Pediatrics screen time guidelines , which recommend that videogaming time be limited to one to two hours per day for older children. For each group, the investigators evaluated the children’s performance on two tasks that reflected their ability to control impulsive behavior and to memorize information, as well as the children’s brain activity while performing the tasks.

The researchers found that the children who reported playing video games for three or more hours per day were faster and more accurate on both cognitive tasks than those who never played. They also observed that the differences in cognitive function observed between the two groups was accompanied by differences in brain activity. Functional MRI brain imaging analyses found that children who played video games for three or more hours per day showed higher brain activity in regions of the brain associated with attention and memory than did those who never played. At the same time, those children who played at least three hours of videogames per day showed more brain activity in frontal brain regions that are associated with more cognitively demanding tasks and less brain activity in brain regions related to vision.  

The researchers think these patterns may stem from practicing tasks related to impulse control and memory while playing videogames, which can be cognitively demanding, and that these changes may lead to improved performance on related tasks. Furthermore, the comparatively low activity in visual areas among children who reported playing video games may reflect that this area of the brain may become more efficient at visual processing as a result of repeated practice through video games.

While prior studies have reported associations between video gaming and increases in violence and aggressive behavior, this study did not find that to be the case. Though children who reported playing video games for three or more hours per day scored higher on measures of attention problems, depression symptoms, and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) compared to children who played no video games, the researchers found that these mental health and behavioral scores did not reach clinical significance in either group, meaning, they did not meet the thresholds for risk of problem behaviors or clinical symptoms. The authors note that these will be important measures to continue to track and understand as the children mature.

Further, the researchers stress that this cross-sectional study does not allow for cause-and-effect analyses, and that it could be that children who are good at these types of cognitive tasks may choose to play video games. The authors also emphasize that their findings do not mean that children should spend unlimited time on their computers, mobile phones, or TVs, and that the outcomes likely depend largely on the specific activities children engage in. For instance, they hypothesize that the specific genre of video games, such as action-adventure, puzzle solving, sports, or shooting games, may have different effects for neurocognitive development, and this level of specificity on the type of video game played was not assessed by the study.

“While we cannot say whether playing video games regularly caused superior neurocognitive performance, it is an encouraging finding, and one that we must continue to investigate in these children as they transition into adolescence and young adulthood,” said Bader Chaarani, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Vermont and the lead author on the study. “Many parents today are concerned about the effects of video games on their children’s health and development, and as these games continue to proliferate among young people, it is crucial that we better understand both the positive and negative impact that such games may have.”

Through the ABCD Study, researchers will be able to conduct similar analyses for the same children over time into early adulthood, to see if changes in video gaming behavior are linked to changes in cognitive skills, brain activity, behavior, and mental health. The longitudinal study design and comprehensive data set will also enable them to better account for various other factors in the children’s families and environment that may influence their cognitive and behavioral development, such as exercise, sleep quality, and other influences.

The ABCD Study, the largest of its kind in the United States, is tracking nearly 12,000 youth as they grow into young adults. Investigators regularly measure participants’ brain structure and activity using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and collect psychological, environmental, and cognitive information, as well as biological samples. The goal of the study is to understand the factors that influence brain, cognitive, and social-emotional development, to inform the development of interventions to enhance a young person’s life trajectory.

The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study and ABCD Study are registered service marks and trademarks, respectively, of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services

About the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA): NIDA is a component of the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIDA supports most of the world’s research on the health aspects of drug use and addiction. The Institute carries out a large variety of programs to inform policy, improve practice, and advance addiction science. For more information about NIDA and its programs, visit www.nida.nih.gov .

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit www.nih.gov .

NIH…Turning Discovery Into Health ®

  B Chaarani, et al.  Association of video gaming with cognitive performance among children .  JAMA Open Network.  DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2022.35721 (2022).

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Arts on the Brain

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Video games on the Brain

Technology has expanded the canvas upon an artist’s ability to express their stories. Videogames prove to be an art form that can solely exist in the digital space and demonstrates a collision of art and science. Our brain interprets these artists’ creations in many ways, both presenting itself as beneficial, yet also damaging to the brain. Video games have both positive and negative effects on the brain, as they can be used for education purposes or can have more drastic consequences. 

When overviewing the positive effects of videogames on the brain there are some main areas of the brain to focus upon: premotor and parietal cortex, prefrontal cortex, dopamine and grey matter. Cognitively, all video games are proven to improve one’s problem solving ability as well as reasoning capabilities. 

Different types of video games develop different skills as well as activate different parts of the brain. More broadly speaking, games that require team efforts help develop collaboration abilities. Other action focused video games have the ability to increase brain activity in the premotor and parietal cortex, where motor skills, quick thinking, and control of sensory movements are required. These same video games have the ability to physically improve one’s peripheral vision as well as hand-eye coordination. Examples of these types of games include Space Invaders and Halo. Games that require more logical thinking, such as Tetris, display an increased use of the prefrontal cortex, where decision-making is controlled. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is released when learning and activates sensations of reward. In the context of playing video games, dopamine is released in the brain’s striatum, invoking senses of pleasure and addiction. 

For the sake of this post, I’ll be emphasising my focus on experiments regarding grey matter. Grey matter helps process information in the brain, by more specifically processing signals that are generated by other sensory organs in the body or other areas which contain grey matter. This grey matter serves to move motor sensory stimuli to nerve cells in the nervous system. There, synapses produce a response to the certain stimuli. Hippocampal grey matter, more specifically, is crucial for the maintenance of healthy cognition. One experiment demonstrated how playing video games has the potential to increase hippocampal grey matter in young adolescents. This experiment tested the influence of the video game Super Mario Kart on the grey matter in the hippocampal and cerebral region of adolescents. 

Figure 1: Demonstrates the increase of grey matter in the hippocampal region.

As seen in the brain scan it is apparent that there is a great increase of grey matter in the brain of the adults immediately after playing the video game. 

Though there are positive effects apparent when playing video games, some of the negative impacts outweigh those of the positive. More broadly speaking, some of the negative effects that videogames can have on the brain is that of the “video game brain.” This effect occurs when one has dedicated so much time to video games that the underside of the frontal lobe begins to shrink, leasing to other symptoms such as mood alterations. With more frequency of playing video games, a visible decrease in activity in the prefrontal lobe is apparent. This is known to lead to symptoms such as increased moodiness, anxiety, and aggressiveness, which may occur even after the conclusion of the game itself.

For the sake of this post, I will be focusing the spectrum of my research to the cingulate cortices. Studies have demonstrated that even one week of violent video gaming can lead to a decreased activation of the rostral anterior cingulate cortex and amygdala, during both numerical and emotional tasks. Both of which areas are utilized in solving and controlling emotional confliction. This frequent play of violent aggressive video games lead to symptoms such as players being relatively more anxious, spike in increases of violent-related and aggressive behaviors for the short and long term period. In the study, it was noted that when players shot and fired a weapon in violent video game play, there was a suppression of emotional response in these areas to cope with their actions afterwards. This is seen in the posterior cingulate cortex, which serves for motor control, cognition, and planning activated by emotions, or in this case weapon usage. Some video games that can demonstrate these effects on humans are Fornite and Call of Duty.

“Choosing to attack is associated with greater activity in the posterior anterior cingulate cortex, while choosing to defend was associated with activity in the rostral anterior cingulate cortex .” As demonstrated in the figure above, specific brain regions are active when choosing an attack or defend strategy. 

One of my favorite video games to play at the moment is Among Us. Among Us is a Social Deduction Game where one imposter tries to kill all the crewmates on board without exposing their identity. If seen killing, crewmates can report the killer and vote out the imposter. The crewmates are responsible for finishing as many simple tasks as they possibly can. Some of the brain functions involved in the game vary depending on the position you are assigned at the beginning of the game: crewmate or imposter. 

When playing the game Among Us strategies of how to operate are required, utilizing the frontal lobe to map out one’s judgement and impulse control. Controlling sensory movements in this action-filled game is crucial. Secondly, there is violence present in this game. So those in the positions of imposters will experience different activities in their brain than those who are crewmates. After the killing of a crewmate, the person playing the imposter will experience a suppression of emotional response after their killing, more specifically suppressed in the rostral angular cortex and the amygdala. Whereas the crewmate on the opposite hand, will feel emotions of reward and pleasure upon completion of their tasks and calling out those who may seem suspicious during the play of the game. This releases dopamine through the brian’s striatum. All in all, videogames all impact the players brain in different ways, having both positive and negative effects upon one’s cognition.

Works Cited:

Itgsnewsauthor. How Gaming Affects the Brain . 4 July 2015, 

www.itgsnews.com/how-gaming-affects-brain/. 

Izaak. (2020, September 22). How to play Among Us: Beginner’s guide, tutorial, and 

frequently asked questions. Retrieved November 01, 2020, from 

https://www.sportskeeda.com/esports/how-play-among-us-beginner-s-guide-tutorial-fr

equently-asked-questions

Melissinos, Chris. Video Games Are One of the Most Important Art Forms in History . 22 Sept. 

2015, time.com/collection-post/4038820/chris-melissinos-are-video-games-art/. 

Palaus, Marc, et al. Neural Basis of Video Gaming: A Systematic Review . 22 May 2017, 

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5438999/. 

Robertson, Sally. What Is Grey Matter? 23 Aug. 2018, 

www.news-medical.net/health/What-is-Grey-Matter.aspx. 

Staff, Science X. Brain: A ‘Cingular’ Strategy for Attack and Defense . 20 Apr. 2015, 

medicalxpress.com/news/2015-04-brain-cingular-strategy-defense.html. 

West, Greg L., et al. Playing Super Mario 64 Increases Hippocampal Grey Matter in Older 

Adults . journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0187779. 

6 Comments Add yours

I really enjoyed your post! Although I don’t play video games that often, I definitely liked learning about how and why they activate different parts of the brain. I knew that playing lots of video games can be unhealthy for our minds and physical bodies, however, I didn’t realize that they could entirely shrink our frontal lobes in severe situations. I also enjoyed reading about the Among Us portion in your post as I might have had a slight obsession with it last month. I never even realized all the intricate connections between doing small tasks in an online game and how they affect different parts of my brain. Great read!

Hi Lyla, I love your post so much! It was well written and also intriguing. The strucure of this post was so clear that I could see an introduction, a positive effect part, a negative effect part, and a conclusion. When trying to explain some professional and biological stuffs, you perfectly used great and clear pictures to illustrate the explanation. Just as what Rishika said, I knew that it was definitely unhealthy for one who plays lots of video games, I failed to realize that video games could cause such severe situation such as shrinking the frontal lobes. Thanks you so much for bringing such good work to me!

Wow! Though I have heard of many of the positive effects of playing video games that you touched on like increased problem-solving skills and increased ability to work in teams, I had not heard much about the possible negative effects of gaming. In my experience, many negative claims I have heard about video games are brushed to the side and seen as a misunderstanding from an older, less informed generation. It was interesting to see activation in the posterior cingulate cortex as shown in figure 2, highlighting how the attack portion is activated during in-game attacks. Still, it was very cool to see both positive and negative effects explored in this post!

Hi Lyla, this is such an interesting post about arts and brain! I am also a player of both Mario and Among Us, and I really agree with your argument about the effect of the video game. Before reading your post, I haven’t realized how my brain would be affected by those video games and simply thought games could increase my brain activity. Now I get to know the specific areas like grey matter and frontal lobe will be impacted by the stimulus from games. It reminds me the reason why teenagers should not play too many video games. Proper time management on playing games can reduce the shrink on our frontal lobe, thus help maintain a normal function of controlling emotions and decision making. Thank you for posting it!

I really enjoyed this post and found it super relevant considering how much time people spend playing video games today. It was really interesting to hear about the different kinds of effects, both positive and negative, that video games can have on our brains. It seems to be important to find a balance so that one does not spend too much playing them. It may even be beneficial for someone to mix up what type of games they are playing so that the negative effects are less harmful. Overall, this was super interesting to read!

I really enjoyed reading this post and found it super relevant considering how much time people spend playing video games today. It was really interesting to hear about the different kinds of effects, both positive and negative, that video games can have on our brains. It seems to be important to find a balance so that one does not spend too much playing them. It may even be beneficial for someone to mix up what type of games they are playing so that the negative effects are less harmful. Overall, this was super interesting to read!

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Video games could improve your decision-making skills. Here's how

Frequent players of video games have superior sensorimotor decision-making skills compared to those who do not. Image:  Unsplash/JESHOOTS.COM

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Stay up to date:, digital communications.

• Frequent players of video games have superior sensorimotor decision-making skills compared to non-players, a recent study shows.
• Researchers found that playing video games enhanced several subprocesses for sensation, perception and mapping to action.
• Video games could be a helpful tool for training perceptual decision-making and increasing task-specific activity.

Frequent players of video games show superior sensorimotor decision-making skills and enhanced activity in key regions of the brain as compared to non-players, according to a recent study.

The authors, who used functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) in the study, say the findings suggest that video games could be a useful tool for training in perceptual decision-making.

“Video games are played by the overwhelming majority of our youth more than three hours every week, but the beneficial effects on decision-making abilities and the brain are not exactly known,” says lead researcher Mukesh Dhamala, associate professor in Georgia State University’s physics and astronomy department and the university’s Neuroscience Institute.

“Our work provides some answers on that,” Dhamala says. “Video game playing can effectively be used for training—for example, decision-making efficiency training and therapeutic interventions —once the relevant brain networks are identified.”

Dhamala was the adviser for Tim Jordan, the lead author of the paper, who offered a personal example of how such research could inform the use of video games for training the brain.

Jordan, who received a PhD in physics and astronomy from Georgia State in 2021, had weak vision in one eye as a child. As part of a research study when he was about 5, he was asked to cover his good eye and play video games as a way to strengthen the vision in the weak one. Jordan credits video game training with helping him go from legally blind in one eye to building strong capacity for visual processing, allowing him to eventually play lacrosse and paintball. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at UCLA.

The new research project involved 47 college-age participants, with 28 categorized as regular video game players and 19 as non-players.

The subjects laid inside an FMRI machine with a mirror that allowed them to see a cue immediately followed by a display of moving dots. Participants were asked to press a button in their right or left hand to indicate the direction the dots were moving, or resist pressing either button if there was no directional movement.

The researchers found that video game players were faster and more accurate with their responses.

The latest figures show that 56% of 8-12-year-olds across 29 countries are involved in at least one of the world's major cyber-risks: cyberbullying, video-game addiction, online sexual behaviour or meeting with strangers encountered on the web.

Using the Forum's platform to accelerate its work globally, #DQEveryChild , an initiative to increase the digital intelligence quotient (DQ) of children aged 8-12, has reduced cyber-risk exposure by 15%.

In March 2019, the DQ Global Standards Report 2019 was launched – the first attempt to define a global standard for digital literacy, skills and readiness across the education and technology sectors.

Our System Initiative on Shaping the Future of Media, Information and Entertainment has brought together key stakeholders to ensure better digital intelligence for children worldwide. Find our more about DQ Citizenship in our Impact Story .

Analysis of the resulting brain scans found that the differences were correlated with enhanced activity in certain parts of the brain.

“These results indicate that video game playing potentially enhances several of the subprocesses for sensation, perception, and mapping to action to improve decision-making skills,” the authors write. “These findings begin to illuminate how video game playing alters the brain in order to improve task performance and their potential implications for increasing task-specific activity.”

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The study also notes there was no trade-off between speed and accuracy of response—the video game players were better on both measures.

“This lack of speed-accuracy trade-off would indicate video game playing as a good candidate for cognitive training as it pertains to decision-making,” the authors write.

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Groundbreaking new study says time spent playing video games can be good for your well being

With the UK in a second national lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Christmas on the horizon, many will stay indoors to play and socially connect through video games. New research from Oxford University has delivered a surprising finding; time spent playing games is positively associated with well-being.

The new study is the first of its kind. Rather than asking players how much they play, it uses industry data on actual play time for popular video games Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville and Animal Crossing: New Horizons. The study suggests that experiences of competence and social connection with others through play may contribute to people’s well-being. Indeed, those who derived enjoyment from playing were more likely to report experiencing positive well-being.

These experiences during play may be even more important than the actual amount of time a player invests in games and could play a major role in the well-being of players.

Professor Andrew Przybylski , Director of Research at the Oxford Internet Institute , University of Oxford, and lead-author of the study, says, 'Previous research has relied mainly on self-report surveys to study the relationship between play and well-being. Without objective data from games companies, those proposing advice to parents or policymakers have done so without the benefit of a robust evidence base.

'Our findings show video games aren’t necessarily bad for your health; there are other psychological factors which have a significant effect on a persons’ well-being. In fact, play can be an activity that relates positively to people’s mental health – and regulating video games could withhold those benefits from players.

'Working with Electronic Arts and Nintendo of America we’ve been able to combine academic and industry expertise. Through access to data on peoples’ playing time, for the first time we’ve been able to investigate the relation between actual game play behaviour and subjective well-being, enabling us to deliver a template for crafting high-quality evidence to support health policymakers.'

Our findings show video games aren’t necessarily bad for your health; there are other psychological factors which have a significant effect on a persons’ well-being

The study explored the association between objective game time and well-being, examining the link between directly measured behaviour and subjective mental health. It also explored the roles of player experiences, specifically how feelings of autonomy, relatedness, competence, enjoyment and feeling pressured to play related to well-being.

In their study, the Oxford researchers looked at patterns of player behaviour for two popular video games. More than 3,270 players were asked to complete a survey designed by the researchers to measure well-being, self-reported play, and motivational experiences during play. The survey findings were combined with objective behavioural data for the survey participants, collected by the video game companies.

 Key findings include:

• Actual amount of time spent playing was a small but significant positive factor in people’s well-being

• A player’s subjective experiences during play might be a bigger factor for well-being than mere play time.

• Players experiencing genuine enjoyment from the games experience more positive well-being

• Findings align with past research suggesting people whose psychological needs weren’t being met in the ‘real world’ might report negative well-being from play.

See an extended interview with Professor Przybylski here.  

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Video Games Make You Smarter: Backed up by Research

Many people claim that video games make you smarter. However, intelligence is a broad concept, and we don’t know what effect video games have on it. Even then, lots of research has shown that video games can have a tangible impact on cognition. Let’s explore these in detail and answer the question, “Do video games make you smarter?”

Video games increase your attention span, improve decision making and problem-solving capabilities in competitive environments, and improve memory and learning. Video games improve the cognitive abilities that society values.

Take this quiz to understand your problematic relationship with video games:

Read further to learn how video games affect our cognitive capabilities.

Effect of Video Games on Attention

• A study by Green and Bavelier found that action video games enhance attentional control. According to this study, action games involve high-speed gameplay and contain objects that quickly pop in and out of the visual field. They seem to have the broadest benefits to perceptual and attentional abilities.

• Most action games require the player to keep their attention focused on specific objects or entities. These objects or entities can be presented in isolation or amongst other irrelevant distractions. As a result, action games notably boost selective attention, i.e., a person’s ability to focus on one particular stimulus.
• Gamers who play action games can track independently moving objects faster and better than non-video-game players. They demonstrate a higher degree of spatial awareness compared to their non-gamer counterparts.
• A test often used in the screening of ADD found that gamers had faster responses than those that did not play video games. Moreover, they did not sacrifice accuracy for speed. It is also important to note that the test recognized their responses as being anticipatory. That means that gamers relied on prediction rather than reaction. As a result, the study concluded that video game players are faster but not more impulsive than non-gamers.
• A study that compared 27 expert gamers with 30 amateur ones found that action games correlated with higher gray matter volume in the brain.

How Video Games Affect Memory and Learning

Memory is closely related to attention. Therefore, since games improve attention, they would have an impact on memory as well. Let’s take a look at some research.

• A study conducted by McDermott et al. compared the memory of action video game players with non-gamers. They found that action video game players excelled over non-gamers in tasks that involved retaining many memories. They also demonstrated higher precision with visual-spatial short term memory tasks.
• A study done by Ferguson, Cruz, and Rueda found that video game playing correlated positively with accuracy in visual memory. The study hypothesized that this was because video games primed the player to be sensitive to visual cues.
• According to researchers from the University of California , playing 3D video games can boost the formation of memories and improve hand-eye coordination and reaction times.
• A study conducted by Gnambs et al. found that while playing video games can result in a tiny hit to school performance, they don’t affect a child’s intelligence.
• According to some preliminary research, strategy games can increase older adults’ brain functions, and perhaps even protect against dementia and Alzheimer’s .
• A study by Lorenza et al. suggests that gaming trains the brain to be more flexible in updating and monitoring new information. Therefore, it enhances the memory capacity of gamers.

Video Games and Problem Solving

Most video games require a large amount of problem-solving. However, different games require different kinds of problem-solving.

• A l ongitudinal study conducted in 2013 found that playing strategy games correlated positively with problem-solving abilities and school grades in the following year. That means that adolescents that reported playing more strategy games tended to display better problem-solving ability.
• Scholars at Michigan State University did a study of about 500 12-year-olds. They found that the more kids played video games, the more creative they were in tasks such as drawing pictures and writing stories. However, the use of the internet, cellphones, and computers (aside from playing video games) was unrelated to creativity. Moreover, the increase in creativity was not related to whether the game was violent or non-violent.
• A University of Glasgow trial found that gaming improved communication skills, resourcefulness, and flexibility as video games increase critical thinking and reflective learning ability. These traits are central to graduates and are desirable to employers seeking to hire people out of university.

Video Games and Spatial Intelligence

Most video games, especially 3D ones, require gamers to develop excellent spatial skills to navigate complex environments. Let’s look at some studies that have looked at the relationship between video games and spatial intelligence.

• A 2007 study by Green and Bavalier found that video games significantly increased an inexperienced gamer’s ability to rotate complex shapes in their mind. It also found that subjects trained in action video games showed an increase in their ability to identify a single object, among other distracting ones.
• Another study confirmed that video game players showed a faster response time for easy and difficult visual search tasks than non-gamers.
• Avid action-video-game players were able to identify a peripheral target among many distracting objects more accurately than non-action-video-game players. The researchers showed them a sequence of objects, each of which they presented very briefly. They found that gamers were able to process this visual stream more efficiently than non-gamers. They were also able to track more objects than non-video-game-players.
• An fMRI study by Granek et al. found that extensive gaming alters the network in our brain that processes complex visual tasks. It makes the circuitry more efficient.

How Video Games Impact Decision Making

Video games, especially action games, require quick, on-the-fly decision-making capabilities. Avid gamers can make decisions under pressure. Here are some findings from relevant research.

• A study split participants aged 18 to 25 into two groups. One group played 50 hours of Call of Duty 2 and Unreal Tournament , and the other group played 50 hours of Sims 2 . The action game players made decisions 25% faster in a task unrelated to playing video games without sacrificing accuracy.
• One study explored ways to improve traditional training methods that aim to reduce people’s bias and improve their decision-making capabilities. They found that interactive video games improved general decision-making abilities both in the short term and long term. Susceptibility to bias was reduced by 31% in immediate tests, and after three months, the reduction will still more than 23%

Video Games and IQ

What is iq how much does it matter.

IQ is short for intelligence quotient. Researchers developed it to measure how well someone can use information and reasoning to answer questions or make predictions. IQ tests measure short-term and long-term memory and how quickly one can solve puzzles and recall information. It helps researchers check whether they are testing for the same “kind” of intelligence. However, it does not encapsulate the complexity of the mind. Other factors, such as social and economic status, influence IQ. Emotional Intelligence (EQ) is also a significant contributor to success.

IQ is a predictor of many things, but it does not define intelligence. It is generally a good predictor of a person’s success in life since the more intelligent a person is, the more likely they are to solve problems, learn new things, and get ahead in life. However, it can only predict how well people will do in particular situations, such as science, engineering, and art. Success in life requires more than just intelligence — it depends on persistence, ambition, opportunity, and luck.

Do Video Games Increase IQ?

Games select and filter for higher fluid IQs because games adequately, intellectually challenge us as kids when school was not enough. There are studies that children crave challenge and mastery, which games provide for them, and that creates a feedback loop.

What Does the Research Say?

A study conducted at the University of York found a correlation between young people’s skill at two popular video games (Dota 2 and League of Legends) and high intelligence levels.

The study set up two groups: the first group demonstrated their skill at League of Legends and then took a standard pen-and-paper intelligence test. They split the second group into Dota 2 players and gamers who played shooting games (Destiny and Battlefield 3).

The first group found that MOBA players tended to have higher IQs – a correlation seen in more traditional strategy games such as chess. In the second group, the researchers found that while MOBA players’ performance and IQ remained consistent as they got older, while the shooter game players’ performance declined after their teens.

While games can be good at indicators of a person’s IQ, that does not necessarily mean that they boost IQ.

Does Higher IQ Correlate with Risk of Addiction?

Smarter people are more likely to get addicted to video games because they may not be adequately challenged in school or at work, and video games fulfill this need for them. To recognize and overcome gaming addiction, you need to acknowledge who you are as a gamer. Gamers are, in fact, smarter than the average person. While we value intelligence in society, being smart is not enough to be successful.

Gamers use their high IQ to justify their lack of success, and it becomes an ego boost. Therefore, high intelligence becomes a justification for not needing to work hard and aim for success in life. That is how intelligence leads to avoidance.

Check out this video in which Dr. K talks about how intelligence leads to avoidance:

Issues with Video Game Studies

Some factors that influence video game training studies might bring the accuracy of these studies into question. A paper by Boot et al. discussed game training studies that tell the participants about the nature of the study. That can easily lead to bias, as the participants know whether they are in the experimental group or the control group.

For example, let’s assume that a study that aims to test the impact of action games on decision-making recruits gamers and non-gamers. It discloses the nature and aim of the study to the participants. It also tells them whether they will be in the experimental group or the control group.

The experimental group trains on an action game while the control group trains on a strategy game. After training, the researchers administer a test to both groups. It aims to measure the speed and accuracy of their decision-making. Since both groups know the aim of the study, the experimental group believes that they will do well on the test. Therefore, it creates a self-fulfilling prophecy, and they try their hardest. Meanwhile, the control group does not put in as much effort because they think that they are expected to match up to the experimental group. As a result, they don’t try hard and don’t perform too well.

Such an experiment does not control well for placebo. Unfortunately, many video game training studies are structured this way.

Intelligence is complicated and not understood very well. Therefore, it is hard to measure if video games make you smarter. However, we can measure aspects of our cognition and how video games affect it. It is also unclear to what degree video games boost our cognition. That is because they select for people whose attentional, memory, learning, problem-solving, and decision-making abilities are already above average. Despite all that, it is safe to say that gamers tend to rank higher for these cognitive abilities than the rest of the population.

If you feel that your gaming habit is affecting your life, we can help. Sign up to work with a HealthyGamer Coach, trained by Dr. Alok Kanojia himself. HealthyGamer Coaches are gamers who have taken control of their life, and know exactly what you’re going through.

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Do Video Games Improve Cognitive Performance?

Study finds improved cognitive and memory skills in kids who play video games.

Photo:  Pressmaster / Shutterstock

A study of nearly 2,000 children found that those who reported playing video games for three hours per day or more performed better on cognitive skills tests involving impulse control and working memory compared to children who had never played video games. Published in JAMA Network Open , this study analyzed data from the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, supported by NIDA.

“Numerous studies have linked video gaming to behavior and mental health problems,” said NIDA director Dr. Nora Volkow. “This study suggests there may also be cognitive benefits associated with this popular pastime, which are worthy of further investigation.”

Scientists at the University of Vermont, Burlington, analyzed data obtained when children entered the ABCD Study at ages 9 and 10 years old. The research team examined survey, cognitive and brain imaging data from nearly 2,000 participants from within the bigger study cohort. 

The three-hour threshold was selected as it exceeds the American Academy of Pediatrics screen-time guidelines, which recommend that video gaming time be limited to one to two hours per day for older children. 

Investigators found that the children who reported playing video games for three or more hours daily were faster and more accurate on cognitive tasks than those who never played. 

In the gamer group, functional MRI brain imaging analyses found higher brain activity in regions of the brain associated with attention and memory. This group also had more brain activity in frontal brain regions associated with more cognitively demanding tasks and less brain activity in brain regions related to vision. 

While prior studies have reported associations between video gaming and increases in depression, violence and aggressive behavior, this study did not find that to be the case. There were reports of higher mental health and behavioral issues in this cohort but the authors could not confirm whether this trend reflected a true association or chance. They note this will be an important measure to continue to track and understand as these children mature.

Work Life is Atlassian’s flagship publication dedicated to unleashing the potential of every team through real-life advice, inspiring stories, and thoughtful perspectives from leaders around the world.

Contributing Writer

Work Futurist

Senior Quantitative Researcher, People Insights

Principal Writer

Video games can help your team work smarter (no, seriously)

Attention, managers: by the end of this article, we’ll have you slaying dragons with your direct reports in the name of team harmony.

Managing Editor, Work Life Blog

5-second summary

• Newly formed teams that played video games together for just 45 minutes were 20 percent more productive than those that engaged in more traditional team-building exercises.

Somewhere in the evolving zeitgeist of the last few decades, video games got a bad rap. The prevailing narrative is of concerned parents hovering over their pale, pubescent sons and daughters as they decay in dark basements in front of flickering screens. Zoom out much further, and it’s apparent that video games have fallen victim to the same  technopanic  that telephones, radios, and even books once did. (Remember learning about the controversial invention of the printing press?)

To this we say – forgive us –  okay, boomers . It’s time we put the tired myth of games as zombie-creators to rest, and embrace the ever-growing body of work that tells us video games can and do teach us valuable skills – and can even help people work better together. So says the science, and the experts.

Managers, take note: team video gaming can be a great way to engage and enrich your colleagues, especially in a time when real-world, in-person  bonding opportunities  may still be scarce. Here’s how games can foster healthy, effective teams, and how you can make a distributed game night happen.

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Video games can be good for teams, according to science

Games are pretty much synonymous with fun. Nobody questions the value of a long-standing poker night, laser tag tradition, what have you – but what are those if not socially sanctioned team-building exercises? So the question is, how can team-building within the confines of a game (and in a virtual environment, at that) help you do your best work?

For one, game play often mirrors the kinds of interactions that help people work better together in the first place, like pursuing mutual goals, allocating shared resources, negotiating task ownership, and collaborating to solve problems.  A Brigham Young University study  of 80 newly formed teams found that groups that played video games together for just 45 minutes were 20 percent more productive than those that engaged in more traditional team-building exercises. Notably, this was true for novices and avid players alike.

Keep your virtual team connected with these proven rituals

Workplace gaming also offers significant community-building value. It’s an intuitive notion that doing fun stuff with our coworkers is good for morale, and that  strong interpersonal connections  are an important ingredient for more effective teamwork. “Playing games with someone means interacting in a different space. You’re making an agreement with them to navigate that space together, and you’ll see a different side of them than you normally would in a professional setting,” says  Matt Parker , professor at the New York University Game Center.

Game scenarios often mimic common team structures, too, where individuals each play a unique role in achieving a common goal. “Virtual [gaming] communities … not only benefit by each person fulfilling their particular role, but also by each person using the collective intelligence of the community to learn more about their role and the roles of others,” states Diana Hubbard, Ph.D., in a research paper on how gamers work together beyond gaming environments.

Tim Lamphier, a lifelong game enthusiast and an active broadcaster on  Twitch , a streaming platform for gamers, agrees. “You’re constantly negotiating as a team,” he says. “I’m more of a jack-of-all-trades captain-type. I’m good at strategy and group play. And then certain people are better at the functional playing of the game, so I set them up.” The bottom line, for workplace and in-game teams: “If you’re not working together, you just lose.”

Research says gaming has positive effects for individuals, too

7 icebreaker games to help your team build authentic connections

And beyond those group-level benefits, digital games can help your career on an individual level. There’s lots of evidence that playing games can boost universally desired skills, like  literacy, creativity, and communication , not to mention more specialized proficiencies like spacial reasoning (Tetris, anyone?) and general tech readiness. But playing games can also instill an aptitude for those on-your-resume skills so many employers like to see, including leadership, budgeting, problem-solving, and strategic thinking.

Lamphier draws a direct line between his dedication to video games and his penchant for adapting to new concepts and situations quickly. Thanks in large part to playing games, he says, “I’m a really fast learner in general, whether it’s a sport or a language … I kind of start in the middle when I learn something new, and I can see how everything fits together really quickly.” Navigating unfamiliar virtual territory (think an alien-planet battlefield) or solving puzzles under time pressure flexes those strategic muscles, essentially teaching you new ways of thinking. “My cumulative knowledge is more dynamic,” Lamphier says.

TEAMS THAT RAID TOGETHER, SLAY TOGETHER: SPOTLIGHT ON WOW

With nearly  100 million players  worldwide, World of Warcraft (Wow) is sort of the OG MMORPG (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game). Since its release in 2004, it’s been unseated as the world’s most popular game many times over, but is perhaps the most-studied digital game from a standpoint of team effectiveness. A study  from Missouri University of Science and Technology found that WoW gamers who were successful working as a team in “raids” had qualities that psychological studies have shown are correlated with success on virtual workplace teams. “The more achievements you have in-game, the more technology savvy you are in real life. And that’s a good thing, especially in virtual communication teams and workplaces,” researchers explained.

Managers, here’s how you can make it happen

Primed for some collaborative video gaming with your team? It can be hard to know where to start, but we asked our guest expert in all things game-related, Matt Parker, to break it down for you.

Keep in mind the personalities and level of enthusiasm of your participants. Parker says, “Different people like different types of games. Not everyone is going to want to dig into a super challenging system, and others will welcome that challenge. So you should choose the kind of experience that appeals most to your group of players.”

The recommendations below all offer valuable team-building potential (most, but not all, are collaborative), and can be played on devices that pretty much everyone has access to. You could also consider distributing Android or Apple gift cards (or credits to  Steam , a well-established video game marketplace) to help teams facilitate group gameplay.

PROFESSOR PARKER’S RECS

Among Us  (PC ,  Android ,  iOS ) : This wildly popular, easy-to-learn game is mostly collaborative – but watch out for the imposter. Tabletopia  (Mac, PC, iOS, Android) and  Board Game Arena  (browser-based): each offer a wide variety of board games in digital form. Jackbox games  (available on a wide variety of platforms): these “couch co-op” party games were originally intended for co-located gaming, but can easily be played using a virtual chat tool. Parker recommends Drawful 2, Quiplash, and Fibbage, in particular. Spaceteam ( iOS  +  Android ) : described as “a game of cooperative shouting,” Spaceteam is an easily accessible, fast-paced cacophony of mission-critical commands like “Set clip-jawed monodish to six!” or “Extend the optical cushion!” Overcooked 2  ( Mac + PC ): Collaborate with teammates in this chaotic but light-hearted cooking game. Don’t Starve Together  (available on a wide variety of platforms): on the heavier end of the spectrum, this collaborative game is particularly immersive, and also takes awhile to play.

Looking for more ways to boost team cohesion from afar? Read our blog highlighting the best virtual team building activities in the biz.

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14 Video Games That Will Improve Your Problem-Solving and Strategy Skills

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Planet coaster, red alert remastered, call of duty series, forza horizon 4, mass effect, final fantasy, starcraft series, grand theft auto v, civilization series, titanfall 2 series, bejeweled 3.

Video games train your problem-solving skills by getting you to find solutions to complicated problems. They allow players to try out different things to figure out which one works best. Keeping this in mind, here are a variety of our favorite video games that will improve your problem-solving skills.

Running your own themepark isn’t that straight forward. You will be presented with numerous problems from which you’ll need to solve. From unhappy guests to budget problems, your moves will result in you winning or losing the various scenarios on offer. This great game will also allow you to explore your creative palate as you design the themepark of you dreams.

If you’ve never played the Red Alert series from EA (originally Westwood), then you’re in for a treat. It’s a fine series that truly marked the RTS genre. However, the remaster brings fresh attention to the series and it will also enable you to master your problem solving and strategy making skills. You’ll need to bankroll your army by collecting ore, purchase units and buildings, and then decide if and when to attack your opponent(s). Exciting? Absolutely. You’ll be smarter too from playing this game.

Feeling as though you’d love to delve into real-estate? Perhaps you could test-out your skills with the old-school board game, Monopoly. This game is all about decisions and, well, luck. There are numerous editions of this video game, launched on various platforms. Interestingly, this game first appeared as a video game back in 1985.

Another board-game that can be best played on a tablet. Chess is a game of problem solving and strategy. You’ll need to make the right moves, learning the power of each piece. With the Queen the most important and powerful unit, you’ll want to protect and utilize

How does a first-person-shooter make this list? Well, unless you decide to aimlessly run around firing, it’s your strategy that will make the difference, and that, of course, involves problem solving, too. Call of Duty is an FPS video game franchise developed by Infinity Ward and published by Activision. The game originally focused on games set in the Second World War. Over time, the developers have set the games in this series in futuristic worlds, the Cold War, and outer space. As part of a trained squad, you will play through the chaos of war. In addition to authentic squad tactics and movements, each soldier’s unique personality and training will come out on the battlefield. Call of Duty helps players to improve their spatial intelligence and visual attention skills.

Set in an open-world based in a fictionalized Kingdom of Great Britain, this racing video game was developed by Playground Games. The publisher of Forza Horizon 4 is Microsoft Studios, and it features a route creator that allows you to create races using customized routes. The game also features a dynamic weather system depicting the change of seasons. In the game, the environment changes depending on the season; for instance, Derwentwater freezes in winter, allowing the player to drive on the ice and reach areas that are inaccessible during other seasons. This fast-paced video game can improve your ability to make correct decisions when you are under pressure.

Set in the year 2183 within the Milky Way galaxy, Mass Effect is an ARPG (action role-playing game) that was developed by BioWare and published by Electronic Arts. It’s the first installment in the Mass Effect game series. In the game, a highly advanced machine race called Reapers has threatened the existence of civilization. The player takes on the role of Commander Shepard and you have to stop a rogue agent who’s planning to carry out the Reapers’ galactic invasion. You need to complete multiple quests that involve squad and vehicular combat, space exploration, and interaction with NPCs (non-player characters). This game can help you learn how to evaluate your options quickly and correctly.

Final Fantasy, an anthology science fantasy media franchise, was created by a Japanese video game company called Hironobu Sakaguchi. It was developed and published by a Japanese video game holding company called Square Enix. The franchise centers on fantasy and science RPG games. Each game has different plots, settings, and characters. Character names are often derived from pop culture, languages, history, and mythologies of cultures from different parts of the world. Fantasy role-playing games can help to train players how to evaluate their options faster and accurately.

Set in a science-fiction universe, this military science fiction RTG requires strategic thinking. It tests and refines the player’s information-gathering skills. You’ll assume the role of three characters throughout the game. The game story is presented in several ways, including an instruction manual, conversations within the missions themselves, and briefings to each mission. StarCraft can improve your ability to solve real-life and imaginary problems.

Grand Theft Auto V was developed by a New York City-based company known as Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It’s the fifth game in the Grand Theft Auto series. The game offers you the option to explore Los Santos and Blaine County world in 4K resolution and beyond. You’ll also get the chance of experiencing the game running at 60 FPS (frames per second). Because players assume the role of a criminal, this may help to train them how to quickly process and keep track of information in high-stress situations.

Civilization, a turn-based strategy 4X game, was developed and published by an American company known as MicroProse. Players are tasked with leading the human civilization throughout several millennia. They can do this by controlling different areas, including military, research, trade, government, urban development, and exploration. The player can also control individual units in the game and advance the conquest, exploration, and settlement of the world. The game teaches you how to work as a team to solve problems and become productive at work.

Titanfall 2 is a multiplayer first-person shooter game that was developed by Respawn Entertainment. The publisher of Titanfall 2 is an American video game company called Electronic Arts. The player controls mecha-style exoskeletons, their pilots, and Titans. The game is set in science-fiction war-torn outer space colonies and features fast-paced future warfare. Players have the tactical ability to regenerate speed boosts, invisibility cloaking, and x-ray vision. The game can help you learn how to formulate and execute strategic plans to solve problems.

This hack-and-slash ARPG was developed by Blizzard Entertainment. It’s the third installment in the Diablo series. The gameplay revolves around the player defeating increasingly difficult enemies to obtain stronger equipment. You’ll fight enemies using various character class skills that you can customize by talent trees and equipment. Enemies are divided into monster families defined by their location, combat style, and theme. Diablo IV can improve your cognitive abilities and allow you to find solutions to problems faster when you are in a difficult situation.

This tile-matching puzzle game was published and developed by PopCap Games. It’s the fifth installment in the Bejeweled series. In the game, the player has to swap one of the on-screen gems with an adjacent one and form chains of at least three gems of the same color. This game can teach you how to relax and reduce stress, which is important when you want to solve a problem.

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