Computer games can build skills

YOU’RE exasperated: your 16-year-old has spent hours in his room on a beautiful summer day playing a silly computer game.
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Who the **** would care?

Most normal people are happy if he/she isn't shooting up or getting an STD...
 
yeah I learnt that if a chain-saw carrying zombie is about to tear me apart...BLOW ITS HEAD OFF!! LOL, sorry can't help myself.
 
“Yes, violence,” you say as your child starts another round of Grand Theft Auto, a game aimed at an adult market and which you are convinced they should not be playing at all.
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Why did you buy it for them then?
 
If it weren't for games, I wouldn't have been so interested in computers, IT and mathematics.

Games teach you so much about how computers and IT work. I did all kinds of cool things on my PC from an early age to get my games running. Like creating little launch scripts in DOS to launch my games easier, installing and troubleshooting driver and other problems, setting up a LAN, overclocking, using Google and other tools to search for patches/cracks, editing registry files, etc, etc, etc.

As I got older, I became interested in how games are created and so my obsession with mathematics and programming started.

I have actually thought about creating a new type of computer learning center where kids learn more about computers by just playing games. It works and I'm proof of that.
 
says the Shuttleworth Foundation’s communication and analytical skills fellow Steve Vosloo, who recently completed a one-year fellowship at the US’s prestigious Stanford University, where he looked at the games people play.
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He's getting paid to watch a TV show?

Seriously, I think we knew this already - but parents still need to be involved in the choice of games...
 
we have problem solving skills now :)
the police is chasing you after you hi-jacked a car, ran over 13 pedestrians, and killed a prostitute with a sword.

do you:

a: hide behind a corner and use a flame-thrower on them
b: go to the docks and kill them one by one with a sniper rifle
c: use your minigun or rocket launcher to take out the chopper
 
Games are good.

Why should we waste good tech on probes to mars and eco-friendly cars when we could implement destructible environments in Battlefiled??? !!:D

Games are MAJOR!!
 
I owe my current lifestyle to video games.

I started out @ 6 years old trying to figure out how to install them, moved onto zip and arj, batch files to install game for friend who didn't know how. Fixing broken floppies (damn multiple 1.4mb arj files)

I'm in my mid 20's making a pile of cash in the IT industry and I still play games at least 4 times a week and I hardly ever murder anybody.
 
alf101 said:
Old news.

I was telling this to my parents back in the 80's, they still don't listen to me.
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LMAO, when we were experimenting with voip type applications, my mom came rushing into the room. HuH who are you talking to, Dad your kid is talking to the computer. WHOOoooooooooooo. Shame she still battles with the word processor. :D
 
I don't buy that games are really beneficial...but likewise I doubt that they are harmful.

general_koffi said:
Most normal people are happy if he/she isn't shooting up or getting an STD...
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+1

With the wide range of stuff available atm...I think games are one of the lesser evils.
 
I've been getting my lightie into games, with the excuse that it builds hand-eye co-ords. (which is half true and half excuse to get the wife off our backs)

But he's getting really good. He's 4 and crashes less than I do in Burnout! Lego Star Wars is a good game for us both to play. good problem solving and age appropriate violence.

I believe the game content does have to be watched. I may have over stepped the boundary when I let him grab the controller and run around with a chainsaw in GTA. After he killed one or two people and laughed hysterically I restricted him to chopping down lamp posts, which he enjoyed just as much. well....almost. but hey fair enough.
 
I am going to sue mybroadband for articles like these, they are undoing all the good parenting we have done thus far!

Concerned Parent :)
 
Great article and woohoo for games!

Lekke in the face of those people that say games teach children bad things.

I love racing simulators like GTR/GTR2, RACE07 and GTR Evolution and play them as often as possible. I for a fact know these games have improved my driving in real life. Reaction time to driving inputs are a million times better and quicker.

Let's keep on gaming!!!
 
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