Playing video games won't turn your kids into zombies – it's good for their brains By Ian Livingstone The Telegraph London, 4:36PM GMT 13 Mar 2014 When you watch children playing games, do you think that apart from being entertained they are also learning creatively through a process of trial and error and problem-solving, or do you think they are being turned into mindless zombies? Today, video games are played by hundreds of millions of people around the world. Global software revenues exceed $50 billion per annum, and are predicted to rise to $90 billion per annum by 2016. Games are a compelling non-linear interactive experience that lets the player control the action rather than passively watching somebody else having all the fun on the screen. Once the misunderstood hobby of teenage boys locked away in their bedrooms, games are now played all around us by people on their smart phones, both men and women, and young and old. Games have become part of mainstream culture and I would argue they are socially, culturally and economically important as music and film. And good for you, too. Curiously the media has always been unfairly tough on games, often written off as a trivial distraction or worse. In 1859, Scientific American reported, “Chess is a mere amusement of a very inferior character, which robs the mind of valuable time that might be devoted to nobler acquirements”. In the 1980s, despite their getting a whole generation of 10-year-olds reading, the press didn’t have many good things to say about The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first in the hugely popular interactive Fighting Fantasy gamebook series authored by Steve Jackson and myself. When the BAFTA-winning game Grand Theft Auto V launched, it generated $1 billion in revenue in less than a week. Yet, rather than celebrating Rockstar North, the game’s Scottish developers, as a great British success story, sections of the media went into overdrive, blaming all of society’s ills on the game. GTA5 happens to be a masterpiece, both technically and creatively. Good news about games is seldom reported and so the perception of the games industry remains poor. The consequence of negative reporting is that parents and teachers are neither aware of the

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:17 PM Comment [1]: This  tells  us  who  the   intended  audience  is  –  parents.  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:43 PM Comment [2]: Credible  source  (The   Telegraph  is  a  respected,  established   London  newspaper.)  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:22 PM Comment [3]: Hook  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:21 PM Comment [4]: Background  information.   These  are  basic  facts  the  author  wants  the   reader  to  know  about  the  topic  (video   games).   Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:23 PM Comment [5]: Three-­‐part  thesis.     Does  the  author  support  all  three  parts  of   the  thesis  (social,  cultural,  economic)?  

positive attributes of playing games, nor of the career opportunities the industry offers. And the investment community usually overlooks the funding opportunities. Of course an economic argument does not make games a good thing. But there is strong evidence to suggest that games skills equal life skills, and that playing games is actually good for you. Human beings are playful by nature. We enter this world as babies, interacting with everything around us. We learn through play and trial and error, both fundamental to games. Humans love solving puzzles, which is central to games like Tetris, Candy Crush Saga and Angry Birds. We love to build and share, the very essence of Minecraft, which can be described as digital LEGO. Whether it’s playing activity games like Wii Sports (burning calories at the same time), simulation games like Sim City, strategy games like Civilisation, or social games like Words with Friends, the experience is likely to be enjoyable and beneficial. Think about the cognitive process of what is happening when games are being played. It’s a case of hands on, minds on. Interactivity puts the player in control of the action, and that is very engaging and powerful.

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:28 PM Comment [6]: These  two  paragraphs   explain  the  purpose  of  the  essay  (that   because  video  games  are  treated  unfairly  in   the  media,  the  public  is  largely  unaware  of   their  positive  attributes).   Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:29 PM Comment [7]: pathos  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:30 PM Comment [8]: pathos  

Playing games is fun and entertaining, but the gameplay experience also combines a broad mix of problem-solving, decision-making, intuitive learning, trial and error, logistics, analysis, management, communication, risk-taking, planning, resource management and computational thinking. Games stimulate the imagination and encourage creativity, curiosity, social skills, concentration, teamwork, community, multi-tasking and hand-eye co-ordination. Who wouldn’t want their children to learn and practice these skills whilst being entertained at the same time? Why do some people think it is impossible to learn while having fun? Simulation games are used as a training tool for pilots, surgeons, the Armed Forces and other professionals. Game-based learning is a proven success in schools for subjects such as maths. Solving realworld problems in a maths-based game is learning in context and more easily understood. Michael Gove, the Education Secretary, happily confessed in The Times in 2008 that he "loved" Dungeons & Dragons, an outlet for the "active imaginations" of "geeks who have inherited the Earth" without whom there’d be "no Microsoft 2.0, CGI, iPods or SatNav". There are plenty of examples of people, myself included, who

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:31 PM Comment [9]: transitional  sentence   Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:32 PM Comment [10]: logos  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:32 PM Comment [11]: rhetorical  questions  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:33 PM Comment [12]: logos  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:33 PM Comment [13]: ethos  

cite games as making a positive contribution to their learning. British technology entrepreneur Demis Hassabis recently sold his artificial intelligence company Deep Mind to Google for some $400 million. He said after the sale: "I’ve always viewed my obsession with playing games as training the mind in multiple facets." President Obama is quoted as saying that games make education relevant for children. He cited Mark Zuckerberg’s interest in playing games that led him to learn to code which in turn resulted in the creation of Facebook. Yes, some games do contain violent content. But that is no reason to set public opinion against the entire games industry. Many films contain extreme violent content yet the film industry is not criticised in the same manner. And like film, games have age ratings. Some games are 18-rated. Films and games have ratings for a reason. The media tends to focus its reporting on games that are 18-rated, sometimes without mentioning they are 18-rated. Not surprisingly, parents are worried about their children being exposed to these games. Age ratings should not be ignored. Children should not be allowed to play games that they are not meant play. But to get things into perspective, over 90 per cent of games are family-friendly. Some parents are understandably worried about the amount of time their children spend playing games. Today’s children do spend a lot of time on their screens, whether it’s games, the web, social networks, music, messaging, or TV. Digitally native children are more likely to choose a screen over traditional toys when indoors. But put them outside, and they are more likely to choose a ball over a screen. Responsible parenting requires monitoring of all media, including games, and ensuring children have a balanced life indoors and outdoors. When children are playing games, hopefully age appropriate, they could be having so much fun they might not respond to you as quickly as you’d like. But don’t worry; parents had the same concerns when children were equally unresponsive when they discovered the joy of reading books in the 19th century. So let’s not think our children will turn into zombies when they are playing games. The chances are they are learning some useful life skills. They might even go on to become the next global tech giant. Ian Livingstone co-founded Games Workshop and co-created Fighting Fantasy gamebooks. Former chairman of Eidos, he co-authored the Next Gen review, which recommended changes in ICT education to bring computer science into the national curriculum. He is @ian_livingstone on Twitter.

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:34 PM Comment [14]: ethos  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:34 PM Comment [15]: ethos   Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:35 PM Comment [16]: opposing  view  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:35 PM Comment [17]: counterargument  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:36 PM Comment [18]: opposing  view  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:36 PM Comment [19]: counterargument  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:37 PM Comment [20]: opposing  view   Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:38 PM Comment [21]: counterargument  

Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:38 PM Comment [22]: call  to  action   Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:39 PM Comment [23]: Concluding  sentence   make  the  topic  relevant  to  the  reader.   Lyn Bigelow 3/23/14 9:39 PM Comment [24]: The  author’s  credentials   tell  us  that  he  is  credible.  

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