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Sean Gabringer
English 1201
Professor Vicki Stalbird
30 March, 2016
Video Games: The Educational Tool of Tomorrow
Leisure time is the most valuable limited human commodity; how it is spent defines who
a person is internally and reflects what they like and their preferred lifestyle. When leisure time
is available in between the daily grind of possibly monotonous tasks that can range from
household chores to building nuclear weapons for world governments, most people have a few
preferred activities they love to engage in that helps them destress and maintain a healthy
outlook on life. These activities can range from things such as: reading, writing, swimming,
jogging, exercising, watching T.V, expressing artistic creativity in any desired form, or a myriad
of other possible forms of personal entertainment. However, one which is becoming ever more
popular (and controversial) are video games. The Entertainment Software Association (ESA)
reports that 155 million Americans played video games in some form in 2015 (Entertainment
Software Association 2). Despite this monstrous statistic, very few realize the potential for video
games to be used for means which can be beneficial to society, education, and science to name a
few due to video games unique form of media, one which is interactive with the person
consuming it. Although video games are primarily focused on interactive entertainment, this
unique medium provides unparalleled opportunities to become very productive and fruitful tools
in academia. This paper will examine the impact of video games on society and participants and
highlight how this technology is being used and can be used to create further advancement in

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several key social and professional areas; the military, education, research in human psychology,
advances in science, and medical science can all benefit from the use of specialized video games.
Video games are very capable tools to be used to provide unique and interactive learning
environments, both to educate participants and also for academic study in areas of psychology.
A common misconception about video games is that many consider them to be a
waste of time. The truth to that is, yes, video games are a waste of time. However, this is only
true to a degree. The use and theoretical practicality of video games is very often overlooked as
many simply regard games as just some mindless display of colors and images. As a vessel for
learning, video games hold numerous advantages which traditional methods do not. Video games
used for learning are dominantly called serious games; these games promote some sort of
purpose except for pure entertainment. With recent advances in technology, video games are
gaining the complex inter-workings needed to develop programs which can accurately aid in
scientific research, education, and provide considerably realistic environments to conduct
simulations in. Militaries all over the world have taken advantage of simulations to not only
simulate an event, but to train their soldiers in combat tasks, such as tank driving and plane
flying. These simulators allow trainees and veterans to practice and hone their skills in close to
authentic environments without having to endanger themselves and others; wasting fuel, live
ammunition and possibly human life. Combat Identification Tasks (CID) are a crucial part of a
soldiers training because fratricide, the killing of an ally by another ally, is a very serious and
real threat even on todays battlefields. The idea is that soldiers need to be properly trained to be
able to identify a hostile from a friendly, which can be confusing especially if there are no
distinct features. These cases of fratricide very commonly involve vehicles which can be very
similar to one another regardless of nationality; therefore soldiers need to be trained to

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distinguish friendly from hostile vehicles. A study was conducted by Joseph R. Keebler, Florian
Jentsch and David Schuster attempting to report the effects video game experience has upon
Combat Identification Tasks concluded that:
these findings clearly indicate that VGE does in fact contribute
to the skills needed for memorizing and later identifying military
vehicles in a simulation-based task. Across multiple indices of
performance, including simulated vehicles, photographs, and
videos, participants performed better when they were selfidentified video game experts compared to video game novices
(19).
VGE as used in the paper refers to Video Game Experience. The study concluded that when
compared to people with little video game experience, participants with more experience were
more proficient at identifying vehicles accurately and determining them as friendly or
hostile. Furthermore, the following excerpt from a report written by Angelevski and Bogatinov
to the Macedonian military argues in favor of using video game simulators and their benefit to
this new generation of soldiers:
Unlike traditional military simulators, little user training is
required when games are used, as most soldiers are already
familiar with the standard game controls and are very
comfortable playing in networked gaming environments
(74).

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Simulators give the opportunity for participants to engage in a specific activity without fear of
consequence outside of failing a task within the simulation itself. An example of this is a surgery
simulator which surgeons can use to practice. Using this technology, surgeons can practice an
operation over and over against without having to cut into an actual human, animal or any other
living being. Although the simulator is not a real surgery and cannot mirror the true authenticity
reality, it allows for safe practice of technique and application of knowledge before it has to be
used which can, quite literally, determine if someone lives or dies. Although these are just two
examples, the idea that video simulations can be used to improve task performance and train
participants has been proven and is recognized by even militaries:
We know the penalty for mistakes, for miss-reading the situation,
for making decisions too late. Hundreds of simulated men can died
in botched assaults, poorly laid positions, and as a result of
unexpected enemy actions in order to teach these lessons. In this
situation we can examined the ground, checked the line-of-sight,
positioned the units, and supervised the units in contact so many
times that the key tactical principles have become ingrained as
second natureTo augment this practical training however, leaders
need to experience the chaotic challenges of combat hundreds of
times. As an inexpensive and easy-to-use tool to teach a military
leader the dynamics of tactics, the simulation based on computer
gaming technology is matchless. (Angelevski and Bogatinov 76)
Besides training, video games also have other non-specific educational uses. Serious
games are a form of video game except they do not serve to entertain the participant. The most

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practical use of serious games are to teach the player skills, concepts, or accomplish some other
established goal. These types of games can greatly education and benefit science; particularly
medical science which it has already done. The game Foldit and EyeWire have both solved
medical mysteries that have stumped researchers even after years and years of research. After
developing the game software, both of these were released to the public and anyone willing to
play was allowed to download the program and begin working. Foldit required the player to fold
proteins in different ways in an attempt to find a suitable shape to be used in medicine to combat
the AIDS virus. Tina Amirtha writes in her article Why Science Research Labs Are Getting Into
Video Game Development that EyeWire creators were hoping to figure out how the eye sends
received light and how it sends information to the brain for it to be interpreted and made for us to
actually see what weve received. Neither of these mysteries had been solved until the programs
were released to the gaming community. With participation of gamers everywhere dedicated to
serving science, both games reached their accomplished goals; a suitable protein was found to
help combat AIDS, and the path electrical signals created by light received by the eye and sent to
the brain was properly mapped by participants to allow researchers to continue researching.
These two events are possibly the first of their kind and highlight the potential for video games
to be used not only for play and basic education; without the help of players willing to accept
these challenges, these medical mysteries may have been unsolved for years to come.
Another misunderstood aspect of video games are their inherent ability to be very social
experiences. Laura Mendez and Esther del Moral write that video games were considered
valueless due to excessive violence and highly addictive which reflects how video games
were portrayed among the fields of education. Many games are indeed single player, which
means they can or must be enjoyed alone; but as society is shifting towards interconnectivity and

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globalization, so are video games. Now the most popular games have online features in which a
single person can interact with hundreds, if not thousands of people every day just through the
game. A long-standing argument against video games is that they make people social recluses,
this is only true in extreme cases. A large part of video games is their social aspect, even in the
past 15 years this was true. One person may take their game or console (a machine specifically
made to play video games) over to their friends house and they can play together on the same
game. Doing this can help develop social relationships and friendships between the players. Not
only does this socialization occur in local society, such as between friends and neighbors, but
also video games (like movies and other forms of art) harbor inter-cultural experiences. Video
game localization is the practice of taking a video game from one country and exporting it to
another. In the process, the game is translated and minor changes are enacted to edit the game to
make it suitable for market elsewhere. With the game being translated properly, things such as
humor in one culture can be experiences by another. Not to mention art style, game mechanics,
ideologies present in the game may be experienced by someone on the other side of the world.
Author Minako OHagen writes:
In the console game sector mainstream localised games might sell
in millions of units worldwide, and a single game often offers
gamers in excess of 100 hours of gameplay during which they
experience intercultural communication via interactive gameplay
(21).
Video games can and are able vessels to not only deliver fun and engaging integrative
experiences but also as vehicles to transmit culture from one country to another; allowing

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countries to experience one another without interacting is a great way to provide cultural
education, which may not ever be taught or experienced otherwise.
Video games are a very hot topic in todays society due to how under developed research
surrounding them and how they affect us and the world. Some are violent and graphic and others
are not; some are for play and some are serious in nature. Although video games are very
dynamic in purpose and theme, it is irresponsible to say that they do not serve a practical and
very real purpose in the modern world. Video games provide a safe place for simulated
experimentation and learning with limitless potential with which no other form of media or
practice has ever had due to video games unique type of media. Although video games are just
beginning to be used for these practical, educative purposes, their ability to be constructive and
enabling have been very clearly demonstrated by the research that has been done and should be
accepted as a medium with which to be used to help aid and advance humanity.

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Bibliography
Amirtha, Tira. Why Science Reserach Labs Are Getting Into Video Game Developement. 6 June
2014. Web. 14 March 2016. <fastcompany.com/3031919/why-science-research-labs-aregetting-into-video-game-developement>.
Angelevski, Slavko and Dimitar Bogatinov. "COMPUTER GAMING TECHNOLOGY FOR
MILITARY TRAINING--SERIOUS GAMES." Contemporary Macedonian Defense /
Sovremena Makedonska Odbrana 14.26 (2014): 73-85. Web. 14 March 2016.
Entertainment Software Association. "20." 2015. theesa.com. Document. 30 3 2016.
Keebler, Joseph R., Florian Jentsch and David Schuster. "The Effects of Video Game Experience
and Active Stereoscopy on Performance in Combat Identification Tasks." Human Factors
56.8 (2014): 1482-1496. Web. 14 March 2016.
Mendez, Laura and M. Esther del Moral. "Presenting: Research and Educational Innovation with
Video Games." Electronic Journal of Research in Educational Psychology (2015): 211218. Web. 13 March 2016.
O'Hagan, Minako. "Game Localisation as Software-Mediated Cultural Experience: Shedding
Light on the Changing Role of Translation in Intercultural Communication in the Digital
Age." Multilingua: Journal of Cross-Cultural and Interlanguage Communication 34.6
(2015): 747-771. Web. 12 March 2016.
Zhuxuan, Zhao and Jose L. Linaza. "Relevance of video games in the learning and developement
of young children." Electronic Journal of Research in Education Psychology (2015): 18.
Document. 30 March 2016.

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