So, picture yourself in your room playing your favorite video game at 1am. It’s okay, it happens to the best of us! Suddenly, you are asked to make some type of decision. It can be as silly as selecting new equipment, or as big as deciding the fate of your enemy, but you are now filled with the desire to ponder on all of the choices that have led you here, and how this one choice can affect your progress.
You try your best to analyze the situation objectively, and finally, although it might be grueling, you make the decision that is best for your character and journey. Now, of course, the decisions you make in this video game only affect the game’s fictional universe. What most people do not notice though, is that, by deciding that your video game character should definitely date the mysterious witch of the valley, you are actively improving your decision-making skills in real life.
In a sense, when you are preparing to make a decision for your character, you are mentally preparing yourself for when you need to make decisions in your daily life. According to an article published by the City University of London, various researchers have discovered that interactive video games have helped improve general decision-making abilities in both short and long terms.
Studies have found that people who play interactive games (these being games where the player has input on how the video game’s story progresses) have greater cognitive abilities. What this means is that, from a psychological perspective, games teach their players, throughout many experiences, what choices matter and how these should be analyzed to obtain a better outcome. In video games, this is obviously done so the player can learn how the game works, evolve their skills, and successfully reach the game’s ending. In real life, what this teaches us is how to make decisions from objective points of view.
The real world has no characters you can take over, or amazing journeys that will give you experience points (yet, that I’m aware of). Decisions in the non-virtual world are real and permanent. There is no deleting the save file and starting from scratch, so the choices we make tend to be subjective. In real life, we don’t have hours to decide on what clothes to wear or what breakfast to have, we just have to quickly find resolutions that would best fit us at that point in time. Of course, we analyze our options occasionally, but we tend to do it in quick ways, without thinking too much about our past or our future. This is where video games come in and actually help us out― through teaching us how to make solid choices in their universes, they help us understand how to make decisions we can be proud of in the real world.
Most games give the player the ability to ponder on a decision for extended periods of time, which, in turn, allows them to analyze the best options and outcomes of said choice; what this does is that it prepares our brain to make better decisions in the future. Even if you are presented with a decision that must be made quickly, you will now possess the cognitive skills that will allow you to know not only how your choice will affect your present, but your future as well.
Video games also teach us that objective decisions are the best ones to make, since these can help shape not only the outcome of one choice, but so many others that could possibly stem from that path. It is always important to review your past decisions and their outcomes so that you may be able to make better ones in the future. Although some of your choices may have taken place in a fictional world, they can still help you know what option is the best according to your circumstances and what you are trying to achieve. Some great examples, and personal recommendations, of games from the decision-making genre are: Detroit: Become Human, Monster Prom, Hades, and most of the entries in the Pokémon series.
With this all said, keep playing video games! They actually help you improve your real-life skills. Or at least that’s a valid excuse you can now tell people trying to get you to stop playing your fave RPG (Role-Playing Game).
