Video Games and their Cognitive Orbit: A Tale of Dishonesty and Hostility

Video Games and their Cognitive Orbit: A Tale of Dishonesty and Hostility

An essay by C. M. Oguz

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Although I think it’s redundant to explain why games are better pastime hobbies than, for instance, scrolling social media or binge-watching a tv-show, I will indulge the nay-sayers with a brief foray into why this is so. My approach is two-pronged, I will first discuss the cognitive benefits of gaming vis-à-vis other common ‘hobbies’, and then one-by-one dismantle the most common erroneous judgments held against them, particularly by guardians and culturally conservative people. These beliefs are (A) that games incite violence, (B) that games cultivate toxicity, and (C) that games are addictive.

First of all, video games are interactive. This is the biggest factor that separates a game (be it a video game, a board game, or a game of physical sports) from media that is consumed passively, such as a TikTok reel, a film, or a book – all seemingly common, “acceptable” pastimes. With a game, the consumer is not just being exposed to something, they are partaking in shaping that thing. (At least in books the imagination is trigged, films and videos do not even have this). Many video-games include puzzles and riddles, if not they include some form of spatial awareness, navigation, strategizing, consideration, etc. The player moves around, does things that have consequences, needs to weigh their actions, etc. This is the case for games from all genres, including FPS games that are often the main targets of “games are bad” charades. A lot of this is also due to the supposed “violence” in games, which I will address later. For the time being, I would like to show that in a vacuum, games are inherently more stimulating than passive media. It is hopefully needless to argue why they active more regions of the brain and utilize more neural pathways and lead to greater cognitive development than, for instance, merely staring at a screen and passively consuming a video would.

This developmental angle is particularly important if the child or young adult in question does not have alternative avenues of interactivity available (such as playing physical games with their friends). Think of COVID times, when children were all trapped at home, alone and isolated – did those who scrolled Youtube or Tiktok, or those who played video games fare better? The answer is clear from looking at the plethora of papers published in psychology journals. Moreover, a game necessarily requires the player to learn something new. Children who are exposing themselves to different games are learning to adapt, they are learning how to learn. Again, if we compare this to watching a film or a tv-show or scrolling social media reels, the difference is stark. Furthermore, games also include failure. In a single-player game a child may get stuck at a certain level or section and be unable to advance further, in a multi-player game they may be defeated, they may lose the game to someone better or someone using a different strategy. This builds character; it builds patience, it builds compromise, it builds humility – it builds these more so than passive media can. After all, we all at some point learn how to swallow and deal with frustration and defeat, and its vastly preferable to encounter these emotions early on in life than to be coddled into adulthood. In this sense gaming is somewhat similar to playing a musical instrument, which likewise includes frustration and interactive challenges that must be overcome; it includes progress and satisfaction. Ironically, most parents would probably be thrilled to learn their child is fiddling around on the piano or on a guitar.

In the “days of yore” that grumpy old people mumble on about near incessantly, the general theme is that children would play out on the street with each other, since, very importantly, there was less available passive media to consume. Before screens and the internet invaded homes, people had to create their own entertainment. Nowadays this argument is redundant; we cannot time travel back, and the world has vastly changed. People simply cannot and do not, for a variety of reasons, allow their children onto the streets unsupervised. And constructive, creative toys, such as Lego, can only go so far in cognitive development. Children stuck in their houses being handed passive media will slowly develop lazy minds, and will not learn to deal with setbacks and loss with any semblance of grace or dignity. So, why not allow and in fact encourage children to work their way through video games? A child is curious, like a cat, it needs input, it seeks a challenge, it yearns for one. In fact, this is not only children, but all of us. Games help dispel the apathy of life that otherwise envelops us if we continuously attempt to silence our logic-seeking brains with passive media. Of course, a good book or film also has its place at the top of the pedestal of pastimes, but so does a good game.

It is hopefully becoming clear that video-games are a more valuable pastime than watching a passive video. They are not on par. Yet still many people, particularly of an older generation, on top of not realizing that gaming is more valuable, actually think that gaming is worse than watching a tv-show or other form of passive video. What sort of warped logic can ever lead to this conclusion? Why would a father ever be more disappointed when seeing their child playing, say Age of Empires or Minecraft, than watching a random channel on the television? It sounds absurd, but this is sadly a common reaction. This is madness. Or more precisely, it’s ignorance. Even more specifically, this is a form of conservatism. It is a refusal to recognize a new way of doing something simply because it did not exist beforehand, and therefore, the logic goes, it cannot be good, let alone better than what came before. Many older people (now parents or grandparents), who have never played a video game, for instance, have no idea what it is or how beneficial or harmful it may be, but simply approach the whole concept with prejudice because it is a novel form of pastime that did not exist during their own days. Rose-tinted goggles are always a powerful force. Now this is technically the very definition of political conservatism. Conserving the status-quo, conserving what came before, conserving and desperately trying to return to the good old days of yore. These people live in the past. It’s both futile and quite sad really. Several myths about games fuel this dislike – let us review and refute the top three.

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(A) Violence: Some people go beyond labelling video games mere ‘time wastes’, and argue that they’re actively harmful. What is the reason for this? The crux of the matter lies in ignorance, unfortunately. In the 1990s when video-games were first becoming popular, there was a sensational outrage that they glorified violence (many popular games involve gun-fights, after all). While this in itself is not wrong, the erroneous part comes from thinking that this affects anything. One way of realizing this is thus: Which film doesn’t include violence or aggression or loss? People die, get injured, fall over etc. even in children’s animation movies. Regular ‘adult’ movies, meanwhile, are filled to the brim with gun-fights, violence, blood and sometimes even gore. But for some reason it is okay for a teenager to watch, say Braveheart or American Sniper, than for them to play Counter-Strike. How come? Don’t both include many people being killed in combat? In fact, in video-games there is usually no blood and hardly ever any gore – players are anthropomorphized but that is usually the extent of it. In CoD, CS, PUBG, Fortnite, Valorant, etc. (some of the most popular shooter games), there is rarely even any blood and definitely no gore or viscera. The ‘violence’ is not violence in the sense that some older generations think it is. It is like playing chess, where the pawn “dies” and is moved off the board, but surely we would not argue that it is causing any distress or trauma to the player, would we? If those who argue that shooter games incite violence actually ever looked at the screen while someone played one, they would notice nothing particularly violent in comparison to an average Hollywood film. Combat, and thus ‘violence’, is an avenue for strategy, it’s a means to a game. We could just as well imagine all shooter games as being laser tag, where the person who “falls over” when shot isn’t actually dying but instead has now lost the game – because this is essentially the point. No child is getting traumatized or incited to violence from playing Fortnite or Valorant. On a more academic level, the idea that games lead to more violence or aggression than any other form of teenage pastime hobby has been shown in study after study to be entirely wrong. Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, gunplay and “people killing each other” is a thingin only some games. There is a vast, vast universe of games filled with many popular titles that do not even include this small remnant of violence. Therefore even if I have been unable to convince you that “shooter” games are child appropriate, you may rest assured that they are but a small fraction of the totality of games out there. Thus, dismissing the entire medium of video-games for this small sub-section would be akin to never reading a single book because “some far-right books exist.”

(B) Toxicity: Another common concern that parents may voice is the “toxicity” of the online gaming communities. The problem with this idea is not that it is entirely unfounded, but that it does not hold up to the test of comparison. For what corner of the internet is not thus? If someone is perusing social media, they are equally likely (in fact, probably more likely) to stumble upon toxicity or racism or some other form of unpleasantness. Any game that includes communication is by definition a part of this problem. But this is not unique to games, it is part of the human condition, particularly when the human condition is able to hide behind a veil of anonymity. If you are handing your child a device with internet, you have already given them absolute access to the very pit of Hades, even with parental restrictions which are always useless. There are many news articles of teenagers on social media, sadly, being harassed into depression or even suicide. There are rarely if ever any such stories that are routed through video games. There are these freak incidents you hear about, such as the case when a player who had lost a one-on-one challenge against another player in Counter-Strike found out his opponent’s home address and knifed him to death. But these are sensational anomalies. The reality is that games are far from dangerous, and in fact, in comparison to the rest of the online cesspool that the 2020’s internet has turned into, video-game communities can be some of the tamest and most reasonable places that exist.

Having some semblance of antagonism and loss – as stated above – is important for character growth, particular for the sheltered children of today’s internet age who do not partake in many other binary win-loss inducing social escapades, unlike their predecessors who at least got this from playground scuffles, street basketball, or other forms of juvenile competition. In short: competition is a part of life and the accompanying jeering should not automatically default into arguments of ‘toxicity’. It has been a part of mankind’s social bonding since the dawn of time. Friendly banter, mockery and goading is not harmful, and most gaming communities revolve around this sort of thing at most. But, even if I have been unable to convince you that online gaming communities are not particularly harmful, then this is still not a reason to turn against gaming in general. For one very simple solution is to steer children from games that are online, and point them towards the multitude of offline or single-player games out there. Just cut internet access, if you must. And if we leave aside children for a second, and think of adults, then the case is even more clear. Any form of online unpleasantness that may or may not be encountered in a video game is just a reflection of real life outside your front door. Shying away from this or burying your head in the sand is meaningless. What are we to do? Live in an isotonic isolation chamber? Live in an echo cavern populated by increasingly minuscule sub-groupings of our species?

(C) Addiction: A third point of contention that must be dispelled is the buzz-word addiction that gets thrown around left and right diluting the true weight of the original word. Upon finding no plausible offense left to mount against gaming, petty minds eager to label this pastime as harmful or undesirable will point out that it can cause “addiction.” Now, to the astute mind this is no doubt already so ridiculous an accusation that it scarcely warrants a serious response, but today I am going to leave nothing un-rebuked. Thus, we venture forth. First of all, featuring no physical ingestion, this so-called addiction to gaming is no different than getting hooked on binge-watching television series every night, or being a football “addict,” or any other form of focused interest that we as society like to label negatively when we do not partake in it ourselves. None of these are addictions in the same way that substances such as nicotine or heroin are, and it is disingenuous to label them as such. But since the common phenotype of the ‘grumpy guardian’ will no doubt remain unsatisfied with this sort of whataboutism, I will instead take this addiction argument seriously and dispel it in detail.

First of all, games can be separated into two main categories. On the one hand there are games that are experienced and consumed as a product, akin to reading a novel or watching a film. You may re-watch a film or re-read a good book, but never will it convey the splendour of the first time, for that is when you first encountered and synthesized the experience, ideas, and emotional resonance. These type of games are mostly single-player experiences, generally not too long, the best examples of which leave the consumer in a state of profound reflection, and this mind-state may then linger on. This category also includes games where a puzzle or riddle must be solved, which by definition have close to no re-playability. The second type of game, by contrast, is one where it’s not the game itself that harbors anything particularly noteworthy, but the interactions with other entities (usually other people, but sometimes AI). These interactions occur in context of a challenging and competitive endeavour. These are commonly multi-player games, or single-player games with a particularly challenging (and thus rewarding) game-play loop. This type of game generates pleasure from the satisfaction of success, from prevailing over adversaries, or from team camaraderie and social interactions. Unlike the first category, these games are typically re-played on and on, and in fact, they have endless re-playability, much like a game of basketball or football has. In such physical sports, the game is always in the same “game setting” and there is nothing particularly novel or profound about this setting (e.g., the court or pitch). Instead, the elating experience stems from what takes place in this setting between competing parties. It is the same for video games in this second category; the players become the product for each other, they become the game (e.g., DotA, Fortnite, Counter-Strike, PUBG, etc.). Essentially, then, the first category of games exemplify the spirit of experience, the second, the spirit of competition.

While the majority of my personal time has been spent in multi-player titles in a spirit of competition, in several of which I have upwards of a thousand hours each, if someone asked me what my favorite game was I would pivot towards the spirit of experience games. I think this is because it is hard to make something that is repeatable retain its stimulation and fascination on an intellectual and emotional level. Each iteration sort of blends in with others. It’s like the difference between a board-game and a novel. Board-games often deliver much more fun and take up a greater part of our lives, but in memory one tends to evaluate one’s favorite novel much more highly than one’s favorite board-game or card-game. For instance, say I really like playing a card with a group of friends every so often. In hindsight it is hard for me to then point to a specific time we played the game and say, “yes this was the best experience.” Instead the good, the bad, the boring, the argument-riddled, and all the other occasions sort of blend together into a generalized assessment of the game, which itself becomes a commodity that loses its novelty. This is of course not necessarily a bad thing, but it may explain why I’m more inclined to say my favorite game is Disco Elysium, for instance, where I’ve spent 20 hours, than DotA, where I’ve spent several thousand hours. It is indeed a great shame that one can only fully experience type one games once in life, but this misfortune is much the same with reading a good piece of fiction. We really need the ability to selectively erase the mind…

All that to say, by very definition games that are in the first category, those that are of the spirit of experience cannot lead to addiction in the true sense of the term, since they evoke finite experiences. Each one is like reading a novel, I’ve never heard of anyone being ‘addicted’ to reading the very same novel over and over. Nay-sayers may now claim that the so-called addiction is not to any specific game per se, but to gaming as a whole. This is as absurd as claiming that reading as a concept is an addiction, or that eating or breathing is. If we stretch the definition of the word addiction this way and that, we may bend even light to fit into its blackened alcoves. The whole discussion becomes counter-productive when we begin labelling a generalized hobby as addiction just for the sake of tarnishing its standing. Leaving all these petty mind games to one side, for the second category of games, those in the spirit of competition, re-playability ad infinitum is indeed possible. Here, then, we must take greater care in argumentation. A match of DotA or Counter-Strike, for instance, can be enjoyed for the hundredth time as much as (if not more than) the first time around. In fact, as one develops skill and gains a deeper understanding, games in the spirit of competition often become ever more enjoyable. Aha.. Officer! Here be the addiction. But, hold on, this exactly the same as any form of game, be it football or basketball or a card-game, for this is the very definition of a fixed-state game.

Labelling a person’s pursuit of fixed-state games an addiction gets us into a sort of logic loop from the very outset. Of course, any activity done in excess is harmful, and moderation is the key to life in general, from diet to hobbies to pretty much everything. This is hardly specific to gaming. Our whole lives are then some form of ‘addiction’ and the word rapidly loses all meaning. A good example is the word Nazi, when every clod on the street labels every other mildly divergent clod a Nazi just to discredit them,over time,the true magnitude of the word gets eroded, making it much easier for it to re-appear. If you take something fundamentally bad and dilute it with endless semantic blurring, then you have successfully lain the groundwork for its insidious re-appearance. Its original formulation may now blossom in the blurry non-space you have created for it, since any objection against it has lost meaning. This is sad. So, we must not label gaming an addiction, firstly because it is not, but secondly, because stretching definitions this much is ultimately a disservice to actual addictions that people continue to suffer from.

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Cover Image: A screenshot from my playthrough of FAITH: The Unholy Trinity.