JenniferFinelli

Hmm, the premise is scientific, if you want to check my sources. I think you're misunderstanding the difference between the pre-motor cortex and sensory cortex. You're right, the sensory cortex is the part of the brain that just "simulates" what you see. The pre-motor cortex, however, actually "primes" your motor cortex for action. Your brain is actually practicing actions you see. That's new research, but totally verifiable if you take an intro-level college neurobiology class. The idea isn't "think before you play games" so much as, "whoa, new research suggest games affect our brains like this--let's think about that!" It's a celebration, not a condemnation. No one's saying TF2 is evil: people are saying, "hey, let's use other parts of our brains and see if that affects us differently," because we tend to use certain parts more than others. That's me as much as you.

Besides, what's wrong with thinking before we eat? As the old Chinese proverb says, "let your food be your medicine." In both gaming and eating, science shows that it's legit to pay attention, to be "mindful" of what we're doing. That's okay. I mean, what's the counter-argument? Don't pay attention to what you eat? = P

o_O This made me think. I def don't know if I agree with everything about mind-slavery (doesn't literature manipulate our emotional selves, too?), but the concentration-studies idea really intrigues me. I have family with ADD, and as a distracted, impressionable person myself, I believe it would be nice for us all to be able to be more aware of the choices we make as gamers. I do think that's going to be more of a personal decision than a facet of the game, but the idea of a game that supports that kind of thinking--wow, you blew my mind!

Lol that's why they're intended for before or after, or during conversation with friends. ^_^ During is a bit over the top. I think if I tried writing a paper during Supersmash my husband might reconsider our gaming relationship.

Although in Portal and Braid, the game's slow enough to allow for some thinking time... = P

Hmm, that's a very interesting thought! It made me think: do you think judging literary vs. cognitive challenges could depend on the genre of the game? I would be pretty sad if Portal, for example, was judged only as a puzzle game. That was the idea that turned me off originally when someone described it to me. As soon as I got the story, though, I became interested, because I like to analyze.

Could it be possible that some games should be judged primarily by cognitive challenges, and others by both?

Or, could it be possible that we don't need to judge games at all? o_O

Sounds weird, but this is what I mean. I'm actually in the article never once talking about evaluating the merit of a game on an objective level. It's not about judging games so much as judging how we interact with them. I'm talking about on a personal level, how the game interacts with you, and whether you find value out of it. If you find value only through area MT, that's a thing, I guess. But what if we find other ways of connecting our brains to a game--since the game is affecting those other areas already? On some level, who really cares about the "literary" or "cognitive" value of the game? On some level, you and I don't really give a velociraptor's feathers either way what some arbitrary standard says about a game. We care about how the game affects us.

What do you think? I dunno, you're very societally-minded here, and that takes the article beyond what I'd originally intended. Neat! I'm not sure how we should "judge games," I guess! Just interested in how it gets my brain. ^_^

Hi, ebbv! I do want to point out that those are questions, not answers. No one is telling you how to enjoy games--the fundamental question is, is there a way to enjoy games that accesses the deeper human levels of our existence? No where in this article does it say "DAMN YOU FOR NOT FINDING DEEP MEANING IN TETRIS YOU FOOL." That, I agree with you, would be a little over the top. = P

There's another, bigger question to consider: if video games affect your mind so profoundly, it's probably a good idea to think a little before playing. I don't want to rephrase the article to say "think before buying," because that's an obvious part of anything we do--but if your pre-motor cortex actually replicates and primes your motor cortex to perform the Scout's baseball-bashing of Team Fortress 2, don't you at least want to consciously decide on what level it affects you? If you make the conscious decision to transfer TF2 only to area MT--which is essentially what you're arguing--then that decision should be conscious. Rather than just experiencing, isn't it legitimate to consider what your pre-motor cortex is acting out? Is it unreasonable to ask that we be consciencious about the workings of our minds during games?

This isn't to say that EVERY SINGLE TIME you play a game you should write a paper and submit it to a game magazine. I would rather you didn't do that, because I would like to do that, and you would be competing, and, yannow, capitalism.

This is just to say that it's reasonable to become aware of WHICH areas of your brain are affected--because whether you like it or not, your brain ACTIVELY practices killing. I'm not putting a moral label on that. I personally believe that's a good thing sometimes. I'm saying "Know thyself, brain-flesh-meatbag, and have fun playing."

So have fun. BTW, who's your favorite TF2 character? I am pretty much in love with the Scout.

Couldn't have said it better! ^_^

I think a lot of people would agree with you on the developers with coding, but would argue that it's more of an issue of money versus art. "In the old days," they'd say, "artists earned basically nothing and did art because they cared about the art," or something like that. It's also a very Western phenomenon to make art closed-code. We think of "canon" StarWars or "canon" literature, but in Japanese literature, it was actually common practice for writers to "add on" to the works they liked the best. That work then became passed on to the next generation. There wasn't this idea of "canonicity."

In the same way, some game developers are moving away from the idea of closed-code gaming--but we're talking indie games here. Minecraft is the best example ever. The download software actually includes folders for you to put in all your mods. And, in the end, that formula makes money. People like being able to add their creativity to your product, so why not let them?

So fear not, my friend, not all developers are as tightfisted as those COD folks. And, even when they do, for the technologically savvy, where there's a will, there's always a way. = )