Because they are engaging and motivational on their own, a Canadian professor is convinced that videogames can eventually be a reliable means to improve a player’s mental health.
Dr. Mark Baldwin of Montreal’s McGill University is a leader in this fledgling field, having already released a PC game in 1997 called MindHabits Trainer. It’s claimed that spending only five minutes a day with the title can improve confidence and reduce stress in participants.
Baldwin told Canada.com that while there is certainly room for advances in this field, there may be a ceiling in terms of how much a player can be affected. He doesn’t think, for example, that such a trainer would ever be able to convince someone that they are a good person, but that improving abilities like learning how to ignore criticism should be possible.
One level from the MindHabits Trainer has players trying to find a single smiling face among a sea of those with frowns. Baldwin explained what these types of game mechanics can do for a player:
It's just like Pavlov's dog. This boosts self-esteem, makes people feel a little less aggressive in response to insults. It's a long way from being a therapy of any kind; these things are games and little laboratory tasks. But someday I think there's going to be some use for this as a part of some kind of psychological intervention.
The release of games such as Brain Age and the Wii Fit in the past few years has furthered Baldwin’s optimism for what the coming years might bring:
In terms of where the future goes, that's what makes me hopeful that the application idea is growing and the line between them will get blurred and you'll see more of these positive efforts being integrated with entertainment-type games.
Comments
Re: Games Can Turn That Frown Upside Down
Oh god, there's really no need to write artificial games to boost the gamer's self esteem. More or less every single-player game written in the last 5-10 years or so has been so easy (and has come with autosave) so that everyone who has ever played a computer game is now convinced they have skills that they don't. What's more, actually being able to beat a game is not enough for gamers. Now we have the ludicrous fad of 'achievements' where people get medals for turning up and bothering to play for X hours, or for wandering into some particular spot on the map, or dying by falling off a building. This also seeps into online multiplayer games, like CoD4 or TF2, where players get weapons and powerups not for skill, but for having killed X amount of players sometime in the past, in an almost skillless MMO-style grind. Playing modern computer games makes me feel like the retarded kid in school, who gets a gold star for eating lunch or for stacking blocks on top of each other or for turning up to school. Winning one of these 6-hour single-player narrative-based games feels all very lame, hollow and superficial, and makes me feel empty inside.
That's why I'm trying to learn multiplayer Starcraft these days. Because it's 10 years old and is still very popular, the skill level of almost any random Starcraft player online is very, very high (compared to more or less any other random online game you can think of). So random newbies like me are up against an almost vertical learning curve. And, yes, being owned day-in, day-out by noobs ranked as D- on iCCup is a crushing blow to my self esteem, particularly since I'm old-school and was playing the likes of Dune2 and Warcraft 1 before some of these whippersnappers were even born. But having my soul sucked out by all that constant negative reinforcement still feels more RIGHT to me than all the empty, artificial praise that new games are showering on anyone who is able to demonstrate that they happen to have at least one opposable thumb.
Then again, on those rare occasions when I do somehow win against some cheap bastard who picks a random race and hits me with a fierce 5-pool zergling rush, it makes me feel a metric fuckton better than all the lavishly rendered end-of-game victory cinematics that the games industry has to offer. Delayed gratification that has to be worked for beats cheap, instant praise, every time.
Re: Games Can Turn That Frown Upside Down
I agree with a few points you made. Most games today especially the ones that get 10's handed to them for having pretty graphics are easy while games that require the player to get into the depth of the gameplay and realize it's value are scolded by critics for being too hard or too complex. Tekken 6 comes to mind, do noet; I'm an avid Tekken player and compete in tournaments whenever I can, so there may be some bias. When Tekken 6 came out I was dissapointed in the reception it recieved from critics not because it mostly got 8s, but because of the ignorance of most reviewers in there reguards to how Tekken actually works.Before TK6 came out you had to worry about juggling, poking, turtling, breaking throws, out spacing your opponent to set up for your combos, looking for ways to punish your opponent when you're getting juggled,tech rolling, tech traps, parrying, I could go on, but people are always saying Tekken never evolves, so TK6 comes out and adds Bound system that bounces your opponent for longer combos, rage system for last minute combacks and gives a boost in the damage dealt for a player on the brink of defeat, floor or wall breaking in some stages to change the tempo of the match. Namco also made the customization deeper and customizing is just as fun as the fighting itself, they even added a little campaign mode with 42 levels, but instead most reviews focused on the graphics(which were made in 2007), complained about the campaign mode as if it was what people bought Tekken 6 for, and completely ignored the things that people love about Tekken and why it's played at a competive level in various countries(Mainly Japan,Europe,Korea, and the US). Some reviews even complained about this game not being something that's easy to pick up which further proves my belief I've had this console generation that most games are easy and most gamers today are lazy. Sorry for my blog/rant I just had to get that off my chest.
Re: Games Can Turn That Frown Upside Down
"He doesn’t think, for example, that such a trainer would ever be able to convince someone that they are a good person, but that improving abilities like learning how to ignore criticism should be possible."
I don't think I agree with him here. I think that games have a much better ability than simple affirmation to make a person feel good. It can actually reward them for doing well or having a better self image.
It'd be interesting to see if they ever made an Anthony Robbins game.
Re: Games Can Turn That Frown Upside Down
Well I can't speak for anyone else but if there's one game that always manages to put a smile on my face its GTA4. Good combination of humour, fun mission challenges and the cathartic freedom TO DO THE THINGS I KNOW BETTER THAN TO DO IN REAL LIFE is always a winner with me
Re: Games Can Turn That Frown Upside Down
Next week, games'll be the scourge of the universe again.