var topic = Best Thing About Video Games

There is not just one, but three separate things which games have the potential to fix (or at least help) within society...

The Flow Utopia
"Where's the other one? Those buggers always come in pairs" I said to myself as I swirled the wii-mote around the screen, bringing Samus (Metroid Corruption) in a full circle on the TV screen while scouting for the other monster. I was there: in the valley of "Flow," sandwiched neatly between frustration and boredom. Jenova Chen first talked about the application of the optimal-experience effect known as Flow to video games, but he put a word to a thing gamers have known about for a long time. The truest form of Flow in games, I believe, comes beyond immersion, when we live in the game - just for a fraction of a moment, perhaps, like the fleeting edges of nothingness found in the deepest of meditation. It is an experience universal, as put forward by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi when he wrote Flow: the Psychology of Optimal Experience.

This world drops away, and another takes its place. For a moment, I actually swing my arm and feel the grip of the metal sheet under my fingers as I rip it from the wall. It is enough, in hindsight, to conjure poor analogies to the Matrix. And there it is: the final obstacle between video games and their destiny, as it were. I see a convergence of technologies occurring as we speak. I see direct neural-interfaces for computers which can naturally integrate robotic limbs and I look at our rapidly-increasing ability to fix and/or create new organs. I see the research into the deepest workings of our minds, and wonder how much longer it will be before we can shape the contents ourselves. Somewhere in the cross-section of all these fields, I believe there exists a technological utopia. The Flow concept is essentially our glimpse into that utopia, for Flow is the very same sensation experienced in prayer, meditation, happiness, and perhaps even enlightenment (if we choose to call it as such). A simple google search for "meditation study" reveal that such a meditative (Flow) state can reduce blood pressure, improve attention, boost brain activity, and "give the brain a charge" (whatever that means).

And I strongly believe that games offer the insight into Flow. There are many ways to elicit a Flow state, but games differ from the others in two key ways:

1. The fundamental purpose of games is to induce a state of enjoyment through the use of Flow (to make the player addicted, in a sense)
2. Games (interactive media, as they are commonly called) are the only media format which accomplishes entertainment by a constant feedback-loop with the user

The second point is important because a feedback-loop means that the influence is not mono-directional. The game affects the brain, but the player subsequently affects the game through the vicarious use of his mind (by pressing a button to indicate input). This input is used to further tune the game, keeping him in the "valley" between boredom and frustration described in Flow. In other words, a game is a self-correcting (evolving) system that is built to challenge its players. And because players must adapt to meet the challenges, they are implicitly learning - what, exactly, they learn depends on the game. Studies have shown that players of Guitar Hero improve their tempo and rhythm skills. The feedback loop here is easy to see: in attempts to obtain a high score, the player presses buttons in time and is corrected by the game.

The Perfect Classroom
The virtue of the loop-design, then, is that it implicitly allows for the modification of the brain. On the most basic level, the brain is constructed (and learning accomplished) by attaching neurons together, creating or strengthening a connection, during which time old connections might be weakened. The only way to accomplish any form of learning is to have repeated trials, with both successes and mistakes so that this neural growth can occur. Normally, we are limited by our bodies (such as the time it takes to press a button on a controller), much more than our minds, as far as learning goes. The feedback-loop encountered while pressing buttons on a game controller can be tightened down immensely as technology used to interface with computers becomes more sophisticated. In this regard, I believe that Guitar Hero was a step forward from the classic controller, and the Wii another large step forward from there - the learning curve on the Wii is remarkably short. As the loop grows shorter, clearly the rate of acquisition of new knowledge will become faster. And who knows - I've even read a hint at a hint that some neuroscientists believe that full-on Matrix-style "plug-me-in" learning may be possible some day.

Harnessing Brainpower
Finally, I look at games and other projects that seek to harness the power of human thought and wonder if we, as individuals, will not be the only ones to benefit from the lessons of video games. For example, Google's image labeler is a very simple game that does what no computer can accomplish: assigns appropriate adjectives to simple images on the internet (which thus makes those images search-able, the classic example being that searching for "funny" in images should actually yield funny images). This is a practical example of how interactive media (games) are able to contribute to something external. The principle behind these programs is that the human brain is capable of certain things that we have no way of replicating. As far as we are concerned, machines can solve most any problem (hypothetically) except for certain acts which require conscious thought. No matter how fast the processor, no computer could ever accomplish labeling an image with characteristic adjectives which transcend the superficial.

So...
I see video games as playing a large role in the future of technology and society. They can help us find medatative-like peace; they can help us learn new skills; they can perform useful tasks at the same time. As I said, games are the only medium which is currently operating on this level. By studying games, which aim to capture attention and have a two-way communication with the mind of the player.