Note: the below is a draft and likely there will be errors or significant
omissions.
For most of my life, I’ve just played a bunch of different games and not
really had any method for deciding or optimizing which ones I choose to play.
In the past year or so, my light has come on and now I think I better
understand the value functions that apply to games. I’m putting this online
because you might find it useful too, to avoid wasting your time playing games
that just aren’t fun or relevant.
We want to play games or run interactive simulations because:
– They can teach us skills or lessons that we either can’t learn in everyday life (wargaming) or that have serious economic obstacles to performance in real life (e.g. flight simulators).
– They allow us to blow off steam or put our minds into a more positive state:
clearminded, lower stress, get to bed, etc.
– They positively evoke our aesthetic sense/are fun
– They provide some stimulating input (i.e. avoiding boredom)
Although physical games such as soccer can also provide the benefits of physical exercise, when performed at the most beneficial, athletically stressful level, those activities have a high risk of injury, making them counterproductive for otherwise healthy adults. Outdoor activities such as hiking or indoor training exercises are better choices – unless you’re already chronically hurt and need rehab or exercise by any means necessary.
Common factors that detract from gaming objectives are:
– Long waiting periods. Sometimes this comes from load times, sometimes from
shuffling decks, sometimes from turn-based action while others wait.
– Control issues. A game is not usually performed using the exact same control
mechanism as in real life. Consequently, learning control schemes has no value outside the game. furthermore, the control scheme itself may be inaccurate, and
may require a great deal of practice, so that mastering the controls is the
dominant strategy in the game.
– There is a situation in competitive games where the structure of the game
may discourage low-skilled players from joining. There are certain realistic
types of games where this can happen, e.g. the lower skilled player tips the
hand of the higher skilled players. However, the most common way this comes up
is when a lower skilled player, in competing with higher skilled players, can
empower the opposing force (usually by experience points on kill).
Below find a list of popular games/genres and how they rate. Note that I am
not an expert at all these games, there could be errors:
Decisive Campaigns: Barbarossa – a tremendous experience
You combine real military situations, with real units that help you retain the
actual history, with realistic situations and decisions. The interface has a
lot of knobs and so it is naturally a bit clunky to move that many
counters/units.
Average Realistic Wargame
Not as enriching as historically based games, but some games (e.g.
Daisenryaku) are the only way you see modern units and have any idea as to
their capabilities in a gaming setting. The concepts are still the same, but
the manner in which they are exercised differs.
Tecmo Super Bowl – great game proper, no macro value
In terms of control, multiple RPS situations, move-zone concepts, matchup
strategies, and even a little off-screen chicken, this is one of the best games of all time. The only drawback is that you are learning about a brutal sport that humans have no business playing.
First Person Shooters (e.g. Counter-Strike)
The control scheme unfortunately dominates the game, however there are
elements of actual tactics and tradeoffs that can be learned, depending on the
realism of the game (e.g. dropping smoke at a key point). One of the tough
tradeoffs in this type of game is the use of controller; using mice at that intensity can contribute to carpal tunnel syndrome.
Jet Fighter Simulations
This type of game can have some real-life value, depending on the realism
of the simulation. However, from a gaming perspective, the typical simulator suffers a lot from the waiting problem of long periods of inaction followed by small amounts of highly active action.
Eurogame/Modern Cooperative Board Game
Good for building relationships with your friends – not a zero value in that regard.
Average Board Game
Good for ruining relationships with your friends and wasting time on silliness.
Poker
Excellent for building skill with stochastic reasoning, understanding when to
continue at a disadvantage and when to bail out, to deal with losing money or
things of value, and a number of other emotional and people lessons. The game
itself is of course completely synthetic and of no larger value. I don’t
recommend this game because some people are susceptible to gambling addiction,
but if you aren’t, studying the game and playing well at low to middle limits
can help you reason away from the table.
Contemporary Open World Games (Sleeping Dogs, Grand Theft Auto)
Depending on the story that is told and its relationship to real life (the
portrayal of actual criminal activity), this type of game can be instructive. However, mostly they tend to be ways to blow off steam and screw around with things you would never do in real life.
Single player RPGs (Final Fantasy, Guild Wars 2 PvE, etc.)
These are all designed to stimulate your aethestic sense through exploration,
music, story, etc. and some have good RPS, equation solving, or other elements
in them. With that said, there is no macro value in them. A lot of them (World
of Warcraft particularly stands out for me) waste a lot of time in walking
actions, which diminishes the game value.
Puzzle matching games – iffy, just time killing
I’m pretty decent at Tetris Attack, but hell if it ever contributed to my life
in any way. The better games have good music and fun characters, but it’s
basically like an RPG in terms of value.
Racing games – iffy, just time killing
Pretty much the same problem as puzzle matching…no larger value in real
life. There are some excellent simulators out there, but when in real life do
you actually have to race a car that way?
Crowd combat games (Samurai Warriors, Ninety-Nine Nights, even Gauntlet)
Mostly a time waster, although some of these games are historically based and
you could actually learn a lot playing them. However, the learning is not the
primary mechanic, it’s more of window dressing or sidegame.
Company of Heroes and similar reality-based RTS – worth playing but
frustrating
Biggest problem here is control scheme relative to game dynamics…your guys
are automoving in ways that leave them vulnerable to enemy mines, airstrikes,
etc. So the limit of your skill in the game is not your knowledge of the game
or even your macro strategy, but your span of control – so when you start to
get competitive, it winds up being like any other RTS, all canned moves and
button mashing.
Fighting games – iffy, not worth seriously playing
Learn a lot of moves about a lot of characters, do some RPS…but mostly be
frustrated at the fact that you have to spend hundreds of hours learning to do
combos, reversals, and throws.
MOBAs (Smite, League of Legends) – iffy, not worth seriously playing
Getting good at these games involves learning a bunch about characters you
will never use, practicing your own character against many other characters,
and learning some moderate control skills. You have to learn the macro
strategy of how to farm the map and stay active. to the extent you learn
situational awareness and how to track or manage players out of your team’s
vision, they can help your reasoning skills. The biggest drawback of playing
these games, though, is that you or your teammates wind up feeding the
opponent, and then you spend a lot of time waiting to surrender or ultimately
to lose (10-20 minutes in many cases). Plus, you can’t pause the game or get
to a good stopping point, you have to keep going or else cause your team to
lose. So they aren’t really suited to daily life.
Rocket League – Not worth playing
This move-zone concept has some interesting twists, but ultimately your
success is gated on hundreds of hours of practice to make the ball go where
you want. In that regard, it is much like real soccer. Your teammates can also
easily subtract from your team’s ability, so you wind up yelling at them and
generally creating hard feelings.
Starcraft II – Poor, definitely not worth playing
The game is a relatively simple RPS, with a poor control scheme that has
little to no automation. The designers explicitly discourage players from
using macros to automate the game – that’s the level of competitive advantage
a player gains by having practiced the interface. My personal experience is
with wiping the floor with all of my friends (including more experienced
Starcraft players) after practicing one strategy (straight to air Protoss)
that they know is coming, but can’t stop because I’m too good at executing the
rote mechanical steps. Of course, after some months had passed and I no longer
possessed that level of mechanical control, naturally my friends went back to
beating me, despite the fact that I still understood what I wanted to do and
how to do it. Bottom line – the game rewards thousands of hours of rote
unrealistic practice ahead of anything else.