Erick Villarreal

McLennan Community College

ITNW 1337
Video Games and its Effects On the World
03/25/11
 Hard to believe that Video games which became really big more than a few years ago

before I was born were just looked upon as a means of entertainment. They gradually moved

from simple tennis emulating games, Pong, to more slightly more intricate interactive games,

Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2, and Super Mario Bros 3, which followed the same trend

until more powerful gaming system came out. As technology progressed bigger leaps were made

in the forms of entertainment available to us, for relevance games, with more impressive systems

to take advantage of the technical skill implemented into games became even more impressive

and the trend keeps continuing even to this day. We have gone through at least a dozen consoles

and it wasn't until 2 generations ago, Playstation 1 and Nintendo 64, that other field of study

started taking notice of the industry and applying their knowledge to it. Today there are countless

researches being done on the science of video games. The research being done is not just

concentrated on the medical field but also on several other areas. Although they are less reliable

due to research bias, which is when the outcome of the results is affected by the researchers

opinion, funders etc. The most reliable ones I believe, are those done in to benefit people.

There was a research done on undergraduate pathology students who were attending the

"College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewa, Saskatoon, Canada." (Kanthan, Senger). They

were given two video games that were relevant to their studies. "Path to Success" gave the

students a life or death situation, in game of course, where the patient would live or die based

on the answered they provided and give a score at the end of the game to show they knowledge

of the material. The games main objective is of course to save their virtual patient. Implemented

in the game was also a "help" option where they were give Who Wants To Be a Millionaire type

options very similar to the "lifeline" that contestants are given. Ask a friend which is close to

"phone a friend" who might be the expert you think he is based on the subject you don't know.
Poll the Crowd, that mimics the "Ask the Crowd" lifeline given on the game show, and 50/50

which is the exact same option given in the show, no gimmicky name change, in order to help

the provide the correct answer. The other video game provided to the medical students was one

call "The Path is Right", again very reminiscence of the price is right game show even given a

anomalous looking game host called "Basil Phillic" (Kanthan, Senger). Where the students made

"wagers on their knowledge, testing them through various question formats including multiple

choice, fill in the blank, and extended matching"(Kanthan, Senger).

Another research done with games which was recently published was one where they

used the actual game "Brain Age Academy" which is a Nintendo Dual Screen portable game or

Nintendo DS. This research was done by multiple researchers at the same time all from the

Universidad Federal de Paraiba, Fundacion Velum, and Universidad de Salamanca. The main

point of this research was to provide help in the cognitive based though of people with

"Enfermedad de Alzheimer" (Psicothema), Alzheimer's Disease. The group who had (AD) and

was given the game Brain Age Academy were shown to have a significantly slower rate of

cognitive decline, also the same group showed an even greater significant decrease in their

depressive symptoms (Psicothema). Which showed that "The BBA program was more effective

than IPP to reduce cognitive decline and depressive symptoms in patients with AD."

(Psicothema).

There are even surgeons out there who admit to using video games as a training tool.

Butch Rosser who works at a "laparoscopic surgery department at Beth Israel Medical Center in

New York", has his lab set up with all his the usual tools a regular surgeon from his field uses.

Such things are "laparoscopic training instruments, virtial reality training instruments" and all

other forms of research technology in one place, but next to all of those medical piece of
equipment which cost thousands upon thousands of dollars are an X-Box and a Playstation 2

(Kloza). He did an observational research where he observed both surgeons who said they played

games and those who didn't a minimum of three hours a week, where he discovered that those

who played games were significantly better (Kloza). "The gamers made 37% fewer errors,

worked 27% faster, and scored 42% higher overall on the training task." (Kloza). The research

he did was small considering that he only used 33 surgeons, but Rosser "thinks the results are

profound enough to recommend that surgeons start using video games the way athletes use a

weight room." (Kloza).

The last reference that will be made is a relatively short one because although it doesn't

involve video games directly it involves the hardware that's responsible to making them run to

the potential that they achieve. “You can use the graphic cards that were originally built for

playing video games,” says Roshan D’Souza , a mechanical engineer at Michigan Tech, “and

turn them around, and turn them into supercomputing devices to solve scientific problems.”

(Bergendorff). The GPU's of every day PC's which are more affordable than the super computer

out there that cost millions of dollars are able to solve problems with biological germs which

takes a greater of amount of time to do that on the supercomputers (Bergendorff). This is a great

benefit because this can help people find cures on sickness due to being able to compare the

germs at a greater speed.

 Works Cited

Bergendorff, Christopher. "Video Games & Biology." Science Central. 24 Oct. 2008. Web. 25

Mar. 2011. <http://www.sciencentral.com/video/2008/10/24/video-games-biology/>.

Fernandez-Calvo, Bernardino, Roberto Rodriguez-Perez, Israel Contador, and Alicia Rubio-

Santorum. "Eficacia Del Entrenamiento Cognitivo Basado En Nuevas Tecnologías En

Pacientes Con Demencia Tipo Alzheimer." Psicothema. Psicothema, Feb. 2011. Web. 25

Mar. 2011. <http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.mclennan.edu/ehost/detail?sid=abffa85f-

e118-4d5d-aa7f-

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Kathan, Rani, and Jenna-Lynn Senger. "The Impact of Specially Designed Digital Games-Based

Learning in Undergraduate Pathology and Medical Education." Education in Pathology &

Laboratory Medicine. Jan. 2011. Web. 25 Mar. 2011.

<http://web.ebscohost.com.proxy.mclennan.edu/ehost/detail?sid=8d2c6b29-c181-4740-

82e2-

a227028c1603%40sessionmgr11&vid=1&hid=11&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ

%3d%3d#db=a9h&AN=57781803>.

Kloza, Brad. "Video Game Surgeons." Science Central. 3 June 2007. Web. 25 Mar. 2011.

<http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?

language=english&type=&article_id=218392901>.

"Major Sources of Bias in Research Studies." Major Sources of Bias in Research Studies. Web.

25 Mar. 2011. <http://www.umdnj.edu/idsweb/shared/biases.htm>.