More than Just a Game

Revealing the True Potential in Modern-day Videogames
by Jeff Jones

I recently visited my parents for about a week, and engaged in the typical ‘home with the family’ activities.  We visited the local hotspots (my family currently lives in a town of about 11,000 so trust me, the hot spots are HOT!), I ate my favorite home-cooked meals, and I hung out with my little brother.  While hanging out with my little brother our conversations centered, predictably, on sports – namely college football.  Imagine my surprise when my 11-year old brother told me about the advantages/disadvantages of zone-blitzes, how to properly set up a play action pass, and the areas of vulnerability present in a cover 6 zone.

Even though he has some experience playing little league football, these are concepts that I hadn’t grasped until I was well into my high school years, and I doubt many other 11 year olds could get a handle on these ideas.  My first thoughts were the obvious ones: “Oh dang, this little guy must be a prodigy like Tiger Woods, or those kids who can stack cups really fast!” and “This must be what Bill Belichick was like as a kid”.  So I asked Kyle (my brother) how he knew all about these concepts; he proceeded to show me videogames in a way that I had never seen them before.

Kyle turned on his PlayStation and we played NCAA 2009 (I know, I know... I’m working on getting him the newer version) for hours and hours.  Sure enough all of the ideas that he told me about earlier were there – you just had to put a little effort into actually seeing them and learning from them. 

He was able to accurately learn and analyze some of the toughest concepts present in God’s most beloved sport (aka football) because of lessons learned playing a videogame.  This blew my mind!

Upon further examination it shouldn’t be as shocking as it is to think that gamers of all ages are able to learn football from this medium.  We have known for decades that some people are visual learners and others are auditory learners so when looking at these ‘games’ as sets of visual cues about football concepts and not simply an entertaining escape from reality, it makes sense that gamers – in particular those who are visual learners – can learn from playing games like EA Sports’ NCAA.

 Lesson of the day:  I should have started playing videogames way earlier; I’d probably be in the NFL by now...