Psychologists give gaming the thumbs up

Sounds like flawed testing

"50 per cent also used “systematic and evaluative processes” based on scientific reasoning to overcome in-game problems"

It sounds more like they were given a multiple choice questionare.

50% of Warcraft players just follow the guy in front of him or follow the "how to do boss 4" guide to the letter

How many Warcraft players does it take to change a lightbulb?

Non, they just get a Chinease guy to fit it for them

Another report stating the bleeding obvious

I hope the public doesn't pay for these in anyway.

Games of course can act as training simulators, that's how they came about, and of course they increase reaction time, most of them have that as a core element, and of course there are the problem solving parts as well.

Games throughout history have always been the tools of the well trained and intelligent.

Life is a game, play how it you will, but I think these little psych reports are jut tittle tattle for the ignorant, I hope they are industry sponsored.

Its Edu-tainment

my eight year old learnt some spanish from a game, "CHINGA TU MADRE" he'll shout at his little pals as they flying kick each other, ahhhh, bless.

ok i'll start ->

"A third study, based on nearly 2000 World of Warcraft players, found......." eh?

streaks of piss

(Stops taxi) "I need your car" WALLOP

Re:mongoose

How do you figure there's science involved? It plainly says they're psychologists.

they didnt need a whole conference

with anti aliasing/anisotropic filters set to the max. when your drunk you can still shoot pixels around corners. and you never wonder where your house/car keys are after you beeing gaming

Idiotic

Re: molotov cocktail kids, taxi thieves

A kid who's going to be a whackjob is going to be a whackjob regardless of what video game he played. I'm sure no one threw a petrol-bomb or stole a taxi before GTA came out. Ever. If the logic is true that GTA makes kids more likely to do stupid sh*t, then it would follow that watching a documentary about the Texas Tower Sniper would make kids more likely to scale a building with a high powered rifle and start mowing people down.

If a violent environment does in fact breed violence, then it's awfully narrow-minded to blame it on GTA.

How about we address the graphic violence in movies and TV?

How about we address the explicit depictions of illegal acts in much of modern music (I'm looking at you, (c)rap!)??

How about we look at rampant domestic violence and child abuse coming from parents that never played a video game in their lives?

How about we just ban everything that's not on the "approved list" of acceptable entertainment?? We can have a really big bonfire in the capital rotunda where we burn all unacceptable books, movies, audio recordings, games. And while we're at it, we might as well burn the constitution, as it won't mean much at that point anyway. Oh, and all those PEOPLE not on the "approved list"... well, nevermind them...

Sieg heil?

Re: Its Edu-tainment

"my eight year old learnt some spanish from a game, "CHINGA TU MADRE" he'll shout at his little pals as they flying kick each other, ahhhh, bless."

Yipes, I hope none of his pals actually speaks Spanish, or he's in for some ass-whooping!

Anyway, good games do help on kids abilities, this isn't new though. Its the stupid games the ones that just don't give anything of any value, like say ... um... Halo. Though FPS games do give some damn good hand-eye coordination, I'll give them that!

@Michael

It is not the graphic content that is the problem per se, it is the *participation*.

Gamers will get an adrenaline rush out of a shoot-em-up that you won't get from sitting on a couch watching a battle movie.

With each new release of games there is an "arms race" whereby each version has to be more extreme than the previous one.

Sure, this is not the only cause of violence and problems in society, there are many others, but it is a biggie.

keyhole surgery being performed “significantly faster”

I can see it now in chatrroms all over the world:

DOOD HW U BT END LVL 4 GALLBLDDR PLZ HLP!!!!!

@Charles Manning

"Sure, this is not the only cause of violence and problems in society, there are many others, but it is a biggie."

Except that it isn't, is it? In the UK, thousands, if not millions of people play games every day, a lot of them probably involving violence. Out of those people, an absolutely minute fraction ever go out and commit violent acts. The way you describe it makes it out to be an inevitably biological process which means I, along with everyone else who has ever enjoyed a violent game will go out and commit acts of wanton violence.