We Make Magic

January 26th, 2010 | Posted by admin

What is a problem? What is an error? For many people problems and errors are obstacles which are in their way and which prevent them from being able to complete certain task. Those people who play computer gamers however tend to look at problems and errors not so much as obstacles as opportunities. Computer games by their very nature regularly put obstacles and traps in the way of the player and players accept that they will regularly face problems which they will need to overcome in order to progress through the rest of the game.

It is this alternative way of looking at problems as opportunities rather than as obstacles which has led many people to believe that playing such computer games actually provides valuable opportunities for computer gamers and video gamers to develop their life skills for the real world, and become people better adapted at dealing with the inevitable flood of obstacles and issues in their way. The argument is that someone who plays a computer game is more likely to look at a problem in their own life, or a mistake that they may have made, as an opportunity to develop, learn, and get it right next time, whereas non gamers are, perhaps, on the whole more likely to simply see an obstacle, and ignore it, or just stop whatever project they’re on, or enlist extra help.  Read more...

January 18th, 2010 | Posted by admin

If you are shortly going to be going to hospital to have an operation, it might not necessarily be the most comforting thing to hear that your surgeon, in whose hands lies your life, has had a good deal of training playing computer games.

Yet, recent studies have actually shown that the vast majority of surgeons who do regularly play computer games actually have a much better success rate and accuracy rating than their colleagues who play games either very rarely or not at all. This might seem strange, but there are a number of statistics to back up this claim, and a number of reasons why this trend may be the case.

The study was carried out at a medical centre in New York recently, and they found that those surgeons who, on average, play three hours video gaming per week managed to work almost thirty percent faster than those who did little or no gaming, and were over forty per cent more successful in operations. The tests were carried out on simulated operations, using virtual reality and computer controlled equipment, which is in many ways very much the way some operations are now carried out.

With more and more operations requiring finer accuracy and greater precision, human hands and clumsy tools are not always able to achieve the standards required. Therefore, computers are used to carry out the surgery, controlled directly by the surgeon. Shakes, tremors and inaccurate movement can be ignored by the computer, and where the surgeon moves his hand a long distance, the computer reduces this proportionally, so that very fine work can be carried out by the surgeon which would not be possible using the hands directly.  Read more...