In today’s entertainment market, gaming is becoming a prominent choice among consumers of all ages.

Years ago, there was a stigma that gaming was harmful and unhealthy – but that could not be further from the truth. Recently, IGN has published some of the Top 5 Benefits of Gaming and we were inspired by the post.

So, we’ve rounded up our own list of the key findings about the positive aspects of gaming.

Discouraging Antisocial Behaviour

For years, we have heard the argument that violent video games encourage players to carry out acts of violence. Games have been accused of inspiring bullies and being the driving force behind school shootings, but studies are disproving this myth.

Recently, in the Being Bad in a Video Game Can Make Us More Morally Sensitive study by researchers at the University of Buffalo found that games increase mortal sensitivity rather than desensitising them to violence.

“We found that after a subject played a violent video game, they felt guilt and that guilt was associated with greater sensitivity toward the two particular domains they violated — those of care/harm and fairness/reciprocity,” says leader researcher Matthew Grizzard, PhD.

Diminish Addictive Cravings

Researchers at the Cognition Institute at Plymouth University have conducted a study that suggests playing Tetris can stop individuals from craving food. The gist of it is that having your brain preoccupied by something fun like Tetris will stop your cravings.

While this study applied to hunger and a very specific type of game, it is likely that we will see these findings applied to problem gambling and other types of addiction at some point in the future.

Improves Sociability

While single player video games of the 1980s certainly encouraged asocial behaviour, that isn’t the case anymore. Today, online multiplayer games and social games are expanding players’ horizons. Researchers at the Radboud University Nijmegen have found that video games benefit players by demanding that they are more social.

Party, social media, MMORPG, shooter, fighting, and sport games are just a few of the genres that improve players’ social skills. 

Motivational Tools

The same Dutch research shows that video games are also great motivational tools. In the real world, failure are usually met with remorse and despair.

In video games, players respond with ‘excitement, interest and joy’. As such, they repeat the failed task or mission until they’ve succeeded. It is an interesting contrast, and the reaction to failure in video games can certainly spill over into other areas of your life.