The Benefits of Gaming

by on 10 September, 2008 - 15:47

by: Reinout te Brake

Yes! Gaming is good for your health. A recent study by PopCap showed that playing games helped people trying to lose weight and quit smoking, since playing distracts them from their unhealthy habits. Another study also showed that if workers take ten minute gaming e-breaks, it helps them to unwind and resume their work more productively.

By the way, if you want to know how stressed you are, go here. This site also lets you send your boss an anonymous e-mail telling him you need to play during your workday…cool feature huh? And there are also studies that show that gaming helps patients in recovery and students in learning.

Why am I bringing this all up? Because, regardless of the objectivity of these studies I want to stress games’ power of immersion. When you are playing, you need to be focused and concentrated on what you are doing. The game gets your total attention. This is why while you play you don’t smoke, or it helps you forget for a moment your work related responsibilities. Hence, a well executed advergame (this is, a game created for a particular brand) has a really big engagement potential, since it would require players to interact with the brand for several minutes, devoting their complete attention to it.

So, after this we can agree that there are several pros to gaming, besides entertainment, such as “improved” health, stress relief and effective advertising. Pretty cool isn’t it?

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Original Post: http://reinouttebrake.blogspot.com/2008/07/benefits-of-gaming.html