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While it’s important to acknowledge the potential risks of any hobby turning into an obsession, the moral panic around gaming has largely been overstated. Research increasingly shows that gaming can have positive effects on mental health, especially when we consider the unique benefits of impact games. As the world grapples with widespread mental health challenges, there’s a compelling case for integrating gaming into our wellness toolkits.
Tetris, animal crossing, and the positive impact of games
Before digging into how games can be used to stimulate mental wellbeing, it’s worth noting that our understanding of the subject is evolving all the time.Just five years ago, for example, researchers discovered that Tetris could help prevent post-traumatic stress symptoms. In coming to that finding, researchers demonstrated that the survivors of motor accidents had fewer intrusive memories if they played Tetris (accompanied by a psychological intervention) within six hours of being admitted to the hospital. More recently, research from Oxford University showed that people who played Nintendo’s popular Animal Crossing title or EA’s Plants vs Zombies: Battle for Neighborville reported a greater sense of wellbeing. The study was a landmark in demonstrating that playing games can have a positive impact.It’s worth emphasising that those profound effects were found to be produced by games that were designed with no other intended purpose than to be fun and entertaining. More so, the examples provided involved players interacting with games on a two-dimensional screen (even if the games are rendered in 3D). What then might the effects be when engaging in a fully immersive environment like virtual reality (VR), with games that are specifically designed to promote wellbeing?
Virtual sanity
It’s a question worth asking. After all, we know that VR is already applied extensively to contexts like industrial training in order to safely take people through scenarios that they might encounter in their working environments. Why then shouldn’t the same be true when it comes to promoting mental wellbeing? As it turns out, it’s a question that people have been asking for a lot longer than you might imagine. In fact, US clinical psychologist Barbara Rothbaum first started using VR to help people conquer psychological disorders as far back as the mid-1990s. Since then, the field has evolved considerably, with clinicians using VR to treat everything from depression and addiction to ADHD and anxiety. Many of these therapies, however, are based on bringing real-world exposure therapy techniques to the virtual world. While there’s undoubtedly value in that, there are still people who might be resistant to even that kind of exposure. Here, introducing the principles of impact gaming can help. Simply put, impact games, like serious games, are games that are created for a purpose beyond just pure entertainment. Most of us are familiar with them in the educational space, but they also have extensive applications in mental wellbeing.We know that because we’ve experienced it first-hand. Commissioned by Maestro Games, we developed a proof of concept using classical music in virtual reality to create a healing experience for those struggling with mental health. More specifically, the game concept aims to help treat PTSD through an immersive music-conducting experience. Early testers report feeling more in control of their emotions after going through the experience.
The supplemental value of games
Of course, none of this is to say that games should replace traditional modes of therapy or mental wellbeing tools. But with even traditional games demonstrating a positive influence on mental wellbeing, it would be foolish to ignore them.Rather, healthcare providers should work with researchers and game developers to add impact games to their treatment toolkits. As a supplementary tool to which people are naturally very receptive, it’s difficult to beat. Given how much we’ve learned in a relatively short period of time and the promising strides that have already been made, it’s clear that gaming and impact games should play a growing role in promoting mental wellbeing going forward.In light of the immense mental health crises plaguing many parts of the world right now, the need for impact games and gaming to service that role has perhaps never been more pressing.
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