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Video games: A promising tool for anxiety and depression
(english.elpais.com)
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this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2024
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It’s called the original Peggie!
Also, game developers are already doing that subconsciously and consciously as artists. Scientists may be able to explain why certain game elements effect people in certain ways but the idea that the science and medical industries can build games that help with anxiety and depression more than game developers with similar objectives is I think a common misunderstanding.
Scientists might be able to show that certain types of music powerfully impact people emotionally, but that doesn’t mean that scientists are able to take that information and make music that maximally emotionally impacts people.
We need artists to do that, and they already are with video games the problem is the industry treats it’s workers like trash.
The original Peggle is extraordinarily good at just making you feel good and calming you down. Then it had its spine ripped out in a Mortal Kombat finishing move by EA when they bought Popcap.
Artists can work hand-in-hand with medical professionals. It's something that has happened for a long time. Using actual medical science in the development of video games used as therapy is a hell of a lot better for people with depression than just playing Peggle.
Can you provide sources and proof of this? That game development led by medical professionals results in video games that are any more effective at positively impacting mental health than similar games from similar genres?
There isn’t any, because it is hogwash. An artist doesn’t need to understand science to make a video game that makes people feel happy and calm, but a medical professional DOES need to understand how to be an artist to do so. There chances are MUCH higher that the artist is going to solve the problem, they just won’t know why like the scientist will.
All these apps and games I have seen developed by companies trying to target video games as a treatment all utterly fail to understand how complex, subtle and ultimately mysterious game design is. This isn’t something that can be solved with a formula or the scientific method, this is game design, it is an art form and must be approached fundamentally from the angle to create a work of art that will repeatedly engage people.
“Just playing Peggle” is funny because countless people and a Popcap issued study report that Peggle is an immensely calming experience. The original Peggle and Peggle Nights among those who have played them are almost universally described as being one of the most anodyne, calming experiences in video games.
Sorry... you want me to provide evidence for something that hasn't happened yet?
And you really think that non-medical professionals are just as good at treating mental health problems than medical professionals?
Are you one of those people who tell people with depression to stop feeling sorry for themselves?
No I am claiming medical professionals and ESPECIALLY the medical industry in all its incredible dysfunction is laughably equipped to create video games that will meaningfully impact people in any fashion.
Video games are art, you need artists to make them. I am ok with medical professionals being consulted but the way that expertise is valued in modern capitalism you know the artists are going to end up being steamrolled by an inherent bias towards STEM thinking even when the scientists are completely out of their wheelhouse trying to make an interactive work of art.
I am not anti-science and I would never tell someone with depression to just stop feeling sorry for themselves. I have been hurt way too much from the other side to ever want to do that.
If video games are only art, they cannot treat clinical depression.
The very fact that there is evidence that they do means that science can be used to determine in what ways they do and design games around methods based on those ways.
That might involve things like MRIs studies involving playing various games to see what and how the brain of someone with depression reacts to various game conditions and then designing a game which is informed by those MRI results.
Of course you need artists involved in making games. But that doesn't mean artists must make games with no assistance from anyone anywhere else. Educational professionals are involved in educational games all the time. And they often educate. Why would getting psychologists involved in mental health games be any different?
Wow…
This is the same boring argument people make about music theory being so incredibly important to making music that impacts people and yet music theory can only attempt to describe why something worked, it can never provide blueprints for inspiring art that actually changes people.
This is ultimately the problem with scientific thinking applied to art, science can only ever value what it can measure and the first thing any artist will tell you about making art is that literally every part of the process matters to the end product. Scientists, going into this process with the objective of creating something that will create a specific measurable effect are always going to butcher the whole thing, because they aren’t trained to listen to their subconscious and intuition in the design of subtle elements that don’t seem relevant to the metrics that matter.
And seriously…. are you honestly making the claim that art made for arts sake cannot help patients treat their clinical depression? Hahahahahaha just ask all the depressed healthcare professionals being brutally exploited and ground down by a for-profit healthcare system what they do after work to help recover their mental health, they binge tv shows made by artists (or play video games :) ).
Music theory is also used in a clinical setting in ways designed by psychologists.
I never said anything about cannot either. You're just making that up. Art can help treat depression... but it should not be used to treat depression when it is not under a doctor's care.
The thing I don't get is why you seem to accept that educators using pedagogy and helping on educational games help kids learn but psychologists using scientific techniques and helping on mental health games wouldn't help treat mental health.
You also seem to think all games are made by a single person doing all the work. Many people working on games are not artists already. Someone whose job is coding a way to make it so when the horse's hoof hits the cobblestone it makes a different sound from when it hits the grass probably wouldn't consider what they personally were doing to be art.
Also, medical professionals can be artists and game designers. And they can use science to design their games. Do you think going to medical school destroys someone's artistic abilities?
I imagine it certainly tries to select for people who aren’t artistic and instead heavily favors minds that are good at memorizing vast amounts of information and following rules, but no of course not. What destroys the capacity of medical professionals to make good educational or therapeutic games is the system they are operating under, the system that got them their degree, and enforces the structures of how they must operate in a medical system providing medical care.
The system is absolutely, categorically incapable of actually valuing what artists bring to the table and the more an artistic endeavor gets involved with this system the more it will have its innards scooped out and it’s soul crushed.
If we want video games for mental health, keep the medical system as far away as possible. The video game industry is already a dumpster fire it doesn’t need more people coming into the industry to call the shots who don’t have any expertise in creating art.
Good job ignoring all but one thing I said and then making an absolutely ludicrous claim about it.
Oh look, a licensed clinical psychiatrist who is also a game designer and who supports my point.
I assume you're going to ignore that too. Or claim that he's the only game designer who isn't also an artist somehow.
I'm gonna just leave this link to the official speedrun.com asset page that may or may not have a freely available Android APK of the original Peggle Deluxe that works on modern devices.
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