one you havent played before. no matter how complex a game seems at first it soon becomes routine and no longer stimulates your mind in an intellectual way.
Different types of games stimulate different "parts" of the brain.
A strategy game and an FPS might be equally hard and cognitively demanding, but in two very different ways, so picking one game would kinda be an apples/oranges comparison.
I guess picking one game for each genre/category (or more broadly, "type" of game) would give you a more accurate answer.
But people play all nontrivial games at the edge of their capacity. Even something like Rock-Paper-Scissors has arbitrarily high skill cap (as that would involve full brain emulation of your opponent and/or playing truly random picks yourself). In simpler/more solved/mechanically less demanding/whatever games it's just that thought-resources are spent on dealing with minutiae and increasingly small margins.
Well, let's use a simplified model: the brain runs at some 200Hz (to the extent this measure makes any sense for wetware). Some games stimulate motor-visual regions (so let's say 30% of brain capacity, for the sake of argument). Some involve excruciatingly slow "if-x-then-y" sort of thinking emulated by language areas, involving perhaps 1% of the brain. Then, the brains of some expert players might be able to rewire themselves such that visual areas no longer just recognize cats and dogs but also e.g. good Chess positions and bad Chess positions, and now 11% of the brain can be utilized.
This is as much as what you said, and here were agree completely. But what I would like to argue is that no matter the game, the relevant bits run at full throttle regardless of game. In a less solved game you might think ten moves ahead and come up with entirely novel moves no one has thought of before, and picking the correct move is a matter of winning decisively or losing disastrously. In a more solved game you might rehearse the same tired hundred arguments on whether e.g. move the settler or settle in place, such that the better option is statistically .01% better. But in both cases you are running that 1% of the brain at 200Hz, thinking exactly as many thoughts. So it's true that Chess or Civ or some other game stimulates different parts of the brain than Quake or football or something and you can't compare them like apples-to-apples. But in games of the same "category" or "type" pretty much every game stimulates the brain just as much, only you get less out of each additional ounce of mental effort in some games. It's only trivial games where this is not the case, like playing Tic-Tac-Toe where you can simply retrieve from memory the correct move and stop thinking.
>But in games of the same "category" or "type" pretty much every game stimulates the brain just as much
Do they?
Two very similar games of the same type might just have different amount of factors to keep in mind, or might require as you mentioned, to think a different amount of steps in the future.
Sure, one can "flex" their brain as hard as possible on a simple game to maximize performance, but I'd argue that flexing one's brain equally as hard on a more complex game is *more* intellectually stimulating, and I guess that's based on a slightly different way of defining what "intellectually stimulating" means.
Something that uses the brain in an intensive but narrow way and something that uses it at the same intensity but more "spread out" between different areas, should IMO be thought of as using the brain in different ways, so it's as much of an apples/oranges comparison as two different games that use largely separate areas of the brain.
>But in both cases you are running that 1% of the brain at 200Hz, thinking exactly as many thoughts
I don't agree that this is necessarily the case in all games (for certain games I have to be completely focused just to play decently, and in others I can multitask like crazy and win without dedicating much of my brain to them at all), but even assuming that's true, said thoughts aren't necessarily of the same complexity, to the point where certain games are simply too hard for some people (children or simply stupid people), and some games can be played by anyone with the same degree of success.
you could've just said >in games of the same "category" or "type" pretty much every game stimulates the brain just as much
without all the water, maybe less water at least and as for the argument itself id say it's about how strictly you define the genre, let's say we compare tarkov and quake, while both are fps they provide completely different level of stimulation, maybe in different brain parts even, though if we change classifications from first person shooter to mmorpg and arena shooter then maybe they will actually be equal compared to other games in their own respective categories. so what im saying is it's all semantics, they could be both equal and very very different
mario golf
Fast-paced action games
Fighting games and RTS
>action rock paper scissors and asiaticclick Rrock paper scissors
yeah sure...
As opposed to all single-player games that are either simon-says or cookie clicker
one you havent played before. no matter how complex a game seems at first it soon becomes routine and no longer stimulates your mind in an intellectual way.
& associates
Horror
Outer Wilds and it's not even close
I'm playing the DLC right now, it's scary af for some reason
Caesar 3
FFXIV Shadowbringers/Endwalker is peak intellectually story telling.
Maybe the only game what does themes like philosophy, nihilism, etc. right.
DCS guns only dogfights
the intelligest
bioshock infinite
Bioshock Infinite
Different types of games stimulate different "parts" of the brain.
A strategy game and an FPS might be equally hard and cognitively demanding, but in two very different ways, so picking one game would kinda be an apples/oranges comparison.
I guess picking one game for each genre/category (or more broadly, "type" of game) would give you a more accurate answer.
oranges are completely superior to apples tho
Can't hear you. My senses are overwhelmed by the inebriating smell of the apple pie I have in the oven right now.
But people play all nontrivial games at the edge of their capacity. Even something like Rock-Paper-Scissors has arbitrarily high skill cap (as that would involve full brain emulation of your opponent and/or playing truly random picks yourself). In simpler/more solved/mechanically less demanding/whatever games it's just that thought-resources are spent on dealing with minutiae and increasingly small margins.
I don't understand how this goes against what I said.
Well, let's use a simplified model: the brain runs at some 200Hz (to the extent this measure makes any sense for wetware). Some games stimulate motor-visual regions (so let's say 30% of brain capacity, for the sake of argument). Some involve excruciatingly slow "if-x-then-y" sort of thinking emulated by language areas, involving perhaps 1% of the brain. Then, the brains of some expert players might be able to rewire themselves such that visual areas no longer just recognize cats and dogs but also e.g. good Chess positions and bad Chess positions, and now 11% of the brain can be utilized.
This is as much as what you said, and here were agree completely. But what I would like to argue is that no matter the game, the relevant bits run at full throttle regardless of game. In a less solved game you might think ten moves ahead and come up with entirely novel moves no one has thought of before, and picking the correct move is a matter of winning decisively or losing disastrously. In a more solved game you might rehearse the same tired hundred arguments on whether e.g. move the settler or settle in place, such that the better option is statistically .01% better. But in both cases you are running that 1% of the brain at 200Hz, thinking exactly as many thoughts. So it's true that Chess or Civ or some other game stimulates different parts of the brain than Quake or football or something and you can't compare them like apples-to-apples. But in games of the same "category" or "type" pretty much every game stimulates the brain just as much, only you get less out of each additional ounce of mental effort in some games. It's only trivial games where this is not the case, like playing Tic-Tac-Toe where you can simply retrieve from memory the correct move and stop thinking.
>But in games of the same "category" or "type" pretty much every game stimulates the brain just as much
Do they?
Two very similar games of the same type might just have different amount of factors to keep in mind, or might require as you mentioned, to think a different amount of steps in the future.
Sure, one can "flex" their brain as hard as possible on a simple game to maximize performance, but I'd argue that flexing one's brain equally as hard on a more complex game is *more* intellectually stimulating, and I guess that's based on a slightly different way of defining what "intellectually stimulating" means.
Something that uses the brain in an intensive but narrow way and something that uses it at the same intensity but more "spread out" between different areas, should IMO be thought of as using the brain in different ways, so it's as much of an apples/oranges comparison as two different games that use largely separate areas of the brain.
>But in both cases you are running that 1% of the brain at 200Hz, thinking exactly as many thoughts
I don't agree that this is necessarily the case in all games (for certain games I have to be completely focused just to play decently, and in others I can multitask like crazy and win without dedicating much of my brain to them at all), but even assuming that's true, said thoughts aren't necessarily of the same complexity, to the point where certain games are simply too hard for some people (children or simply stupid people), and some games can be played by anyone with the same degree of success.
you could've just said
>in games of the same "category" or "type" pretty much every game stimulates the brain just as much
without all the water, maybe less water at least and as for the argument itself id say it's about how strictly you define the genre, let's say we compare tarkov and quake, while both are fps they provide completely different level of stimulation, maybe in different brain parts even, though if we change classifications from first person shooter to mmorpg and arena shooter then maybe they will actually be equal compared to other games in their own respective categories. so what im saying is it's all semantics, they could be both equal and very very different
this is a quake 3 mod
this is a kerbal space program mod
this is a billion dollar seller
damn, bro I can't wait for the Big Smoke swimsuit banner
Needs the initial frame to stay visible for about another half a second minimum.
Fortnite
Solasta: Crown of the Magister