Have you ever heard that games rot your mind or that videogames are one of the largest contributors to violence? Odds are you have at some point because video games have been regarded as having no helpful side effects for as long as I can remember.
In the last decade, video games have become a more common form of entertainment than ever before. There’s now a wide array of titles for people to choose from, ranging from those on standard consoles to simpler and easier-to-pick-up games on phones.
Aside from being an engaging and easy to consume form of media, games come with a wealth of lessons for people to learn, some of which I have greatly benefited from.
I’m not talking specifically about education-based titles either. I’m referring to titles that have taught me patience, how to approach a stressful situation and come up with interesting solutions to those situations.
A recent title in this category would be Elden Ring, a game I’ve been playing recently, and it has done a good job reinforcing those ideas to me. Elden Ring is a difficult game that I’ve died countless times in. It asks the player to overcome challenges using whatever they’ve found in their time exploring, and that’s stopped people from completing due to the frustration it brings.
However, I’ve found the challenge to be incredibly gratifying. Elden Ring and similar titles have taught me that I should pace myself and approach something when I feel ready to handle it. It also showed me that I needed to have a good deal of patience, or I’d consistently make mistakes. It’s not the first game I’ve played by the developers, FromSoftware, to have this effect on me, but it’s a factor that feels especially obvious in this particular one.
I used to be incredibly impatient and spiteful of failure, but these games have the potential to show anyone the value of patience and how to learn from failure. That’s a useful lesson for the real world, too.
