The Bottom Line

Issue date: 3/14/07 Section: The AT Wire

Media Credit: Derek Hidey Derek hits 15 out of 16 shots on a target.

“Where’d you learn to shoot like that?” asked the Colt Gun Salesman.

“7-11” replied Marty McFly.

Video games have been the scapegoat for a lot of problems in society.  Just recently, a UK driving institution found that gamers who play racing games are more likely to drive fast in real life.  The institution surveyed 1,000 gamers and reported that 1/3 of them admitted to driving faster after playing racing games.  However, some of the participants of the survey said that they found that playing racing games enhanced their on-the-road driving performance.  Of course, a more intensive study would have to be done to confirm an increase in a driver’s reaction time and reflexes after playing Need for Speed, but you get the idea.

A lot of people will say, “There is no way that playing FPS games will make you a better shot when shooting a gun!”  The argument could be made that handling a keyboard and mouse or console controller is a different feel and style than holding and firing a real gun.  Well, yes, of course they are completely different, but the development of hand-to-eye coordination is definitely an advantage of playing FPS games.  Being able to coordinate your on-screen crosshair with you hands is a very learned ability that takes practice, similar to learning to fire a handgun accurately.  Games like Counter-Strike, Day of Defeat, Battlefield 2, Battlefield 2142, Quake IV, and even Halo, if played long enough, will develop a gamer’s hand-to-eye coordination.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be a natural marksman in real life, but you may have an advantage.  This is very similar to the way a skateboarder may have an easier time learning to snowboard because he or she has developed the type of balance that is required. 

My mother received a 9mm Smith and Wesson for Christmas of last year, and my experience with firearms of any kind is limited to those I’ve seen in my video games.  Nevertheless, one time I came home and saw that my mother and older brother were outside shooting at targets.  She asked me if I wanted to try shooting the gun while they had it out and ready.  I was naturally intimidated by the prospect despite the fact video games have desensitized me to guns and violence a lot.  After my brother instructed me on the basics of handling and firing a handgun, it was my turn to fire 16 rounds at a target roughly 35 ft. away.  I hit the target 15 out of the 16 shots I fired and most of the bullets hit the center of the target.  I surprised my older brother who took the gun from me afterwards and asked if there was something I wanted to tell him.

I’m not saying that my first experience with a handgun is clear-cut example of how FPS gamers would perform when firing a real gun.  Overall, my scores aren’t even that impressive, but they do raise some interesting questions.
If video games have no effect on a person’s abilities, whether its thinking quickly because of playing real-time strategy (RTS) games or firing a gun because of FPS games, then why did the United States Army create America’s Army, a free FPS games for the PC?  Everyone knows that this government-created video games is a recruitment strategy for the armed forces, but the wouldn’t waste time developing and supporting it if they didn’t think there was some connection between FPS gamers and certain skills needed to be a U.S. soldier.

There isn’t any proof that playing FPS games enhances your ability to fire a gun accurately, nor is there any proof that playing racing games makes you a better driver.  Nevertheless, these correlations are gradually becoming more believable as more examples of them occur.  Just because you can shoot the helmet off of a German soldier with an M1 Garand from 100 yards away in a video game doesn’t mean you can hit the broadside of a barn with a 9mm from 10 feet away in real life, at least… not yet

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