StarCraft 2 Threatens to Zerg Rush Chess For Science

[Andy Chalk]

StarCraft 2 Threatens to Zerg Rush Chess For Science

StarCraft 2 may surpass chess as the "model organism" used by science in the study of human cognition.

For decades, chess has served as a sort of focal point for cognitive scientists attempting to determine, among other things, why human brains are so good when focused on individual tasks and so bad when their attention is divided. The game has actually been referred to as "the drosophila of cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence" [here, let me StarCraft 2 [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_as_mental_training].

StarCraft 2 is gaining attention in the scientific community because of the complexity it brings to the table. It forces players to pursue multiple goals simultaneously, often under intense pressure and within small windows of opportunity, and serves up scenarios that can change rapidly and unpredictably. There also happens to be a ton of players, which offers a potentially huge pool of data for researchers to draw from.

"I can't think of a cognitive process that's not involved in StarCraft," Mark Blair, a cognitive scientist at Simon Fraser University, told Scientific American [http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/2011/12/01/how-a-computer-game-is-reinventing-the-science-of-expertise-video/]. "It's working memory. It's decision making. It involves very precise motor skills. Everything is important and everything needs to work together."

Blair is actually running a project at the university called "SkillCraft" [http://cslab.psyc.sfu.ca/skillcraft-information-access-strategies/], which is currently looking at more than 3500 StarCraft 2 replay files collected from players across a wide range of skill levels. "What we've got is a satellite view of expertise that no one was able to get before," Blair explained. "We have hundreds of players at the basic levels, then hundreds more at level slightly better, and so on, in eight different categories of players."

The hope is that a comparison of the techniques and styles of low-level players with those of more advanced skills will allow researchers to begin to understand how skills develop and how to most efficiently train them. "For emergencies, you don't get to train eight hours a day. You get two emergencies in your life but you better be good because lives are at stake," he added. "Training in something like StarCraft could really be useful."





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[Turtleboy1017]

Haha, that's freaking awesome. Who knew that this pasttime required... "skill?"

I'm only top 8 plat but I play pretty avidly, here's hoping the game garners more attention. God knows it deserves it.

 

[BrotherRool]

I love that and I agree the mental side of Starcraft is brilliant.

The problem is the mechanical side though, I've never managed to build up the skills to play an RTS competitively regardless of my overall plans

Although maybe that's part of it? Because apart from accurate mouse clicks, most of the mechanics skills actually rely on just not forgetting to do tasks whilst concentrating on the bigger goal.

 

[Lyri]

Starcraft is really intense, I actually loved the fact that when I played I drove myself forward as a player. I constantly critiqued my builds and timing windows and used and tried to figure if it was optimal for the situation.
Once I got things down into a routine I used to break it and try and do it faster, more efficient.
It was a really good video gaming experience for me if I'm honest, I'm glad that studies are trying to show that gaming can have a more serious side to it.

 

[Zachery Gaskins]

My only thought is: why now? What did Starcraft 2 do so special that other RTS's of similar complexity did not, apart from being popular and populous enough to have a huge amount of data to analyze?

This isn't the first game of it's type that could be considered "complex enough" for this kind of study. *shrug*

 

[kebab4you]

My only thought is: why now? What did Starcraft 2 do so special that other RTS's of similar complexity did not, apart from being popular and populous enough to have a huge amount of data to analyze?

This isn't the first game of it's type that could be considered "complex enough" for this kind of study. *shrug*

I guess it´s mostly(read:all) the reason why they picked sc2, the user base is so damn huge compared to other games. And blizzard did a good job with the replay function which makes it easy for them to analyse games that have been played.

 

[Vivi22]

I guess it´s mostly(read:all) the reason why they picked sc2, the user base is so damn huge compared to other games. And blizzard did a good job with the replay function which makes it easy for them to analyse games that have been played.

I agree that the replay feature is quite key. I can't think of any other game I've played that makes it as easy to view, save, and share replays. The fact that there's a very well tracked ladder probably helps as well. They really went above and beyond on the competitive aspects for SC2.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

My only thought is: why now? What did Starcraft 2 do so special that other RTS's of similar complexity did not, apart from being popular and populous enough to have a huge amount of data to analyze?

This isn't the first game of it's type that could be considered "complex enough" for this kind of study. *shrug*

A lot of strategy games tend to be more slow-paced in nature. Even something like Civ, while complex, is very laid-back. Having to make a dozen decisions within a few seconds is a big part of what sets StarCraft 2 apart from other strategy games; even compared to the first StarCraft. Mind that when they say "complex", they aren't talking game depth like some reviewer, they mean in terms of how your brain needs to approach it to do well. And in that regard, something like the Civ series is actually very simple.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

I don't mean to offend, but one scientist looking at an alternate model for monitoring cognitive processes hardly equates a massive paradigm shift for the scientific world. When you get multiple scientists from different institutions agreeing, then yes, it may have a claim.

 

[mad825]

Ha! I don't even need a degree to say that this *idea* won't last long.

In Blitz chess you are only allowed 10 seconds per turn and within that time you need to at least process under a million moves. SC's strategy is fairly straight forward and is quite fixed.

If this scientist was doing this scientifically there would mathematical evidence and a comparison to Chess, this is clearly not the case therefore this is pseudo-science at work.

 

[BlindMessiah94]

I love how all the Facebook comments are all hipster comments about how other games are more challenging than SC, and all the escapist comments are about how awesome it is.

Solidifying my belief that the damn facebook comments can all go to hell.

 

[skywolfblue]

I've always felt that SC should replace chess as "the game of ultimate brainyness". Chess is so limited, whereas SC and other RTSs have a much broader range of strategies.

Of course it might be just this one particular scientist using it as an excuse to watch SC2 replays all day long. "I'm doin' research HONEST!"

 

[Alar]

Huzzah! Congratulations, Blizzard. :3

 

[Paragon Fury]

Ha! I don't even need a degree to say that this *idea* won't last long.

In Blitz chess you are only allowed 10 seconds per turn and within that time you need to at least process under a million moves. SC's strategy is fairly straight forward and is quite fixed.

If this scientist was doing this scientifically there would mathematical evidence and a comparison to Chess, this is clearly not the case therefore this is pseudo-science at work.

You've obviously either never played Starcraft even semi-competitively or watched high/mid-level experts.

Chess is complex.

Starcraft not is complex, forces you act and react in real-time, micro-manage dozens if not hundreds of things simultaneously and changes fairly often.

 

[mad825]

Ha! I don't even need a degree to say that this *idea* won't last long.

In Blitz chess you are only allowed 10 seconds per turn and within that time you need to at least process under a million moves. SC's strategy is fairly straight forward and is quite fixed.

If this scientist was doing this scientifically there would mathematical evidence and a comparison to Chess, this is clearly not the case therefore this is pseudo-science at work.

You've obviously either never played Starcraft even semi-competitively or watched high/mid-level experts.

Starcraft not is complex, forces you act and react in real-time, micro-manage dozens if not hundreds of things simultaneously and changes fairly often.

So what? there are many RTSs that does this, this is what an RTSs is. In fact I don't know an RTS that doesn't do this.

There's no evidence, only speculation. What you are doing is speculation.

 

[rapidoud]

My only thought is: why now? What did Starcraft 2 do so special that other RTS's of similar complexity did not, apart from being popular and populous enough to have a huge amount of data to analyze?

This isn't the first game of it's type that could be considered "complex enough" for this kind of study. *shrug*

A lot of strategy games tend to be more slow-paced in nature. Even something like Civ, while complex, is very laid-back. Having to make a dozen decisions within a few seconds is a big part of what sets StarCraft 2 apart from other strategy games; even compared to the first StarCraft. Mind that when they say "complex", they aren't talking game depth like some reviewer, they mean in terms of how your brain needs to approach it to do well. And in that regard, something like the Civ series is actually very simple.

Forged Alliance, seriously, starcraft is the simple man's RTS which is why it's popular. The fact that there is a hard cap on this shows how much 'depth' it lacks, I'd like to see you micro an army of 300, most top FA players just control their units in 1 big blob whilst doing everything else.

I like it how you strawmanned civ into this as well, turn based being a separate genre, cute. SC is not special in any way, it is just the most simplistic 4X game out there, Total Annihilation is so much better than the original graphically, gameplay wise (but not story), yet got outsold, not to forget SC was still 2d when the majority of games became 3d.

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

Forged Alliance, seriously, starcraft is the simple man's RTS which is why it's popular. The fact that there is a hard cap on this shows how much 'depth' it lacks, I'd like to see you micro an army of 300, most top FA players just control their units in 1 big blob whilst doing everything else.

*Yawn* Seen one person talking-up his niche title that nobody's ever heard of while also bashing the more popular version of his title in the same breath, seen all people who talk-up their niche title that nobody's ever heard of while also bashing the more popular version of their title in the same breath.

I like it how you strawmanned civ into this as well, turn based being a separate genre, cute.

I like how you tunnel-visioned my post so hard that you missed the Civ discussion going-on in the comments section.

So do you have anything actually worthwhile to say, or are you mostly just ranting/trolling?

 

[Madshadow]

Honestly i do find this a bit ambitious, but the game does show promise to live up to this speculation. As whats been said before about watching replay and making real time choices depending on you're opponent.

But it only owns this due to the success of the original and Korea seeing it's been played there competitively.

So Starcraft and it's successors will continue to grow. And don't say it's only because of teambased the game does shine on 1v1.

 

[Deviluk]

Haha, that's freaking awesome. Who knew that this pasttime required... "skill?"

I'm only top 8 plat but I play pretty avidly, here's hoping the game garners more attention. God knows it deserves it.

I do so love it when people say "I'm only top 8 plat". Only! I've been in silver my whole life! rank 1 though....