Poll: Have games ever taught you anything useful? (or incentivated you to do so)

[NKnight]

This one is for a little research I'm doing. By useful I mean of course something society would consider useful, like hystory, math, moral values, etc.

An example of my own, if you type Da Vinci or Leonardo Da Vinci on YouTube, one of the first videos you will see is this:


and about 30% of the comments there are some kind of reference to the game Assassins Creed 2, many of those relate to how the game stimulated them to learn more about Da Vinci. It's like that Tangential Learning thing Extra Credits talked about some time ago.

Please, do not trash the thread with something like "it taught me what to do in a zombie apocalipse situation". Play nice.

 

[DanielBrown]

English.
While I had English lessons in school, since I was six, and watched a lot of American sit coms as a kid(Friends!) games also taught me a lot.

 

[DEAD34345]

Um... nope, nothing. At least not as far as I can remember.

The games aren't really at fault for this though, because I don't think I've ever been taught anything useful by the books and films I read and watch either. Except perhaps that a towel is about the most massively useful thing an interstellar hitchhiker can have, which will come in handy any day now.

 

[Hides His Eyes]

I learned quite a lot about history and geography from RTS games. I could have learned the same things from studying books and maps, but could and would are not the same thing

 

[babinro]

Can't say it has...at least, no more so than a TV show like The Simpsons might. A video game has never led me to learning more about a topic or person via Wiki or the like.

You could say I've learned more about certain time periods in history based on design and art work...but what I've 'learned' could have no attachment to reality and simply be the game designer's take on that period. In other words, I don't know if anything a game may have taught me is based on reality or not.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

Rome: Total War actually taught me a lot about the military and social structure of ancient Rome. Not super useful information, I guess, but I thought it was fun.

As far as things useful in real life, I've actually become a better shot in real life thanks to games. In particular, any game where you can hipfire. Its weird, but once you get a feeling for how bullets come out of the end of a gun, a lot of how ballistics work starts to click in your head. You just don't get the same perspective while aiming down a sight, where your view of the shot is obscured by flash and smoke.

When I was little, I learned the rules of a LOT of sports from video games. In particular, football sims made it much easier to identify things like formations and routes, and what they meant. Also, the myriad of penalties and fouls become easy to pick up on when they keep gorram happening to you Pass interference was the bane of the 8 year old Ordinaryundone.

 

[LiberalSquirrel]

Can't say that I, personally, have.

A friend of mine ended up looking up some words she didn't know (from a few random games) and learning more about Ayn Rand (due to my comments on the themes of Bioshock), though. I'm not sure if that's useful, persay, but it is certainly learning something.

 

[New Frontiersman]

I've learned a few interesting things from games. I couldn't tell you off the top of my head what those things are right now though...

Oh! I remember now! I actually learned to read by watching my Dad play the old Legend of Zelda game when I was about two!

That's all I can remember right now though, I know video games have thought me some other stuff, mostly just a little trivia, but stuff nonetheless.