Tom Chatfield: 7 ways video games engage the brain

[clapping]

I love video games. I'm also slightly
in awe of them

I am in awe of their power

In terms of imagination,
in terms of technology

in terms of concept

but I think above all

I am in awe of their
power to motivate, to compel us

To transfix us

Like really nothing else
we ever have at this point done before

And I think that we can learn some
pretty amazing things

By looking at how they do this

And in a particular thing
we can learn things about learning

Now, the videogames industry

is far in the away the
fastest growing

of all modern media

From about 10 billion in 1990
it's worth

50 billion dollars globally today

And it shows no sign of slowing down

Just in 4 years time, it's estimated
it will be worth over 80 billion dollars

That's about three times
the recording music industry

This is pretty stunning

But I don't think it's the most
telling statistics of all

The thing that really amazes me

Is that today, people spend
about 8 billion real dollars a year

By virtual items that only exist
inside videogames

This is a screenshot of a virtual game
world in Entropia Universe

Earlier this year

A virtual astroid sold for
330 thousand real dollars

thousand real dollars. And this is a

Titan Colossal ship in the space game Eve

Online and this virtual object takes 200

real people about 56 days of real time to

build plus countless thousands of hours of

effort before that, and yet many of these

get built. At the other end of the

scale. The game Farm Ville you may well

of heard of has 70 million players around

the world. Most of these players are playing

it almost everyday. This may sound quite

alarming to some people

An index of something worrying or wrong

in society. But we're here for the good news

and the good news is that I think we can

explore why this very real human effort,

this very intense generation of value is

occuring and by answering that question,

I think we can take something extremely

powerful. I think the most interesting way

to think about what is going on is in

terms of rewards. Specifically, in terms

of the very intense emotional rewards

that playing games offers to people,

both individually and collectively.

Now, if we look at what's going on in

someone's head when they are being

engaged, two quite different processes

are occuring. One the one hand there's the

wanting process, a bit like ambition

and drive.