Hello, and welcome to an article on:
HOW VIDEOGAMES ARE ACTUALY EDUCATIONAL
Id just like to start off by saying, that not EVERY game helps you learn stuff, and not every game's intention is teaching you stuff, but many of them do.
So lets start off with the basics, most videogames will test your mental power in some way shape or form.
Wether its planning on how to tackle that dungeon in Skyrim, or maybey pulling off the perfect heist in thief, every single
game should challenge you mentaly.
So, moving along lets start with:

MATH:
Yes thats right, you can learn math from videogames, and no Im not just reffering to the games specialy made to teach math.
Minecraft, is actualy currently being used in over 20 diffrent schools to teach math!
RPGs are also another good source of math learning, everything in it has some sort of number crunch you might even do without thinking, let me give you an example.
Lets say Im a level 20 berserker in torchlight 2, that means Ive gotten roughly 38 skill points, half those have probably gone into my vitality, and knowing myself the other half is strength and since I start with a strength boost of roughly
5, that means my toatal strength would be 24, every 5 strength points I get increases my attack by 10%, my attack is based
off what weapon Im using, for this example we'll say Im using basic iron knuckles wich have about +50 damage on them, meaning
I have a +70 base attack that I dish out at about 70 points per second.
Now lets say theres a boss with about +1,000 health.
We're gonna estimate here, in about 15 seconds, and we arent even taking into consideration spells, and buffs, and how much damage my pet does per second, or any special abilitys I may have, and, yeah you get the picture.
Now then again, not all people will pay attention to this stuff, but lets be honest, doing that math problem up there was
actualy FUN.
Now Im not even going to touch on how minecraft can be used for finding areas, and learning javascript because its time,
for the next paragraph.

LANGUAGE ARTS:
Ok,now you might be saying: "Wait, how can videogames teach you grammar and how to spell right?".
No Im kidding, is what your actualy saying is: "YOU FREAKING MORON! OKAY IS NOT SPELLED O.K ITS SPELLED O.K.A.Y!", wich is good, your proving my point.
Naturaly, everyone on the internet feels the need to be a butthead and learn grammar just to correct other people and drive
them insane, and from personal expiernce, if you play online enough you will pick up on this trait.
Sure, people online might also not care to extend their vocabulary beyond every vulgar term there is in the book of vulgar
terms, but honestly, these people are quite rare and just depend completley on what game you play, diffrent games = diffrent
communitys.
Then theres sub communitys etc, etc.
Ill use minecraft as another example, on one of my favorite servers, everyone talks with eachother all the time.
If you need advice on a dungeon, you ask, simple as that, and you'll likeley get a nice well typed reply within the next five seconds, because using propper grammar is almost an instinct now, I can pretty much litteraly spell ALMOST any word,  here,Ill prove it: Supercalifragileisticexpiealidoscious.
And if you'll take the time to read it you'll find you probably couldnt do any bettter.
Ok, moving on...

CRITICAL THINKING:
Once again, there you go ready to denounce this with you'r book of vulgar words, or you'll probably just correct my use of
your, but whatever.
But realy, many games invite critical thinking skills, such as Spec Ops: The Line.
I have not personaly played or seen the game played, but I have heard that many times it will take into account, What the
heck are you doing?
Asking the player to try to look beyond the generic shooter 101 gameplay and see the deeper meaning of, "Wow, you just
murdered thousands of in game people, you're (Im going to mix my yores up just to make you mad :P) a virtual monster.".
Or maybey the deadpool game, toatalbiscuit brought up the point that maybey the developers are trying to hint at something
deeper.
I mean sure, deadpool is a crass, rude, vulgar, disgusting character, and when you take a step back and look at him like that
you gotta think, maybey the developers are trying to send a message, maybey they're trying to say: "NO! This stuff is not ok
you sicko! Why do you find this creep funny?" of course then again they could just realy like crude humor in wich case, no
one would even care because probably only 5% of gamers ever pondered that.
Other games might ask you to go deeper tho, such as The Walking Dead.
At the time of me writing this, I have only completed the first episode, and I can almost assure you it does.
Was that last choice you made right or wrong?
Was saving one mans son over the other mans older son a good choice or bad choice?
What is right and wrong?
Is there even a morale guideline in the event of an apocolypse?
All questions you will likley ask yourself while playing.

STRATEGY (Eeeeewww):
Thats right, the most unsuprising of them all, strategy.
Call of Duty is known all around as GENERIC FPS 101, DO NOT BUY, or its more common name: BATTLEFIELD IS BETTER! But
honestly, theres more strategy involved then you would think.
Sure, it mostly is running and gunning, but you realy have to plan every little bit of it, now that planning is minimal, but
you still have to plan out, "Oh, better take the snipers out first, theres one at point A, B and C and suicide bombers will
come at me once Ive killed the first to, so I better put down some claymores to keep myself covered for a little bit, but
then the dogs will come in..." the list of things kinda goes on and on.
And there are other games, in fact ENTIRE GAMES devoted to strategey.
I personly do not play RTS's but my dad loves them, and honestly, they look like big overley complex chess boards to me.
Games such as the Stronghold franchise, or command and conquer, combine chess with a videogame to bring you, no not war chess, but honestly something that I belive is much more challenging than chess.
For example, I can very easily play chess or checkers, you have a infinite ammount of time to think your move out and make it.
In a RTS, you only have so much time to go on the offensive before the enemy is at your door, tick tock...

PROBLEM SOLVING SKILLS:
This was probably the most blatenley obvious one that was going to show up on the list, but its true!
Now probably every adult that read the title has rolled their eyes like: "You dont know what your talking about kid.", but
hear me out, well, I guess obviously you are since you made it to this point.
But think about it.
For anyone who has played a game like dark souls, or the legend of zelda, you know that actualy using your head is required.
Now, not every single person who plays these games will sit there for hours thinking about a puzzle, many will just google
it (HEY NOT ALL OF US HAVE HOURS AND HOURS TO SPEND ON THINKING ABOUT BLINKY LIGHTS OK?).
Anyways, my point is videogames teach you that you get the best rewards from actualy thinking through your problems.

TEAMWORK:
Another blatenley obvious one.
If your any kind of real gamer, you have played some form of online multiplayer, wether it be BATTLEFIELD IS BETTER or maybey
CS:GO, TF2, and finnaly battlefield.
All of those games, require teamwork, we'll start with TF2.
In TF2 (It stands for TEAM Fortress 2), it is absolutley manditory you work with you teamates to win.
We'll use a capture the flag match for our example.
So, you have one heavy, sure, he could make it pretty far into the enemys base, but in the end he's to big of a target, and will either get headshotted, or fall prey to a turet once he reaches the enemy flag.
So thats where the medic comes in, the medic will usualy heal the heavy, providing extra health and allowing them to last
longer.
But everyone has to die, even the medic, the turret will probably get them again, so who do you call?
Well, your spy he'll slip in and smash the turret, usualy at the expense of his own life, but that snipers still there, so
Bang! Bang! heavy and medic are next on the respawn list.
Who do you call to take out this other sniper?
Well another sniper of course.
The list goes on and on with the classes, each one playing hisown part in helping his other teamates out to reach their goal.
Games such as castle crashers and borderlands, it may not be manditory for other players to be there, but it ultimatley helps
everyone.

HISTORY AND GEOGRAPHY:
Now let me ask you a question.
Would you rather sit in a classroom and listen to a boring lecture on colonial times while looking at boring map, or would
you rather be there, jumping off rooptops, seeing the sights and places for yourself from a fairly accurate recreation of
the place?
Would you rather hear about the wars that were waged for our freedom, or fight them yourself as a bada$$ assassin?
Sure, theres fantasy mixed in there with the assassins, but ultimatley it tells you everyting that happend with just a litle
bit of fantasy put on to it.
And the fantasy is super easy to see!
So why is it that we have bolth options and cearly option #2 is better, but we use option #1?
Because videogames are frowned upon and not looked on as learning tools, but thats what this blog is out to disprove.
Games such as the assassins creed franchise pour their heart and soul into making the game, and nine times out of ten they  create an AUTHENTIC EXPIERNCE!
One, that we genuinly want to learn about!
AC:IV Black Flag, created a fully authentic pirate expiernce showing what their life was like, why cant we use it to teach
pirate history?
Another example of a historicaly accurate game in my mind is Chivalry: Midevil Warfare.
Sure, its one fantasy faction fighting another in a fantasy world, but take a step back for a second and just look at it.
Their using pretty much everything knights in the midevil period used, so why cant we all just play chivalry when our lessons
on knighthood come around?
Or even BATTLEFIELD IS BETTER: World at War, has history in it!
They even tell you what happend at the battle before you go into it, its a real genuine WW2 expiernce, so I would like to
ask you exactly why CoD:WaW may not be used in classrooms?

BUISNESS SKILLS:
Last but certainly not least, Buisness Skills.
This, goes beyond bartering with NCP traders and simply selling the crap worth the highest value to the shop, because I
would just like to point out, several games feature the ability to buy, sell, and trade, and the one that sticks out most
in my mind, is once again, TF2.
TF2, goes beyond just simple trading, beyond just simple buying and selling, it has its own economy.
Thats right, a whole economy.
You could invest in keys, possibly make a future profit, or maybey invest in a strange weapon, work your way up the trade
ladder til you have some of these, trade for items you can sell on the steam market and once its sold, BOOM, you've just made actual money you can spend twoards games.
Now, in order to do this it takes an insane ammount of time and effort, but you learn valubale skills along the way, here are
some of the things Ive learned over a mere 160 hours of playtime:

Be Polite: This one is pretty self explanitory, but no one wants to trade with a guy who gets up there and goes: "Giv me my
item or i will report u 4 scammin".

Always Check Before You Buy: Always look up the item you are buying or selling to make sure you arent getting scammed, and be
sure to check the seller to.

Be Polite Outside Trades: Even if your not trading, no one likes the guy who sits there and spams chat til someone sells him
his item or buys his item, you may as well be a pushy telemarketer.

Not All Investments Will Pay Off: Awhile back I bought a game called ghostmaster for 0.54$ while it was on sale, by default
it's 5.00$, so I was hoping to undersell it to get in game items, in wich case,once it goes off sale, bolth me and the buyer
will have made a profit, well theres a reason it was so cheap at the time.
No one liked it, therefore my investment is pretty much crap.

DO NOT TRY TO SCAM: This is anoher self explanatory one.
One time some retard wanted to takeghostmaster off my hands, he put all these awsome items up there, stranges, festives, and said he was ready to trade.
Well as the trade was commencing he canceled it and took all the items out like a douche head.
In hindsight I should have reported him, but I dont like making a scene so I let it slide.
OTHER PEOPLE ARE NOT THAT FRIENDLY AND WILL HAVE YOU BANNED FOR SCAMMING.
You might also be trade banned, wich will make it to where you are nolonger allowed to trade with other players.

FINISH:
Wow, what a blog huh?
So why cant we use these games for school?
Ive pretty clearly proven their learning potential, but adults say they're immature and distracting.
In the immortal words of Matpat: I. THINK. NOT.
Can they be immature and distracting?
Yes they actualy can, as I stated earlyer not every game has learning potential in it.
And those games are the sole thing adults focus on, because you see, we as a human race, LOVE to tear things limb from limb being utterley cynical in nature.
So when we go home and tell our parents all about assassins creed and how historicaly accurate it is, all they hear is the
fantasy in it.
When you tell them,videogames have learning potential, their mind imeadiatley jumps to the most obscene vulgar game possible, such as GTA V.
But why did videogames get a bad name to begin with?
Why would anyone be opposed to sitting on the couch and playing a videogame?
Well,according to my father, they are immature and make people lazy sluggards.
According to my mother, your intrests are just supposed to change as you get older and thats why they're considered immature.
But why are your intrests supposed to change as you get older?
I have never understood the logic behind the reason Im no longer allowed to like barny.
Not that I do like barny, but why couldnt I if I wanted to?
The reason is simply this: Wierdness.
Our generation is currently going through a metamorphisis where the old generation (1900-1980) is starting to see things we
do as "wierd', and indeed it would seem wierd to them.
Back when my dad was a kid, everyone wanted to grow up to be a allstar, not some MLG player.
Every kids intrests changed from a few quarters for an arcade machine, to a car and spouse.
It was what his peers thought was cool.
Now'a'days our intrests are slowly shifting from wanting to be an all star, to, wanting to be an MLG pro.
Eventualy maybey we'll wind up with places like VGHS, where we can go to school for gaming.
Should any of this be alarming?
Honestly, yes it should.
Once our intrests have fully changed, videogames will be a booming market, every kid will want to grow up to be like
pewdiepie, or captainsparkelz, but this means no one will have any intrest in doing physical labor.
Im concerend for myself, I groan and whine and complain at the idea of, plugging in a vaccum and walking around the room with it.
So what am I trying to say here?
I just kinda derailed from the original point of the blog didnt I?
Well not realy, I was explaining to you why we cant have videogames in classrooms, but if things continue on like this, we
will.
Once out generation grows up, we can pretty much safley look forward to these things, it will be no longer frowned upon.
So keep in mind next time your being scolded for playing to many videogames, or playing videogames and missing your chores,
keep in mind that its not you they hate, or even the game itself, its the change.
Your parents just dont like the change, and their honestly concerned for you and think you're not normal, so keep cool stick
it out, and look at it from their side of things please.
If you need a further example, they think of you how you think of bronys.
But hey, thats just a the-- I meeeeaaaannn, Happy Gaming, subscribe for more, I hope to bring you nothing but my very best!