Real-world benefits of playing pokemon?

[Scoopapa]

When I first got into netbattle, I found that I was starting to think of things in terms of pokemon battles. Those thought processes on the fringe of consciousness would seem to be parsing the world in terms of how one thing counters another, or of predicting actions and predicting predictions, or of weighing accuracy vs. power. The effect has worn off, but it brought up interesting ideas of how any type of strategy game or game of chance (which pokemon is to an extent) can help us look at what goes on in the world. I'm going to present one way in which I think it helps understanding, and I encourage you all to comment on it, or share your own thoughts about how life and strategy games are related.

I think the main way pokemon can relate to the world is that it immerses us in probability, in way that outcomes are always definite and knowable. Anybody who has played a lot has a very good sense of how reliable a 85% accuracy move is when compared to an 80% accuracy move, for instance. We also see probability in secondary effects of moves. We see how uncommon it is for a game to have no "hax", despite the fact that hax by definition is a low probability event. We see that certain pokemon can afford to use certain moves while other's can't (fast frail Sleep Powder > fast frail Hypnosis), based on the number of times they can attempt to succeed with that move.

I think this relates to us in every day life, just because it lets us understand simple probability a little more intuitively than most. People are often frightened and confused when improbable things happen to them or others around them. I think it helps to have such a definite example of how the absence of improbable events (i.e. the haxless game) is really not what you expect to find in the world.

 

[JimBob]

Problem solving skills as well. When you battle, you realize weaknesses that your team has, and when you tweak your team you have to take into account these weaknesses and try to resolve them without taking away from your strengths. For a person that doesn't have the ability to analyze their team and come up with feasible solutions on how to improve, Pokemon is pretty hard to win. (I wrote a blurb about this in part of my college application hehe)

 

[Thorns]

It teaches you to love and respect for all people no matter their appearance or abilities.

Not really, it teaches the concept of 'survival of the fittest' unless you're into that whole Super Contest scene. Pokemon has turned me into a bad man.

 

[.//enigma]

Pretty much math skills, I guess.

After playing Pokemon, I can name all the Leftovers numbers (multiples of 16) until 720.

It also involves strategy, but not any real-world benefits in that. :/

 

[Lil Fox]

Real world benefits...

There are actually quite a few real-world benefits that can come of playing competitive pokemon.

Just to list a few:

1.Based on what you know about your opponent, you can predict what might happen next. (Good prediction skills are really helpfull most of the time)
2. Alot of math skills and computation must be input if you want to play competitive pokemon properly. This is especially true if you are playing Wi-fi. (Math is usually the most important school subject. When I looked at my high school sign-up sheet, Most classes had three different ranks. The math category had Seven)
3. If one ever decides to quit and they wish to sell their games and/or systems, those games they have accumulated might fetch a pretty penny.
4. The most obvious one in my eyes. It entertains you.

All of those reasons are very obvious, but I thought I should list them anyways...

 

[Scoopapa]

It teaches you to love and respect for all people no matter their appearance or abilities.

Not really, it teaches the concept of 'survival of the fittest' unless you're into that whole Super Contest scene. Pokemon has turned me into a bad man.

lol. Not to mention capturing animals and forcing them to fight each other.

 

[CaptKirby]

I do not think it possibly grants any benefits that could not be better found elsewhere. Its movepool is too wide and luck too prevalent to allow truly useful or cohesive decision processes.

 

[Force Majeure]

I now know that 252/4=63. It's always useful.

Also, I've learned to EV train my Lv. 5 Pug in Attack and HP.

 

[Yuelia]

Well, it's a rather indirect one in my case, but when I first learned how to play Pokemon from my sister (who also plays competitively), the very first thing she did was tell me to read Sirlin, and that I wouldn't be able to succeed until I acknowledged what he was saying as truth. And the principles outlined there helped me a LOT, as now I know better than to have any nonsensical "code of honor" binding me down in real life, competitive games, or even games I play casually.

Yeah...I know better. Too bad knowledge does not always equal application. I'm still too damn nice in real life for my own damn good. :/

 

[Scoopapa]

I do not think it possibly grants any benefits that could not be better found elsewhere. Its movepool is too wide and luck too prevalent to allow truly useful or cohesive decision processes.

Surely there are better ways to come to any conclusion that pokemon could bring you to. The fact that luck is so prevalent is kind of my point about gaining intuition about luck from playing... luck is prevalent, but we can't always sort out the causes, the possible outcomes, etc. that would let us view luck-based events as what they really are... we often resort to superstition. I think that being immersed in any game of chance helps us parse this stuff because it gives us a situation where we do know exactly what the probabilities are, and so we see them in a manner we can truly comprehend. Certainly, you could achieve the same thing by repeatedly clicking a button that triggers a random number generator, and writing down the numbers that come out... but it doesn't sink in intuitively the same way as when it happens in a game that you are absorbed in.

 

[dayren]

i win more at rock, paper, scissors