Video Games Serving Positive Impact

Enthusiasts find solace, inspiration and competition in games

By Michael Turk

A student plays a video game in his dorm room. Photo by Robert Berger.

Alyssa Maurer plays video games six to eight hours a day when training for a competition. Video games helped Jordan Schreiber become a better actor. For Joey Burnham and Adam Szerszen, video games are used as a stress reliever.

Sometimes, video games are viewed in our society as having a negative impact on the minds of the individuals who play them, but gamers say they can have positive usages.

Some assume there is a link connected to the influence of video games on real world violence. But video games have been a proven stress reliever according to studies done by Elizabeth Scott, MS, for verywellmind.com. A survey that consisted of 1,614 gamers resulted in the conclusion that “games are indeed used as a coping tool after exposure to stressful situations and strain and that this ‘recovery experience’ is a significant facet of the gaming experience.”

Video games can provide a safe and fun media outlet for those who are stressed, and they provide others with cool opportunities, such as getting to play competitively in tournaments.

“I realized I was good as soon as the gaming era came into play where you have internet and a much faster pace,” competitive video game player Alyssa Maurer said. “I realized my teams were doing good and I was getting ranked pretty high in some games.”

Maurer has been playing online ranked competitive games for about three years now. She first started playing on her PlayStation 2 in her basement (the “dungeon,” as her father used to refer to it) before she made the switch to a PC. Maurer has since then hired a professional coach to help her train for team fighting 7v7 and 5v5 game mode competitions.

“They don’t really stress you on how to play the game, they really stress game mechanics and what you shouldn’t do when you’re playing,” Maurer said.

Alyssa Maurer, 27, competes in college based competitions involving games such as “League of Legends” and “Overwatch”. Photo curtsy of Alyssa Maurer. Photo by Julie Kooser

When school is not in session, Maurer trains for her female league competitions somewhere between six to eight hours a day - sometimes even more when she is closer to a competition. She warms up her hands prior to playing by continuously cracking her knuckles as well as holding onto a hot hand warm pouch. Then she tries to get into the head of her gaming character.

Maurer has competed in college-based competitions with games such as “Overwatch” and “League of Legends.” She has won a couple of female leagues and is currently training to compete in a male league as she has never done so.

“Guys actually have an advantage where, if they are younger, they can click on the keyboard faster than women can,” Maurer said. “Girls are more about strategy.”

Maurer takes her gaming very seriously, claiming that there is a misrepresentation between eSports and physical sports.

“I don’t like to place a barrier between the two of them. Often times people say eSports isn’t a real sport because there’s no physicality to it and that’s completely the opposite,” Maurer said. “There’s a lot of strategy involved and it’s a lot more mental and I think it’s like a game of chess in a way.”

To Maurer, video games didn’t serve a negative impact. They were her sport. They helped her realize she had a unique talent and they taught her how to not get frustrated so easily. She is trained to not show emotion while gaming because ,she says, the more emotion one shows while playing a game, the more reckless one will play. Gaming taught Maurer to not show frustration while trying to accomplish something good. It taught her to work through the predicaments logically and calmly to succeed.

Jordan Schreiber is an acting major at Point Park University. Video games are something he enjoys in his down time when he is not in the classroom. He owns seven different gaming consoles and about 200 games. While he plays video games for entertainment purposes, he also uses them as an outlet for his creativity.

“Video games were the only kind of outlet for my creativity,” Schreiber said about why he played so much in high school.

Schreiber would spend more time playing video games rather than doing his homework or studying for a math test. He liked to play because it helped him study the characters in a game. He would study everything from their mannerisms, deliveries and back stories.

While studying the voice over performances in games and the story lines, Schreiber did admit that while he was in high school, he did let video games preside over some things he shouldn’t have.

“I spent more time really playing video games than I did doing my homework, because who wants to study for a math test I’m never going to use in the future as a performer,” Schreiber said. “I could play a video game where I can enhance being in the shoes of a character. That’s why I kind of let a lot of my grades slip.”

He also studies how to justify a characters actions and they taught him how to learn and get better at something and avoid getting frustrated just like after giving a poor audition for a role.

“You learn to appreciate failing,” Schreiber said. “It taught me how to get back up and to think critically rather than destructively.”

Joey Burnham and Adam Szerszen play video games for a couple of hours each day as a way to relieve stress.

Burnham, who plays about one hour each day, enjoys heading back to his room after a long day in class at college and turning on one of his gaming consoles. When he was younger, video games occasionally would get in the way of his studies after a normal school day.

When he was about 15 years old, his grades began to slip. That is when his parents decided to have a talk with him. They developed some rules to make sure their son would do his homework when he came home from school before he turned on the console. And if he had no tests that week, he was allowed to play but wasn’t allowed to stay up too late. Burnham’s parents never suspended him from playing his games. They established rules with him regarding how much he could play during the school week.

“It’s a good stress reliever,” Burnham said. “Just to be able to come home and take my mind off of schoolwork or something that happened earlier in the day, it’s nice to just come home and relax.”

According to Szerszen - who plays three to eight hours everyday - games are a way to check out from reality for a couple hours a day and just let loose. Szerszen admits they interfere with his sleep schedule as he likes to play later at night. They also get in the way of him completing normal day tasks such as washing and drying dishes at his house.

Szerszen likes to play many games and he admits to being stressed out by online games occasionally. But, when he plays games where he gets to be a “Super-God” and control everything in his path, that is when he views games as the ultimate stress reliever.

Szerszen enjoys the fantasy world that does not exist very much and invests a lot of his down time to the world of video games.

“They are better than real life,” Szerszen said when discussing why he is attached to gaming as a stress reliever.

Michael Turk is currently a student at Point Park University going for his Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication. He is expected to graduate in April 2019. After graduation, Michael aspires to work in the world of sports communication. For more information or questions, you can contact him at mjturk21@gmail.com