Science Shorts: Video games in research (June 2025)
Nick Fury, Tetris (again), and piloting/driving
Science Shorts is a monthly roundup of the most interesting research involving video games. I try to source only open access articles so that you have the option to read the articles as well. It's part of a comprehensive look at happenings in video game research along with my LFG: Learning from Games and Coming Soon series!
Hello JOMT Reader!
Steam Next Fest is well under way and gaming writers across the Stackiverse are covering their favourite finds and games from this annual event. It’s a big event to navigate, even if you’ve experienced it before so I’m always grateful for the writers who I can rely on to help focus my attention on the most interesting games.
Speaking of writers, for those of you that are new here, this is the series where I highlight some of my favourite game writers on Substack. It’s the least I can do to give back to the community of awesome, insightful game writers!
Today, I’m highlighting none other than James Francis who writes Adventures in Indie Gaming. With Steam Next Fest underway, by the time this post gets published, James would have published the fourth roundup of the week. You can always count on James to cut through the noise and give you the best games to check out in the indie gaming scene. It’s not just roundups: James posts reviews of games that might have never made it on to your radar. I’ve already added several games to my wishlist thanks to his writing — if you’re looking for gaming recommendations in the indie space, look no further than Adventures in Indie Gaming!
TL;DR
Lazy eye, or amblyopia, can lead to poor eyesight and pattern recognition, among other eyesight-related issues. The gold standard treatment for lazy eye is an eye patch over the non-lazy eye to force the lazy eye to work harder. Unfortunately, this doesn’t improve eyesight very much. But researchers in Spain combined the eye patch with action video games and found that it resulted in improved eyesight compared with the eye patch alone. Who could’ve guessed that being a pirate and playing games could improve your eye sight!
Read the article here: Efficacy of patching combined with action video games in amblyopic children aged 4-10 years: A randomised clinical trialParents have been worried about the negative effects of video games, particularly on school performance, from the moment they became widely available to the public. Researchers have tackled this issue over the years but with a bit of a heavy hand: those conclusions were either a resounding YEA or NAY. Researchers in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia offer a more nuanced conclusion, arguing that a limited amount of gaming can improve academic scores, while longer gaming sessions lead to poorer results.
Read the article here: Effects of progressive gaming sessions on cognitive awareness among Saudi education university studentsBeing aware of the environment and understanding its various elements as well as predicting future changes is a skill that is very important in the aviation industry. Pilots have to take in all of this information and make moment-to-moment decisions for a safe flight. This study found that pilots who play games were more aware of their environment than those who didn’t play games. Video games can be useful in situations where you have to keep track of multiple things at a time!
Read the article here: Exploring the effects of video gaming on workload and situational awareness in student pilots
If Nick Fury played video games, his eyesight could be better
Link to article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/opo.13534
Title: Efficacy of patching combined with action video games in amblyopic children aged 4-10 years: A randomised clinical trial
📃The short
Wearing an eye patch and playing action video games can help improve eyesight.
📖The long
The gold standard of treatment for lazy eye, the eye patch, doesn’t do quite enough to improve eyesight. But there aren’t any good alternatives — until now. Wearing an eye patch over the stronger eye while playing action video games improved eyesight compared to those just wearing an eye patch.
⚠️Why it matters
Most advances in medical treatments comes at the cost of convenience — better results might mean more expensive equipment or a trip to the hospital. But this one can be done from the comfort of your own home. Lowering barriers to treatments by finding innovative uses for technologies and activities (like gaming) that are already a part of our daily routines is the best way to make sure that these treatments stick.
A short burst of Tetris can get you an A+
Link to article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-025-04594-0
Title: Effects of progressive gaming sessions on cognitive awareness among Saudi education university students
📃The short
20 minutes of playing Tetris improved school grades.
📖The long
Video games have been shown to have a positive effect on brain function, from problem-solving skills to promoting self-awareness. At the same time, video games have come under fire for their potential negative effects. The answer is somewhere in between these two extremes: researchers in Saudi Arabia and Tunisia found that just the right amount of Tetris-playing (20 min) improved academic performance. More Tetris (30 or 40 min) decreased academic performance.
⚠️Why it matters
The old adage about “everything in moderation” is on full display with these results, and probably applies to many other assumptions we hold about the effects of video games. It’s worth revisiting some of those assumptions, taking into consideration the complex relationship between video gaming and its effect on us.
Play games to be a better pilot (and probably driver)
Link to article: https://ir.library.oregonstate.edu/downloads/9880w0536#page=81
Title: Exploring the effects of video gaming on workload and situational awareness in student pilots
📃The short
Pilots who played video games were more aware of their environment when piloting an aircraft.
📖The long
If you’re a driver, you know how hard it is to be aware of everything that’s happening around you, especially when you are tired. That skill is called situational awareness and it also happens to be an important skill for pilots. If you play games though, you might be honing your situational awareness skills: this study found that pilots who played video games had better situational awareness than pilots who didn’t play video games.
⚠️Why it matters
Most video games require players to track a lot of information at once, which can change at a moment’s notice. At first, it can be overwhelming — but over time, it gets easier and easier to keep track of the information. This skill translates perfectly to any life skill (like driving or piloting) where situational awareness is important. Video games do affect our real life skills in more ways than one!
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Great article! I am going to play Tetris for 20 minutes a day everyday for the rest of my life.
Great research in this piece!
So I have 20:20 vision, and an apparent immunity to screen damage to my eyes. Explained how much I game and my optometrist says I won the genetic lottery, for sight at least.
My -- completely unfounded by science -- take is that gaming has actually honed my vision, and being in front of screens early has conditions my eyes to them.
Test at your peril.