Thursday, November 16th 2017
New Studies Reveal MOBA Gamers Having Higher IQs Than FPS Gamers
Researchers at the University of York have discovered a link between young people's ability to perform well at two popular video games and high levels of intelligence. Studies carried out at the Digital Creativity Labs (DC Labs) at York found that some action strategy video games can act like IQ tests. The researchers' findings are published today in the journal PLOS ONE.
The York researchers stress the studies have no bearing on questions such as whether playing computer games makes young people smarter or otherwise. They simply establish a correlation between skill at certain online games of strategy and intelligence. The researchers focused on 'Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas' (MOBAs) - action strategy games that typically involve two opposing teams of five individuals - as well as multiplayer 'First Person Shooter' games. These types of games are hugely popular with hundreds of millions of players worldwide.
The team from York's Departments of Psychology and Computer Science carried out two studies. The first examined a group of subjects who were highly experienced in the MOBA League of Legends - one of the most popular strategic video games in the world with millions of players each day.
In this study, the researchers observed a correlation between performance in the strategic game League of Legends and performance in standard paper-and-pencil intelligence tests.
The second study analyzed big datasets from four games: Two MOBAs (League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2) and two 'First Person Shooters' (Destiny and Battlefield 3). First Person Shooters (FPS) are games involving shooting enemies and other targets, with the player viewing the action as though through the eyes of the character they are controlling.
In this second study, they found that for large groups consisting of thousands of players, performance in MOBAs and IQ behave in similar ways as players get older. But this effect was not found for First Person Shooters, where performance declined after the teens.
The researchers say the correlation between ability at action strategy video games such as League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2) and a high IQ is similar to the correlation seen in other more traditional strategy games such as chess.
Corresponding author Professor Alex Wade of the University of York's Department of Psychology and Digital Creativity Labs said: "Games such as League of Legends and DOTA 2 are complex, socially-interactive and intellectually demanding. Our research would suggest that your performance in these games can be a measure of intelligence.
"Research in the past has pointed to the fact that people who are good at strategy games such as chess tend to score highly at IQ tests. Our research has extended this to games that millions of people across the planet play every day."
The discovery of this correlation between skill and intelligence opens up a huge new data source. For example, as 'proxy' tests of IQ, games could be useful at a global population level in fields such as 'cognitive epidemiology' - research that examines the associations between intelligence and health across time - and as a way of monitoring cognitive health across populations.
Athanasios Kokkinakis, a PhD student with the EPSRC Center for Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence (IGGI) research program at York, is the lead author on the study.
He said: "Unlike First Person Shooter (FPS) games where speed and target accuracy are a priority, Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas rely more on memory and the ability to make strategic decisions taking into account multiple factors.
"It is perhaps for these reasons that we found a strong correlation between skill and intelligence in MOBAs."
Co-author Professor Peter Cowling, Director of DC Labs and the IGGI program at York, said: "This cutting-edge research has the potential for substantial impact on the future of the games and creative industries - and on games as a tool for research in health and psychology.
"The IGGI program has 48 excellent PhD students working with industry and across disciplines - there is plenty more to come!"
The studies were funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
The York researchers stress the studies have no bearing on questions such as whether playing computer games makes young people smarter or otherwise. They simply establish a correlation between skill at certain online games of strategy and intelligence. The researchers focused on 'Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas' (MOBAs) - action strategy games that typically involve two opposing teams of five individuals - as well as multiplayer 'First Person Shooter' games. These types of games are hugely popular with hundreds of millions of players worldwide.
In this study, the researchers observed a correlation between performance in the strategic game League of Legends and performance in standard paper-and-pencil intelligence tests.
The second study analyzed big datasets from four games: Two MOBAs (League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2) and two 'First Person Shooters' (Destiny and Battlefield 3). First Person Shooters (FPS) are games involving shooting enemies and other targets, with the player viewing the action as though through the eyes of the character they are controlling.
In this second study, they found that for large groups consisting of thousands of players, performance in MOBAs and IQ behave in similar ways as players get older. But this effect was not found for First Person Shooters, where performance declined after the teens.
The researchers say the correlation between ability at action strategy video games such as League of Legends and Defense of the Ancients 2 (Dota 2) and a high IQ is similar to the correlation seen in other more traditional strategy games such as chess.
Corresponding author Professor Alex Wade of the University of York's Department of Psychology and Digital Creativity Labs said: "Games such as League of Legends and DOTA 2 are complex, socially-interactive and intellectually demanding. Our research would suggest that your performance in these games can be a measure of intelligence.
"Research in the past has pointed to the fact that people who are good at strategy games such as chess tend to score highly at IQ tests. Our research has extended this to games that millions of people across the planet play every day."
The discovery of this correlation between skill and intelligence opens up a huge new data source. For example, as 'proxy' tests of IQ, games could be useful at a global population level in fields such as 'cognitive epidemiology' - research that examines the associations between intelligence and health across time - and as a way of monitoring cognitive health across populations.
Athanasios Kokkinakis, a PhD student with the EPSRC Center for Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence (IGGI) research program at York, is the lead author on the study.
He said: "Unlike First Person Shooter (FPS) games where speed and target accuracy are a priority, Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas rely more on memory and the ability to make strategic decisions taking into account multiple factors.
"It is perhaps for these reasons that we found a strong correlation between skill and intelligence in MOBAs."
Co-author Professor Peter Cowling, Director of DC Labs and the IGGI program at York, said: "This cutting-edge research has the potential for substantial impact on the future of the games and creative industries - and on games as a tool for research in health and psychology.
"The IGGI program has 48 excellent PhD students working with industry and across disciplines - there is plenty more to come!"
The studies were funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).
33 Comments on New Studies Reveal MOBA Gamers Having Higher IQs Than FPS Gamers
SMH.
This better lets me apply for a job in a research center. o_O
who ONLY plays FPS games? and who ONLY plays MOBA games?
in my experience the same people play both.
Space? Ha! Space as you have been indoctrinated about doesn't exist. If it did, "astronauts" wouldn't be nearly drowning in space as well as many other facts that support this.
Now do the same study with Quake players, you may be surprised.
If scientists report every single little new discovery/engineering, you won't be interested at all. Take astrophysics material science as example, some random research maybe titled "Nano rearrangment of atom in XXX configuration will yeild 0.06 percent more radiation resilient alloy". Sounds boring right? And even that probably took some poor PhD student 8 years of insane work to achieve. Pop culture prefers catchy titles or big exploive breakthroughs. Science is the opposite, science is incremental. It usually takes years of hard work to provide solid science.
In reality, games such as LoL and Dota are RTS, but on a smaller scale. They do require less skill and thus are more mainstream.
How IQ factors in on all of that I have no idea or what it has to do with any of it. You can gain skill through repetition, and still be dumb as a brick.
Not for now anyways. :p
I think they maybe picked people who identified as purely one or the other, and the FPS crowd probably included a bunch of randos who play COD on xbox so they checked 'FPS'.
I bet the dataset is skewed and they just did it to make a headline.
So, what a load of horseshit study! :kookoo::laugh:
Why they don't just actually socialize is beyond me. But they are still extroverted, whether they do it or not. They "need" people, in one way or another. Be it compete with or work with, etc..
I also wouldn't find this group as intelligent as real introverts or real extroverts. The latter hone their skills in maneuvering with people in far more fruitful ways (for better or worse). While the former spend a lot more time imagining or thinking.
What's next, you're gonna imply that MOBA gamers are mainly of asian background, ergo they are smarter?!
Well, half Asian anyways. Maybe it's the Viking in me.
iqtest.dk/main.swf
or this
test.mensa.no/
An RTS requires slightly different skills - micro I would say is very similar to a MOBA, but an RTS has a macro game as well, this is much less so in MOBAs, all you plan is items, but the emphasis is fully on micro, which is more akin to the shooter; the ramifications of bad micro however are far greater because respawn timers are long and get progressively longer, you lose gold and thus progression - while in a shooter, it is only a leaderboard stat or perhaps a flag capture.
For the uninformed:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micromanagement_(gameplay)
Versus macromanagement[edit]
There is sometimes confusion regarding the difference between micromanagement and macromanagement, normally abbreviated as 'micro' and 'macro' respectively. Macro generally refers to managing large quantities of tasks at the same time. For example, building units from various structures throughout the game while also building more structures, scouting, creating new bases, etc. This is different from micro, which is generally controlling small numbers of units and giving them very specific orders.
I also play RTS but I am average at it. I reached Gold in SC2 but was limited progressing further due to my very low APM. MOBA never appealed to me because it was too repetitive. Only 1 main map in League of Legends.
All joking aside, I do agree with you. :toast:
They didn't test Counter-Strike? A big fail in my eyes. Destiny and BF3 are largely irrelevant. They should've compared LoL / Dota gamers to CS and other big FPS gamers and not those two largely irrelevant games. Strange.
I also concur that FPS isn't for stupid gamers but is mastered by actually playing a lot, whereas RTS or MOBA, if you aren't talented it doesn't matter how much you play, you'd suck forever. FPS is more instinctive. RTS is largely comparable to Chess, whereas FPS simply isn't. I would compare FPS to normal sports like Tennis for example, or playing football.
But still, many games have more problem solving involved.