Rockband
I was having a debate recently about the Rockband and Guitar Hero series with someone I know. I was arguing that neither of them requires skill or intelligence to play, which might be somewhat of an exaggeration but I’ll explain my point momentarily. My opposition was completely against what I was saying and felt that you needed both skill and intelligence to play such games.
My point is not that anyone can play these games, although at one stage I did argue that a Chimpanzee could learn to play such a game, but rather those people who do play them do not show any signs of skill or intelligence in playing. This can be read in two ways I would imagine; am I suggesting that all people who play Rockband are retarded, or that two copy something which is presented to you does not require skill or intelligence. My opposition obviously found a break here and began arguing that the better you are at the game the more skill you have showing that you must need a certain level of skill to play the game.
Skill
I imagine everyone knows the set up of the “band” video games. In the case of the guitar you have a plastic controller shaped like a guitar with some coloured buttons in place of frets and a plastic flap in place of strings; so it resembles a guitar but isn’t all much like one. Now for the actual playing of the controller; you have to push the flap up or down and press one of the coloured buttons when it appears at a certain point on the screen. That then is the skill of the game. To press a button and push a flap when you are told to. Doing what you are told is a skill; being able to copy on a screen is a skill. Does anybody know where I can get a chimpanzee and test my theory out? Or better yet, does anybody want to donate one to a good cause?
After some research I’ve found that actually chimpanzees are propbably better at playing instruments than some bands that the music industry has recently produced.
Intelligence
Skill then is the ability to do as you are told so where lies the intelligence in the game? Oh, of course it’s being able to do as you are told! If I couldn’t get a chimp on Rockband, I sure-as-hell could get a primary school student to play it more competently than some of the people on youtube do.
This left my opposition in somewhat of a ditch. Skill and intelligence are the same thing, so you can’t possibly need both to play Rockband; one would do. Middle ground, half way between both of our positions would seem like a good place to stop. He didn’t seem to think so and quickly decided to change my mind about what my point was. Suddenly I was saying that all computer games don’t need skill or intelligence, which quickly moved onto all games; which I know isn’t true seeing as I am a huge fan of strategy games. Which left me feeling that I had been somewhat straw manned. Still, any views; does Rockband, or Guitar Hero require skill and intelligence?
Now, now, this is just silly. Obviously you need some skills to play some games, that’s part of the fun of the game — using and developing skills. Unless it’s a game of pure chance, how else would you describe the interation if it’s not using a skill? These “phsyical” games like Guitar Hero or Dance Dance Revolution that require more than a game pad or a keyboard to play are more than copying actions, they’re about responding to the environment in a quick and accurate way.
And who’s to say accurate imitation is not a skill? http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/skill
It definitely does not require intelligence, though!