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Jun 2014 min read

From Esports to Therapy: How Gaming is Shaping Our Future

Updated: Sep 25



Dive into the expansive world of gaming to see how it's not just shaping entertainment, but also therapy, education, and social interactions globally. The global gaming industry now exceeds $400 billion and is larger than the combined markets for movies and music. We explore the multifaceted impact of gaming, from entertainment and therapy to education and community building. We discuss how innovations, like FDA-approved game therapies and the Apple Vision Pro, are pushing the boundaries of possibilities, and ponder the gamification of everyday tasks. Join us to learn how gaming is redefining the way we play, learn, and connect.





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Episode Transcript:

This transcript was computer-generated and human-edited and might contain errors. 


Sue: Welcome to Signal Shift by Horizon Shift Lab. We’re your hosts, Lana Price, Raakhee Natha and Sue Chi. Each episode, we explore the latest signals -- in technology, culture, and society-- uncovering insights that will impact our daily lives in the future. Join us as we shift perspectives, explore possibilities, and delve into real changes in our world. Curious to learn more - go to horizonshiftlab.com.


Sue: Hello and welcome! This is Sue and I’ve got Lana and Raakhee here as well. Today’s topic is one I’ve been really curious about for awhile. And that’s the future of gaming. So a fact I learned is that the global gaming industry is larger than the movie and music industries combined. And despite its ups and downs, it is projected to continue to grow. 3 billion people across the world, or 40% of the population, now identify as gamers. There’s so much going on in the industry - so I’m really curious - what signals did you find about its future and how it may be impacting us? Who would like to go first?


Lana: I guess I'll go first. My signal is about the rise of Esports. Y’know, in Esports where competition is built around video games, right, rather than physical sports. And so this is something that is not new. It's been happening, over the past couple of years. So recently this past year in China, Esports is now officially a medal-earning event at the Asian Games, which is the Asian Olympics. And that sport was attracting more interest and more viewers than traditional sports. So they had to sell tickets on a lottery basis and there were more than five million people who wanted to watch the Esports competition in the stadium. 


But the signals that I wanted to share which is very recent, is recent plans for a 1 billion dollar Esports Island in Abu Dhabi. And this island would have, basically, a digital tower, which would have meetings and startups and animation studios, and then they'd have a big arena for Esports tournaments and computer clubs, and they have a boot camp, which they say is like an American frat; but the boot camp, they're collaborating with esports teams, all around the world to build this camp, and then a hotel resort with 200 rooms and each room would have a gaming PC in it. Just the idea that they're sort of building this island I think is definitely a sign that it's an investment that many developers and companies are eager to do. 


So in 2006 Abu Dhabi created a plan called Abu Dhabi Vision 2030, so they made a plan that went 24 years into the future and their goal in doing their long-term plan was to transform their economy away from oil. And the thing that I thought that was really interesting about it was, if you think about it, 2006 was before the iPhone – and so even in 2006, they said that they knew that they wanted to transition to a knowledge-based economy. And so for them, to build this Esports Island is also a way for them to really diversify their economy and it's part of this larger strategy towards being a global culture hub. So I thought that was all pretty fascinating.



Sue: Yeah, thanks for sharing, Lana. Yeah, it is interesting that it's a billion dollar island investment. I don’t even know what that translates into tourism numbers on an annual basis, but it’s clearly significant enough that global tourism can be a huge attraction over there. And so it makes me wonder what some of the game development companies are doing in terms of creating all of the hype and demand leading up to events that may happen there. And it sounds like that signal goes hand in hand with what you’re finding in China with making Esports an official medal-earning sport.  


Raakhee: That’s so interesting. I think Lana, I’m similar to you in that, I’m not a gamer. But I did enjoy watching sports, like soccer, football, whatever you call it. And I would’ve loved doing a video game of that growing up, that I would’ve liked. And I would’ve maybe done okay at it. So the Esports sounds really awesome. 


Yeah, I think Esports, generally, I think is so exciting and encouraging. It does pose the question to me though of -- if more sports are available virtually and online, does that push us away from actually playing with sports? Like will less kids actually be out playing soccer in the field or basketball or will we find that balance? Like we’ve spoken about in previous episodes where the technology will just augment what we do? Or will it replace?


Lana: Yeah, I think that's a really interesting question. I mean one of the things that I thought was encouraging about Esports, and especially mobile games, is that it's very accessible. So people like all over the world, regardless, they might not have physical abilities. Or even this, for mobile for example, if you don't have access to a computer or console or you can't afford to buy games, but you have access to a mobile phone. So I like it for that reason. But yeah, I also think games, gaming, sport -- it represents leisure, and a developed world that has time to devote to these things. So I guess. I think there will be both. That we’ll have physical sport and Esport. I don't think it'll be a replacement, but I don't know. That's just my speculating.


Sue: Yeah, or you could see an integration of the two, where the sport itself. You could see it both ways, like Raakhee, your description of having an online soccer game or football match, like you can do that but be online doing it,or similarly you could physically be playing some kind of enhanced version of football or soccer right?


[7:45]


Sue: One really just surprising story to me, but I don't think it's that unique is -- I was talking to someone about the release of one of the latest Zelda whole world exploration games and my friend was telling me that her good friend couple, they dedicated a staycation in that they rented a hotel room with a big enough TV that could hook up to their game console, ordered in, and had a special weekend for the release of this thing. And that's all they did. And I don't know if they had two consoles if you can play it together. I don't think you can. Yeah, so they just took turns and that was one of their weekend trips and they loved it. And so it gives credence to this notion that it could be, even if there’s not a huge event there, there’s a lot of other kinds of tourism opportunities around some of these games as well.


Raakhee: I love it. I'm more of, like, a spa weekend staycation kind of girl, but that sounds very cool.


Sue: Raakhee, what's your signal this week?


[8:55]


Raakhee: So I went with the application of gaming in, I guess, healthcare. And what I was finding out there, and what the future of that looks like, and I think there's some really interesting things happening there. And I found quite a few things, but I think the ones that stuck out to me were these three examples.


One is, there's a company called Endeavor that has the first ADHD game treatment that's FDA approved. And I found that so interesting, and I was like, wow. And so the numbers look really positive. I mean, I don't know all the details of their studies, and it looks quite a big jump, like 70 plus and an improvement in things like memory and attention, right. And they basically work with some of the newer science around how do you get people to focus those parts of the brain that we need for attention. And it's for a certain age group, I think it's seven to 12, or something like that. So it's not gonna necessarily work on adults. But I think it’s very interesting. I mean they also call out very importantly that it's part of treatment with therapy, it's not something you do isolated.


You have to get a prescription. It works with your doctor. But I thought,  wow interesting, and a smart way of how we should be using gaming. It looks like any other game but it's just been built and designed to get your mind to do things differently, or different things with a bit more thought around that.


And then the other one I found which was also really encouraging. It's actually a university hospital, I think, or it's affiliated with the University of Michigan. It's called Mott’s Children's Hospital. It might sound familiar to you, Sue, and they have a whole gaming lab division where they focus on gaming and therapeutics for kids. And apparently in the hospital there, you can bring your own game console, they have these labs. They've partnered with a company called Buildup that brings robotics kits to your hospital table, to build up and that sort of stuff. And I think they’re collecting a lot of data. And again, it looks encouraging in terms of how this helps kids, especially long stay kids. And the application of gaming, and how you can use your mind to battle things like the depression of being in that sort of environment or dealing with what you're dealing with. So that was really interesting. 


And then the third one that I found was something called Hero Journey Club, and it's a company that offers therapy. And it’s something that any of us could sign up for now, but it does it on Minecraft. So they have these 60-minute sessions and they’re group sessions that you go in anonymous. You will be using your voice and you play the game, you use your voice, and there's a therapist in there and they guide you as you're playing, to talk about what you want to talk about in that group where nobody knows anybody. 

So I found these three examples, and I'm so encouraged about the future of gaming in things like therapy. But also then just any sort of physical health issues, even in a hospital environment.


[12:03]


Lana: Trying to look up this Hero Journey Club because it's like… I was like, I played Minecraft before. That's a really intriguing idea. Why not just have a group session with a therapist, so adding in this game into it... I guess is it so that there's something to focus on or a communal activity?


Raakhee: I think so. I think there's layers to it. I think one is that-- exactly that, there's something else to focus on, so it makes it easy for some people to actually talk like that. I think it takes away that vulnerability of -- I'm sitting here and it's a therapy session, and I don't want to speak first or vice versa, right, even in a group environment. And some people don't want to do one-on-one either, that's too much for them. But the game makes it safer, less vulnerable. It integrates play with this, and then I think the other layer is that when your focus is somewhere else, like you're playing, it may just be easier to use your words and just say what you're feeling, instead of overthinking what you need to say. So it’s certainly for certain types of personalities and not for others, it depends what you're seeking, but I think that it’s for those who, maybe, the traditional forms of these group discussions aren't easy. It may be something that works for them.


Sue: I tend to see in the media too much, and even so the signals I picked up this week, had many more dire and negative and concerning consequences around the future of gaming. And so to bring the other light on this, to know that it's being studied, that there are mental health and other kinds of medical experts that are working on positive impacts, is encouraging.


Raakhee: Yeah, exactly, Sue, I still see that there's so many more articles around the negative impacts and that sort of thing, but I think there are very encouraging studies. 


There is one I'll share with you all, that I think was linked out from… It's all about balance, right? It's as much as we brought up. Is Esports gonna take us away from being outside, because that's a natural. But when you're stuck in a hospital and you're not going outside anywhere, I think a game can really help alleviate some of the pain. I think therapeutic gaming and patient technology might be what it's called, the initiative. So yeah, it's encouraging. I think it's early. As I think even with what Mott’s doing with that division, I think they only have stuff from the last decade. It's very new research. Whereas all the stuff, the negative stuff on gaming is 30 years, 50 years old now, so yeah.


Sue: This does make me wonder also -- one of the questions I had was: who is involved in the gaming industry writ large? And so, we've seen for so long that there has been a lack of diversity around just who's developing games as well. But there has been a rise of what they're calling, kind of, the indie games sector. But beyond that, I like the fact that there are other types of industries that are integrating gaming into it. So it's not just one particular subsect of the population, and the more that we can get people in science, or people in food, or just in different industries, kind of having this interdisciplinary approach. I think hopefully the science will get better too. So that's what I'm hoping. 


[15:35] 


I've seen in my own life, different sports and fitness apps that I have, that will all of a sudden have gamified something. And they're super fun and addicting, but in the end, it's still just like exercise. 


But what I found was Y Combinator had invested in a startup that takes a game, like a totally, designed world, and then makes you conquer whatever it's gonna be like -- you have to run away from your enemy or you have to beat a monster -- but it's tied to these, essentially, augmented reality that has really good haptics. To run, to jump, to take a sword and a saber, right, and to kind of fight your opponents there. That really is keeping the game at the center, but adding in fitness as fun. So to me it kind of twisted it on its head where it's like, is this kind of Esports? It can be a much more physical version of an esport game. I would definitely want to explore maybe a less violent, or nonviolent, type of world building game for that. So I would hope with this technology more people like me would develop games that I would like to play.  I've never really found a game that I feel like is for me. 


Lana: But I love your approach, which is like, even though you haven't necessarily come across the game that has really been sticky for you, that you're curious and open to finding one so I think that's really cool.


Raakhee: I mean surely that must be some wave of the next frontier of what we do with all of our hobbies and how we learn. I think rather is the statement. I think gaming is some form of the next level of incorporation into how we learn. And I think that's exciting because I think it's going to be based on what we've learned about how we do learn and how the brain works and tying that together. And gaming is a really smart way to actually learn a lot of concepts.


[17:46]


And speaking of that, yesterday I saw a video of somebody using Apple Vision Pro doing a biology textbook and learning about the organs. But then you have this whole heart pumping, but then you have this 3D image that totally rotates, and you’re just like seeing a heart. And I was like, I think I would’ve done well at school, I’d have done really good with Biology if I had that.

So yeah, so it's encouraging. It's not gaming but I'm like, man, incorporating gaming into that kind of interface, and how cool can learning be. And it's learning the way that I think we can retain knowledge. 


Sue: I'm curious for you all, are you seeing gaming in your own lives somewhere? And if not, where might you imagine it showing up next.


Lana: I'm going to use the broader approach of games, but right now I'm in Barcelona and I stumbled across a cafe, which is a board game cafe. And so they serve chocolate and churros, which is a very Spanish thing, but one of the things that they advertise about this board game cafe is that it's also for people who don't drink, right, and so like… It's a communal space, you come with friends, you play games, and you have your churros and your chocolate, and it's also for a sober lifestyle. And so I thought that was really kind of a cool combination of things, kind of back to the games, is if you're playing with other people, it is a form of community. And so, I'm always attracted to all those different mechanisms that build community and how we can kind of come together in different ways.


Raakhee: Yeah, I mean, I think I'm definitely seeing more, instead of learning interventions and applications and things like that and even simple things like our decks for learning that we've seen in the last few years, of using that as a new way instead of -- here’s a book about something again. I think it is subtle, on a broader level, unless you're in fitness or something like I've seen at the gym. There’s those really cool cycling classes, but they’re completely immersive. I see it happening, but it's very subtle, it’s like we are combining some of the visual elements into certain things we do, right, and changing how we learn and conduct tasks. But I think the true nature of gaming, which is scoring and competition and playing in a different way, right, creatively, I think that maybe we need to see a little bit more deeper in everyday things and I think maybe that's what's coming next. But I haven't seen too much of that personally.


Sue: That's interesting. Yeah. It made me think. Will you even know it's a game? Because it's gonna get so sophisticated, you won't know it's in your life, even though it's there. So there's always the chance of that.


Raakhee: Maybe that's what's happening. And I can't see it.


Sue: Possibly. It did take me a moment actually, so I noticed recently, that I definitely respond really well to the gamifying of things. So I'm learning Italian through an app, right, that has all those games. I do all my health goals, all have games attached to it. But it did make me think there are some things that I am now subconsciously doing just for the sake of winning a point, or a credit or whatever, that is now taking over my life. So, it made me also wonder -- is there some kind of cognitive load that we will subconsciously bear because everything is going to have some kind of gaming aspect to it. And so personally it made me realize at least some things in my life, which are arbitrarily gamed for me, I decided: I don't need to play this game. This actually brings no benefit to my life. So I'm not going to do it. So that took a moment to realize what that looks like. 


All right, great. This concludes our episode on gaming. I think this topic may come up in future episodes. We'll see. I'm curious for us all, if we try games we should share it, and to our listeners are there games that you are already participating in that you would recommend to us. I'd really be curious. So let us know and thank you and see you next time.


[22:52]


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