
How Videogames Trained a Generation of Athletes - robg
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2010/01/ff_gamechanger/
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Tichy
Have only read the first page, but it seems rather far stretched. Playing for
time is an age old strategy, why should it have come from a video game?

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patio11
I'm not a football fan, but it seems singular to me that an amateur at the
sport would react instantly to an unexpected situation, sprint down the the
length of the field, and then with the deafening roar of the crowd in his ears
and the lights exploding in his face and the goal line mere inches in front of
him and unseen defenders nipping at his heels and visions of being the hero
dancing around in his head would suddenly remember "I'm in this for the game,
not the touchdown: pivot right and get them to waste six seconds." except due
to heavy, heavy operant conditioning.

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Tichy
I must have missed the part where it says the guy was an amateur at the sport?
The article describes him as "(team xyz)'s Quarterback...", so I assume he
played a lot and had a lot of training? But even at school sports, we were
habitually playing for time. It's just what you do if you are in the lead and
the end is near.

Also, I am sorry, but catching a ball in football can hardly be an unexpected
event.

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shrughes
Catching a ball off a deflection is pretty surprising, and you generally don't
see players spontaneously considering things and deciding to run out the clock
when the end zone's in front of him and defenders are behind him, especially
not in a situation where you need the touchdown to win. Grinding down the
clock in football is generally accomplished by play selection, with the use of
a running game rather than a passing game, because incomplete passes stop the
clock. The only other example of this that I know of, and a much more dramatic
one, is Brian Westbrook's kneel-down on the 1 yard line --
[http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-
playbook/09000d5d80547...](http://www.nfl.com/videos/nfl-network-
playbook/09000d5d80547e6f/WK-15-Anatomy-of-a-Play-Brian-Westbrook-s-game-
clinching-kneel-down)

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Tichy
I don't know football at all, so I can only take your word for it.

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patio11
Semi-relatedly: the more I do engineering management, the more I feel like
I've gone back to playing WoW.

