Special feature: Are you scoring with esports in your school? Esports is more

Are you scoring with esports in your school?

Esports is more than just playing computer games. It’s the fastest growing activity in schools across the country, offering mental and physical challenges, developing multiple skills, fostering collaboration and teamwork, creating friendships, and maybe even forming career paths. If you’re still sitting on the sidelines, maybe now’s the time to think about joining in.

A genuine team sport promoting community

and a sense of belonging By Ginni Orr and Liz McDowell

We worked hard to get esports off the ground and are now in our second year at Avonside Girls’ High School. With the support of the Senior Leadership team, as well as the Ministry of Education, we entered the team into the National High School League of Legends competition run by Victory Up. From having just three students, this year it’s grown to a team of eight! We have a gaming mad teacher that coaches the team with her son, who is the over watch, and another staff member, who manages the team admin. We’ve also had the support of Christchurch City Libraries, and several staff attended some PLD on esports, so we felt like we had the backing to be able to introduce it well.

Connection and community

The team has a regular booking at New Brighton Library, where they practise and play. The library’s gaming room is like our clubhouse and is a cool place to hang out. The library staff have really enjoyed watching the team progress. A big shout out must go to Danny McNeil, who has worked hard to support our school staff to get the team off the ground, connected them with other schools starting out into the esport competition world, and made sure our students have somewhere welcoming and encouraging to play. We started esports because it’s a genuine team sport and is starting to be recognised as such. Playing esports can provide a sense of belonging to and opportunities for student engagement within a school community. Just like more common team sports, such as cricket and netball, players develop team skills like strategic thinking, problem solving (at speed), communication teamwork, and commitment to being part of a team, as well as hand-eye coordination. We want to encourage any activity that constructively does this. The team is full of enthusiastic young people who love gaming. They enjoy being part of a team, representing the school and utilising their skills and interest in any sort of gaming. It brings about connection and community, friendships formed over different year groups, and there’s always lots of fun and hilarity.

Growing in numbers

We always thought it would start small but grow in strength and numbers over several years, and this is indeed what’s happening. We’ve promoted the esports team at the start of each year and the students (Years 9 to 13) can join if they and their parents want them to. One aim was to ensure we had resources that we could lend students if they needed them, so that a lack of devices and accessories did not get in the way of participation. The Christchurch City Libraries have also been instrumental in the success due to making a space available at our local library. There’s also a room onsite at school with the computers set up for access by the esports team for gaming. Along the way, we’ve learned that getting support from people who know what they’re doing is critical. We spent some time with Arnika at ImpactEd and Chris from Gamestah designing and developing some support for any kaiako wanting to introduce esports into their kura, with Ministry assistance. We want to be able to share what we have learned and take away any fear about bringing esports into a school.

The future plans of the team include growing the numbers, so we have two full teams, and perhaps the older students playing as a Valorant team. This year saw us have our first win. Next year, we want to get some more wins and take down our friendly local high school competition!

Ginni Orr is eLearning integrator and Digital Technology teacher, and Liz McDowell is Deputy Principal at Avonside Girls’ High School in Christchurch.

Libraries provide free facilities for schools to

compete in esports By Danny McNeil, Christchurch City Council Libraries.

Libraries have been providing equitable access to the knowledge found in books for more than a century. However, as times change, they move with those changes and adapt to include modern technologies. Enter Esports. Statistics show two out of three of Kiwis play video games. While much of this is on mobile devices and consoles (think Xbox and PlayStation), some of the biggest games in the world, such as League of Legends, are played solely on PCs. Awesome, powerful but expensive PCs. Not every household or local school has access to a 5K Gaming Rig or the internet connection required, meaning some rangatahi don’t even get the option to play, let alone compete.

Equity gap

In O tautahi, Christchurch City Council Libraries have stepped in to address that esports equity gap by providing suites of PCs capable of playing the games that make up the National High School League run by Victory Up. With support from Sport Canterbury, libraries provide high-end peripherals, such as mechanical gaming keyboards, mice and headsets, to our growing number of young gamers. There are five PC labs where esports is accessible for local schools, each offering from 15 to 30 PCs. At present there are no charges for using them.

A sense of place

Equally as important as access to esports equipment is the community that we support through esports. Students from opposing schools meeting at the local library to play against each other or even combining to play a team elsewhere in the country. Libraries are providing a -konga a sense of place that fosters deeper connections with their environment. We believe Library Learning Centres are becoming the grass roots ‘football field’ of esports. Weekly competition sessions coupled with the tournaments, which have included wha -nau in the audience, provide students not engaged in traditional sports (for a variety of reasons) a chance to represent their school, enjoy the buzz of team sports and take pride in what they achieve. Most amazing to witness is how proud parents are when for the first time they understand how talented, connected, engaged, passionate, and included their sons and daughters are when part of an esports team competing, just as they would in more traditional sports likes rugby or netball. Through our ongoing collaboration with ImpactED, we have begun to provide PLD for schools looking to get onboard the esports waka. If you would like to know more details, please contact us at

schoolbookings@ccc.govt.nz

Danny McNeil is part of Te Ro pu Poutama (Programmes, Events and Learning Team) at Christchurch City Council Libraries.

Impressive skills and amazing attitudes in Minecraft competition

Last term, Te Kura o Tuahiwi hosted its first Minecraft Interschool Tournament, with teams from Kaiapoi North and Woodend Schools.

“This was designed as part of our Ka -hui Ako Ka -tote. Our goal is to develop positive interactions between our kura via events,” explained Kate Kennedy-Terrell, Digital Tech Lead at Te Kura o Tuahiwi in Kaiapoi. “The decision was made to target Years 3 and 4, as often they don’t get as many opportunities as Years 5 and 8. “We were so impressed by the behaviour, skills and all-round amazing attitudes of everyone who came to participate. Also, we were lucky to have some rangatahi from Kaiapoi High join us to tautoko, helping to login, navigate the Minecraft space and teach our a -konga some new tricks! Authentic tuakana teina in action! Ka mau te wehi! Also, an unexpected highlight for us was watching all the beautiful interactions of the tamariki at break time, playing football together; showing real whanaungatanga.”

Growing skills, confidence, engagement …

and improving grades By Elize Crouse, Waitaki Girls’ High School

At the beginning of this year, we started an esports club at Waitaki Girls’ High School. We play casually on Tuesdays during our lunch break. I had started an esports club at my previous school in South Africa and saw the benefit it had for students. Not all kids are sporty and sometimes they feel excluded from school activities. Starting an esports club gave students the opportunity to also be part of the school and this increased engagement. I saw first-hand how their confidence grew not only while playing games with other students but, since they had that sense of belonging, they also gained confidence in all aspects of school life. Their grades improved in a number of subjects and their attendance levels improved, as well. At first, it can be scary to address the issue of starting up an esports club at the school level because of the stigma that surrounds teenagers playing games and screen time. As with all things in life, you need to have a balance and I have seen first-hand the advantages of playing games, as it adds communication and problem-solving skills, not to mention improves hand-eye coordination.

Overwhelming interest

When I started teaching in New Zealand, I investigated esports in schools and surveyed a couple of students to gauge if there would be an interest in an all-girls school. I was overwhelmed by the number of students who showed an interest and I really had no other choice but to start an esports club. Since things are done very differently here, I had to do a fair bit of research about what types of leagues are available at school level. My first step was to get permission from our Principal to set up a club. Once I got the go-ahead, I sent out a survey to all the students, where they could indicate the type of games they would like to play, whether they prefer casual or competitive games, and so on. I also attended an online course run by Microsoft on how to set up an esports club and what it’s all about.

Some of the games we started with were Fortnite, Rocket League, Minecraft, and League of Legends. During Term 2, we joined the Otago High School eSports League, where we play League of Legends matches every Thursday afternoon against schools in the Otago region. We have about eight students who play competitively, ranging from Year 9 to Year 12. We’re still a very inexperienced team but our students enjoy the opportunity to interact with students from other schools with similar interests.

On Tuesdays, we also have our casual session during lunchtime where about 20 students play various games.

A place to play

I have had to make sure that the computers we use at school would run the games, which require some specific specs to be able to operate adequately. I also needed to ensure that the games can actually run and are not blocked by any firewalls.

The scheduling of the games is done via Discord and I have taken the responsibility to ensure that I have enough players for each week. Then it is just a case of providing the students with a place to play and supervise them. Some schools let their students play from home, but I prefer that we all play from school as it increases the social factor of being part of a team.

Skills and tactics

There is a range of benefits to playing esports, from social and communication skills – they get to interact with students with the same interest and make new friends – to learning tactics and hand-eye coordination. They’re using different parts of their brain and improving decision making, since everything happens so fast, they have to make decisions on the spot. These are all transferable skills that they can use in all aspects of life. You do not have to be a gamer to get an esports club up and running. Most of the time the students will be able to tell you what you need to do. It takes a lot of commitment to practise and learn the skills to play the game and work out the best tactics. Students will get discouraged if they keep losing, but it is essential to keep going and improving skills. Going forward, I will focus on building our League of Legends team and maybe increase it to two competitive teams. We’re also hoping to expand the esports club by introducing Valorant as another competitive game. Elize Crouse teaches Digital Technology ar Waitaki Girls’ High School in Oamaru.

Buzz and excitement in inaugural Rocket League tournament

In August, Papakura High School in South Auckland hosted its first Rocket League tournament, with students from Rosehill College and Ardmore School also participating. “It was our first event and went amazingly well,” said Satchet Singh, organiser and Head of Technology. “There was a buzz in the hall and the excitement on the students’ faces was priceless. “A whole host of people helped to make this happen, including our awesome school staff and Arahi Hippolite, who provided all the hardware support. Students got involved in hospitality and shoutcasting*, and the Kura High film crew filmed the whole event. We streamed live on Twitch.

“It was a long day and we didn’t really have any technical difficulties – besides having to figure out how to connect 13 computers to the only one network port! “Seven teams from all age groups competed. Thanks to every team that entered and gave it their best. Congratulations to Rosehill students, who took first prize.” *Shoutcasting is a term used to describe commentary on esports matches, both play-by-play coverage and tactical analysis, and usually live streamed.

TOURNAMENT ORGANISER SATCHET SINGH

New league offers students the chance to do

what they love By Duncan Trickey, Otago Girls’ High School

In 2019, I started an esports club at school. After arranging weeks of friendly games, it became apparent that this was unsustainable and I had to start up some kind of grassroots league. Basically, I emailed every sports coordinator and digi tech teacher in Otago to see who was interested in joining in – and this has developed into the Otago High School eSports League. With the help of a keen Year 12 digi student, we set up a school-wide sever and invited a -konga of different kura to join. All the communication happens in here. I set up a schedule using a mixture of Excel and an online tournament organiser. There was a number of schools I had to talk to about the technical set up of getting League of Legends onto their system (although, unfortunately some are still not able to support it and students play from home). In the three years I have been running this, it’s gone really well. We started with six teams and now have a steady 10. Across Otago, there are around 50 students playing regularly in the league, week in week out. At Otago Girls’ we currently have around 20 girls playing, with about 11 in the weekly league. The ages vary. We have mostly Year 9 and 10 students but there are lots of senior students playing in other teams.

Learning together

While I love tactical wargaming and board gaming, I had never really ventured into esports before. I have always enjoyed video games, especially strategy games like Sid Meier’s Civilization. Mostly, I was pushed out of curiosity seeing my own kids and friends gaming, and seeing the rise of the big esports tournaments. Students get a lot from being involved. Firstly, there are all the benefits of being in a team that works in close proximity and learns together. Often our team breaks and goes into algebra sessions and support each other with their learning in general. Those who participate all play traditional sports but esport does give them an alternative avenue to be in the first team for a school squad. We have also seen academic growth through the introduction of esports as well, especially in the digital technologies. It has been great for meeting other students. Waitaki Girls’ came across for a sports exchange and we also went there. This was the first time some had visited another school and it was noted how quickly they all bonded. These experiences are things that talented sports people take for granted and it’s great to see this infrastructure being put in place for all our students. I spend a lot of time running the administration and am very lucky to have an offsider who has taken some of the strain off me by taking the league structure and scheduling part of things out of my hands. I really wish we could diversify the games more but the school systems can only cope with so much.

Seeing the value

Not every teacher has been enthusiastic about students being allowed to play for school; some schools have not wanted to engage with us, either. Thankfully, I have a very supportive Senior Leadership team and many colleagues who could see the value to the students.

One of the main difficulties has been getting keen teachers to invest their time in supporting the a -konga in this new sport. The number one factor I have seen is that if a school has a keen teacher who’s willing to support the kids and gets the software to let them play at school, you will have a successful team. As for the future, I really want to start playing Rocket League. Eventually I would also love to have tournaments scheduled in Winter Tournament week, so students can get the big tournament experience. It would be great if I could get into schools to talk to their students and make them aware of the opportunities but, to be honest, that’s a full-time job. I do have a vision of following the Christchurch model where all the students could use the local library and that could become our equivalent of a gym. Or, even better, have a purpose-built hub to run tournaments and the weekly league. The League has become bigger than I expected. It’s electric when you get the players in the same room and even the most sceptical adults are usually converted to seeing the benefits. The players themselves have been fantastic and it’s really exciting to give them a space to improve and do what they love. Duncan Trickey teaches Business Studies, Enterprise, Social Studies and Tourism, and is teacher in charge of eSport at Otago Girls’ High School in Dunedin.

If you’d like to know more about the league, contact Duncan at

trk@otagogirls.school.nz

Having different opportunities for students is

amazing and invaluable By Sally Brown, Riccarton High School.

Every Wednesday after school, the Riccarton High School library computer lab buzzes with the intense energy of 15-20 avid esports players. What connects them is a love of esports and being part of a team, just like if they were part of a football or netball or swim team – and this means a lot, as most of these kids would normally not find a place in a regular sports team. Now, they can be awarded a school sports badge and represent their school in national competitions. Having the computer kit available is important, too, as many of the players come from families where any sort of computer is out of reach. The esports club at the school is relatively new. When we saw the Victory Up competition being advertised at Tu ranga Library, I got in touch to ask how the school could be involved. Danny McNeil was hugely generous with time and support to help us get going. He also managed to get us some gaming kit through Sports Canterbury (we’re a joint-use Public/School library). When we put the word out at school that we were starting up an esports club we had a crowd of students wanting to join up. Our first year we played just League of Legends and the second year we added Valorant. This year we had a team play and win the Valorant high school tournament at NZMA.

Serious about esports

It took a bit of a push to make it happen at the school, but now we’re attracting a solid group of kids, everyone’s on board. Some parents, too, were a bit hesitant, as we were asking them to support their children spend even more time on devices. But they’ve come round since they’ve seen the enthusiasm and energy the kids put in. They’re serious about their esports! During the Victory Up National competition, Riccarton students are joined by players from Burnside High School and the room is packed. The competition is friendly and banter bounces around between the players. But don’t ask them for comment – they’re too focused on the game.

Sally Brown is Library Manager at Riccarton High School in Christchurch.

Building knowledge, creativity, innovation, and technical skills YEAR 7 WINNERS: BREENS INTERMEDIATE

In August, the Waimairi-iri Ka -hui Ako ran its first esports event, a Minecraft Wero Hanga (Build Challenge) for Year 7/8s. The schools have recently started up esports clubs,” said Haley Taylor, Digital Technologies Coordinator. “Here at Breens Intermediate, we’ve been running esports at lunch with about 50 students turning up. In groups of four, we set them a speed build challenge each week.” Teams from St Patrick’s Bryndwr, Christ The King, Breens Intermediate and Cobham Intermediate competed, with judges from Burnside High School marking on Technical Build, Innovation and Creativity and Team Work. “The learning outcome for the event was to understand the story of Kupe and his journey to Aotearoa. Competitors were asked to have read ‘Kupe and the Giant Wheke’ and know that the build was to create the Giant Wheke. “There was a great atmosphere in the room. Each team completed a 20-minute speed build with a break in the middle. After building, the students had to talk about their build and the part of the story they had created around their Giant Wheke. They showed great understanding and knowledge of the story.” Congratulations to winning teams Breens Intermediate School (Year 7) and Christ the King School (Year 8). In the same competition held later for Years 5 and 6, the winners were Harewood School (Year 6) and Isleworth School (Year 5).

YEAR 8 WINNERS: CHRIST THE KING

Jump in with both feet and give esports a try

Last year, we reported on a Rocket League tournament held at Manurewa Intermediate, organised by Tanya White. Here we talk to her about her experiences with esports. Why are esports important?

Esports have definite benefits, not only for social well-being but for communication, coaching, strategizing, and generally offering a way for those students that otherwise would not participate in a physical sport but wish to be part of a different type of team. Having teachers that encourage not only the gaming aspect but also the other potential careers in this field like casting, hosting, management, media, and technical support, is a huge benefit for our ever-changing world and the jobs of the future our students could have. Aotearoa is small, so this field could be really lucrative for students of the future, with the right help from us.

What do you think are the benefits to schools?

We’ve seen lots of engagement, community connections with other contributing schools and onwards schools that are using this avenue to branch out future opportunities for students. Schools can make transitions a bit easier if students know there are interests for them as they move on and up in their educational journeys. I don’t see a reason why a school would be resistant to this. It’s hard at first but student interest completely makes all the struggle at the beginning worthwhile. I’ve even got girls interested in old video games played via emulators like Scorched Earth, Bubble Bobble and Space Invaders. These games were good in the 80s and still remain classic and challenging now, without all the fancy graphics and modern GPU feel.

How have you learned about esports?

I loved gaming as a kid. Arcades are where I started. I never had a console at home until university when I bought a second-hand Sega Genesis and spent hours playing Sonic and other games of that time. Tetris remains my all-time favourite game, my skills honed by countless quarters in the machine. I’m also an avid Pokémon Go player and have made lots of friends from around the world as a result of playing every day for years! What do you enjoy most about being involved in esports at school?

I enjoy pushing for more for our tamariki – I love their engagement when they succeed or work together and celebrate all of their successes, regardless of how small. I like seeing kids take the lead, teach me things like what to do when the console won’t connect properly, their problem-solving abilities you don’t see in other subject areas and their passion for all things gaming. Set up a Discord or Twitch account and the kids think you are the ultimate awesome teacher! I have two PS5s in my class and it’s all some of them talk about as they think it’s amazing a teacher has such things for them to use. I love connecting with other educators that might be struggling to start this up like I was at first. It’s a buzzy challenge and keeps me on my toes, wanting to be more involved so our students have these opportunities that other educators just won’t bother trying. Best thing recently was when multiple girls scored points for the first time and it was like they had won an Olympic Gold medal! What advice would you give to other teachers considering esports?

Just get amongst it. Jump in with both feet and try. Get a console and set up a sign-up time for students and see who turns up. Make sure girls know they’re welcome and encouraged, too, and don’t assume young students cannot game like their older peers because they can! Contact people that can help and participate in events that are around this, so you can learn. It takes some effort but it’s something I think we need to get all schools moving on right away!

Thank you.

What have you learned along the way?

If you want to do this, push it at your school. Show management the benefits of it. I’m lucky because our school is supportive with trying new things, as long as there are student benefits! Kids know more than we think and are willing to teach us as much as we are them. Don’t shy away, just ask them to help and they will definitely come through. Keep things charged at all times! Keep it simple. Don’t run desktop gaming if your network can’t handle it, or it’s too complex to set up quickly. Consoles are easy and if you can find non-violent, free games like Rocket League, the students will love this and get involved if you let them. Keep it focused. Make them talk, strategise and communicate what they need to do and push girls to get amongst it too. Don’t assume age is a barrier or that they can’t learn from each other.

Tanya White is Digi-Comp Teacher at Manurewa Intermediate School in Auckland.

The school is hosting another Rocket League tournament at the end of the month. If you’re interested contact

tanya@manurewaint.school.nz

Celebrating passion, new perspectives and all of

the roles esports promotes By Ben Carter, Hornby High School.

I think there are some real misconceptions around esports. When most people think of esports, they think of an individual gaming in their room with maybe a couple of people they meet online, which can conjure up some pretty nefarious ideas. But I think esports can really be beneficial for students. Yes, there are some team skills that are developed – communication being the main one – but students really learn to socialise through these shared passions and the community is just massive, so there’s always someone to talk to. We run three esports clubs at Hornby High School: Minecraft at interval and lunch; and esports after school on Tuesday and Thursday. The Tuesday session is geared more towards competition level play, with the game Valorant as the main focus. Teams run through a series of drills and practice plays against each other with drop-in mentoring/coaching sessions with some ex-students. This ties into the national competition being run by Victory Up. The Thursday session is a lot less structured and more open with students playing a variety of games. It’s very much more socially driven.

Increasing interest

I am a massive gamer myself – and have been since school – so, with the increasing prevalence on the global stage and initial student interest surveys, we looked at how we could include esports opportunities for students. The initial set up was probably the hardest part to manage, finding the balance between what the students wanted and what was accessible – and it’s still a continual work in progress. There are obviously a lot of various esports tournaments that take place on a number of different platforms. We started off small with just a Wi-Fi network that was only accessible at interval and lunch. Most of our kids played mobile-based games – like Call of Duty Mobile, Mobile Legends and Clash Royale – but we also had a group of kids that were more collaborative than competitive, which meant Minecraft: Education Edition was a good fit and worked on student Chromebooks.

We started with a few in-school competitions. Unfortunately, not many students were actually participating in any wider esports competitions or developing any of the true team-based values of competitive play, so we changed it up. We shut down the Wi-Fi and shifted it to our computer suite to focus on collaborative and competitive competition. While this worked well for Minecraft, we hit more roadblocks. Some members of our kura had concerns around credibility and esports in general, the safety of students online, what games would be played, and how this represented the school.

Changing perspectives

Fortunately, this also coincided with the Victory Up team leading the charge nationally by establishing the High School Esports League competition. The information about the benefits and professionalism of esports was really pivotal in changing some of those perspectives and giving us the green light. We managed to participate in the flagship League of Legends competition at Tu -ranga in 2020. This was amazing! The students were buzzing with the whole vibe. VIP treatment by the awesome team at Christchurch City Council Libraries led by Danny McNeil and the real professional atmosphere with full noise competition setup, event crews, and worldclass shoutcasters facilitating the whole event.

Our 2021 was just as bumpy as everyone else’s and, sadly, our computer lab devices were not up to the specs we needed for the games we had selected and we had to change it up again. Most of our Minecraft players were Year 7 and 8 students, who love to just get together and explore the world or get weirdly and wonderfully creative. Our systems ran this no worries and we held it during interval and lunch. However, for our more esports-focused players we had

to look outside of school. The team at Te Ha -pua Halswell Library were amazing, booking us an available space and providing some top-of-the-line equipment supplied specifically for esports by Sport Canterbury. While we did lose a few students by restricting the games that were being played and moving to an after-school meet that was off-site, what’s really great is that the community is just blowing up and we are one of several school groups across the city that are getting into our local libraries to play. Overall, the reaction from students has been really positive. We get some comments from students about why certain games are in and others aren’t but the answer is actually quite simple: these competitions are aimed and affiliated with high schools and they have all the same rules. Most students are pretty accepting of that.

Growth and development

Looking ahead, the plan is to keep the clubs and community going and growing. Our players are a great mix of ages and levels, so there’s real potential for skill growth and development but there are also a lot of competitions out there. We will look at trying more games to try to encompass these both within our kura and the wider esports community. For any teachers interested in esports, reach out! There are lots of groups out there across Aotearoa and if the person you’re talking to can’t help, they’ll know someone who can! Your students are also a wealth of information, too, so use their knowledge. Get your kura on board to really push and promote it as a viable club and look after your IT team. Things will go wrong and you will need them! It’s a timeworn phrase, but I would have absolutely loved the opportunity to participate in something like this as a kid and just love being able to provide the opportunity to our rangitahi. What’s really amazing is that we also have this as a career path for these students but it goes beyond the professional athlete. Unlike other disciplines, it’s really about celebrating all of the roles that come under the esports umbrella. From the shoutcasters (commentators) to the rig and stage crews, the event and promotional elements, and the digital components (animations and overlays and just getting the information out), esports is really broad and inclusive.

Ben Carter teaches Social Sciences at Hornby High School in Christchurch.

Gaming doesn’t seem to harm players’ mental health

Research into the gaming habits of 39,000 people has found that time spent playing video games has ‘little to no’ effect on people’s wellbeing, countering fears of the impact of gaming on mental health.

With the cooperation of seven different game publishers, who agreed to share data from consenting players, the study from the University of Oxford tracked actual gameplay, rather than using self-reported estimates. Wellbeing was measured by asking about life satisfaction and levels of emotions such as happiness, sadness, anger and frustration.

The scale of the study provided strong evidence for the lack of an effect on wellbeing, said Andrew Przybylski, one of the researchers. “With nearly 40,000 observations across six weeks, we really gave increases and decreases in video game play a fair chance to predict emotional states in life satisfaction, and we didn’t find evidence for that – we found evidence that that’s not true in a practically significant way.”

Mindset and motivation

What is important, according to Przybylski, is the “mindset that people have as they approach games”. Healthier motivation was associated with positive wellbeing, the study found, while players who felt as if they ‘had’ to play the game also tended to have worse satisfaction, regardless of how long they played. “Common sense says if you have more free time to play video games, you’re probably a happier person. If players were playing because they wanted to, rather than because they felt compelled to, they tended to feel better. “But contrary to what we might think about games being good or bad for us, we found pretty conclusive evidence that how much you play doesn’t really have any bearing whatsoever on changes in wellbeing.” Seven technology companies participated in the study, including Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo, and the games used were: Animal Crossing: New Horizons; Apex Legends; Eve Online; Forza Horizon 4; Gran Turismo Sport; Outriders; and The Crew 2. Read more at bit.ly/gamingwellbeing