Typically studies of the effects of aging on cognitive-motor performance emphasize changes in elderly populations. Although some research is directly concerned with when age-related decline actually begins, studies are often based on relatively simple reaction time tasks, making it impossible to gauge the impact of experience in compensating for this decline in a real world task. The present study investigates age-related changes in cognitive motor performance through adolescence and adulthood in a complex real world task, the real-time strategy video game StarCraft 2. In this paper we analyze the influence of age on performance using a dataset of 3,305 players, aged 16-44, collected by Thompson, Blair, Chen & Henrey [1]. Using a piecewise regression analysis, we find that age-related slowing of within-game, self-initiated response times begins at 24 years of age. We find no evidence for the common belief expertise should attenuate domain-specific cognitive decline. Domain-specific response time declines appear to persist regardless of skill level. A second analysis of dual-task performance finds no evidence of a corresponding age-related decline. Finally, an exploratory analyses of other age-related differences suggests that older participants may have been compensating for a loss in response speed through the use of game mechanics that reduce cognitive load.
The SkillCraft project is ongoing, and we have several interesting things in the works.
I'll answer questions if people have them.
Thanks to all the players who contributed games to the project.
Typically studies of the effects of aging on cognitive-motor performance emphasize changes in elderly populations. Although some research is directly concerned with when age-related decline actually begins, studies are often based on relatively simple reaction time tasks, making it impossible to gauge the impact of experience in compensating for this decline in a real world task. The present study investigates age-related changes in cognitive motor performance through adolescence and adulthood in a complex real world task, the real-time strategy video game StarCraft 2. In this paper we analyze the influence of age on performance using a dataset of 3,305 players, aged 16-44, collected by Thompson, Blair, Chen & Henrey [1]. Using a piecewise regression analysis, we find that age-related slowing of within-game, self-initiated response times begins at 24 years of age. We find no evidence for the common belief expertise should attenuate domain-specific cognitive decline. Domain-specific response time declines appear to persist regardless of skill level. A second analysis of dual-task performance finds no evidence of a corresponding age-related decline. Finally, an exploratory analyses of other age-related differences suggests that older participants may have been compensating for a loss in response speed through the use of game mechanics that reduce cognitive load.
The SkillCraft project is ongoing, and we have several interesting things in the works.
I'll answer questions if people have them.
Thanks to all the players who contributed games to the project.
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
PS. I know I'm only one person but I started playing BW at 20 and now I'm 31. Even with very minor carpal tunnel in 1-hand I still have the same APM. Again, I think psychology is more involved in the study results, but that is my opinion.
Interesting, I forgot how the other stats test are done but for econometric, what about other potential major variables that you might be ignoring? Like SirPinky's comment has mentioned, job makes perfect rational explanation.
I am not sure how a normal stats would test it (been too long) but if I were to plot a model to predict a player's performance against his age, that formula will have at least several many other possibly important variables like job and then running analysis to test which are significant.
...being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23.
...don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline?
... I know I'm only one person but I started playing BW at 20 and now I'm 31. Even with very minor carpal tunnel in 1-hand I still have the same APM. Again, I think psychology is more involved in the study results, but that is my opinion.
Let me take these in turn.
1. You might expect people to take a more relaxed approach, but speed decreases with age. I guess I find it strange that 30 is more relaxed than 25, and 35 is more relaxed that 30 and so on. We have no way to rule it out, but it doesn't seem like to me.
2. I don't think it's MORE beneficial (it can be difficult to parcel out the practice from the aging), but I do think it would be a useful complement to this study. We have some data that does basically that now, but it will take some time to sort through.
3. As you note, it is a sample of one. The findings we describe in the paper are measured in thousands of players. Nevertheless, APM changes with age AND with experience. As you get better, you get faster; as you get older, you get slower. They offset each other, so it doesn't surprise me that some people's APMs do not shift much and it looks like nothing is changing. The bad news is that older is slower, the good news is that you are probably getting better!
I think the factor SirPinky brought up is too big to overlook. It's a skill that's trained. I mean, there are baseball players into their 40s and even 50s that can hit 100+ mph pitches whereas the general population could probably never even see the ball before it hits the catcher's glove. For a gaming example, there are a lot of CS players into their 30s which is probably the game that requires the fastest reaction of any of them.
On April 11 2014 08:46 BisuDagger wrote: I have actually improved a ton recently. At 26 my typing dexterity and apm has greatly increased, but I'm also someone who matured late mentally too.
I would expect that everyone ages in exactly the same way as everyone else. Remember, though, that aging and experience are independent factors. You can get better with practice, even as you get slower with age.
On April 11 2014 08:45 dazzled wrote: I think the factor SirPinky brought up is too big to overlook. It's a skill that's trained. I mean, there are baseball players into their 40s and even 50s that can hit 100+ mph pitches whereas the general population could probably never even see the ball before it hits the catcher's glove. For a gaming example, there are a lot of CS players into their 30s which is probably the game that requires the fastest reaction of any of them.
It the study we use both age and expertise in our analysis. Diamond level players are faster than Bronze as you would expect, but young Diamonds are faster than old Diamonds. Expertise does not remove the effect, they are independent factors.
If the 3305 players studied were just random ladder players as opposed to professionals, I would take the study with a large grain of salt. As SirPinky stated, a major factor to consider is that with age comes increased responsibilities that require more and more of a person's time, which in turn puts them out of practice and makes them slower when they do in fact play. It's basically the muscle memory factor at work. You do something over and over again frequently and you start to do it better and faster, but if you stop for a while or don't do it as much, you start to slow down because you have to consciously consider what you're doing again. For instance, the amount of SC I play has decreased drastically over the years, from a constant 2 hours a day in my mid-teens to maybe a few times a month now. The result? I'm fucking slow as shit compared to 10 years ago. Conversely, the amount of typing I do on a daily basis has remained more or less constant over that time span and I'm a much faster and more accurate typist now than I was at the same age.
On April 11 2014 08:07 SirPinky wrote: Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
PS. I know I'm only one person but I started playing BW at 20 and now I'm 31. Even with very minor carpal tunnel in 1-hand I still have the same APM. Again, I think psychology is more involved in the study results, but that is my opinion.
I agree with this, I was a mid leveled BW player (bounced around the C ranks on iCCup) and then a solid sc2 player (peaked top masters playing vs GM occasionally (NA server)) Before I went to university and started working, losing the free time available to play sc I lost passion for it and my skill naturally declined because I was playing less and I was playing with less focus.
older participants may have been compensating for a loss in response speed through the use of game mechanics that reduce cognitive load.
yes, yes.
I'm happy to see this come along, A lot of people are impatient but proper number crunching takes time and they have unrealistic expectations about your academic approach. Then again, esports, broken promises, etc. Still, time to geek out!
I really agree with the quoted statement especially, because it ties in with a core value of starcraft or RTS in general: You can do things with speed, and you give up efficiency and accuracy. It can apply to any unit or strategy or micro or whatever, the point is that someone with 500APM vs someone with 250APM doesn't necessarily represent a 50% handicap in overall skill. Setting aside race differences and assuming they're playing at the same "level" (Top of WCS, or whatever standard you choose), the guy with 250APM has ways to solve problems with fewer actions. Do those command patterns get the same value as the guy with twice as many commands? Maybe or maybe not, but if he wins it obviously worked.
Interesting to see that older players get slower, but seem to get, would you say, "wiser"?
...being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23.
...don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline?
... I know I'm only one person but I started playing BW at 20 and now I'm 31. Even with very minor carpal tunnel in 1-hand I still have the same APM. Again, I think psychology is more involved in the study results, but that is my opinion.
Let me take these in turn.
1. You might expect people to take a more relaxed approach, but speed decreases with age. I guess I find it strange that 30 is more relaxed than 25, and 35 is more relaxed that 30 and so on. We have no way to rule it out, but it doesn't seem like to me.
2. I don't think it's MORE beneficial (it can be difficult to parcel out the practice from the aging), but I do think it would be a useful complement to this study. We have some data that does basically that now, but it will take some time to sort through.
3. As you note, it is a sample of one. The findings we describe in the paper are measured in thousands of players. Nevertheless, APM changes with age AND with experience. As you get better, you get faster; as you get older, you get slower. They offset each other, so it doesn't surprise me that some people's APMs do not shift much and it looks like nothing is changing. The bad news is that older is slower, the good news is that you are probably getting better!
As for #1 you have to look at what method you are using for the baseline of your study: An RTS game. With that you have to examine how long RTS games have really been mainstream. A majority of them emerged in the mid 90's with games like Warcraft and WC 2. At the time, most players were in their mid or early teens (including myself). This was the fundamental beginning for people understanding "mechanics". Also, as for the psychology of the time, people were playing them for fun - there was no such thing as E-Sports so naturally people typically used mouse clicks more frequently and 1-2 hotkey for making buildings; but the concept and speed of RTS became ingrained at a young age. So where am I going with this? As you get older in age the likelihood you had any exposure to RTS games dramatically shrinks. Making exposure to fundamental mechanics, at an early age, unlikely. I know people in their 50's that take 10 minutes compose two sentences on a keyboard. Does that mean they are slow? No, only that they were not exposed to computers at a young age. Same applies to RTS mechanics. This I believe, combined with pshychological maturity and stages of life speaks to the APM decline in age. It's not that I don't find the study valid and interesting, just my interpretation of the data is different; especially since you are using a video game (specifically RTS) which really only emerged around 15 years ago.
Not much of a surprise - there's a reason why "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" (not quite true), and why you don't see Nestea and White-Ra using greater wisdom to dominate younger players.
The study addresses the age and responsibility question SirPinky brought up - if both players are otherwise equal, the younger player has an edge. Anecdotally, look at the scene - can you name any competitive player that is consistently hitting the top 8 of the major tournaments and over 30? (Don't suggest MC; he's only 23.)
There may be some variance in the observations, but it all hangs together pretty well. Further study would be welcome, no doubt, but the results appear to be pretty solid.
On April 11 2014 09:56 felisconcolori wrote: Not much of a surprise - there's a reason why "you can't teach an old dog new tricks" (not quite true), and why you don't see Nestea and White-Ra using greater wisdom to dominate younger players.
The study addresses the age and responsibility question SirPinky brought up - if both players are otherwise equal, the younger player has an edge. Anecdotally, look at the scene - can you name any competitive player that is consistently hitting the top 8 of the major tournaments and over 30? (Don't suggest MC; he's only 23.)
There may be some variance in the observations, but it all hangs together pretty well. Further study would be welcome, no doubt, but the results appear to be pretty solid.
Also, great use of SC2 as an investigative tool.
Bomber had a great year last year at age 25, Polt is 25, Hyun is 26.
I think the reason there are so few pros in their late 20's is because SC2 came out in 2010, so someone who is 28 would have been 24 at release, not many people are going to pick up a new game and go pro at 24.
On April 11 2014 08:46 BisuDagger wrote: I have actually improved a ton recently. At 26 my typing dexterity and apm has greatly increased, but I'm also someone who matured late mentally too.
I would expect that everyone ages in exactly the same way as everyone else. Remember, though, that aging and experience are independent factors. You can get better with practice, even as you get slower with age.
How can you say everyone ages in the same way? I've always been 3-4 behind in maturity. While I have always been intelligent, I didn't start thinking very independently till much later the most. I don't practice so lot, I just understand the game better now and decisions are much easier/quicker to make.
The question of wrist problems comes to mind. It could be that wrists are just not meant to do so much and you top out at a lower age than other physical sports.
It's a shame though, as others have said, it does seem that the data is just random ladder players. While interesting, it says nothing as to the "slowing down" of pro players.
Typically studies of the effects of aging on cognitive-motor performance emphasize changes in elderly populations. Although some research is directly concerned with when age-related decline actually begins, studies are often based on relatively simple reaction time tasks, making it impossible to gauge the impact of experience in compensating for this decline in a real world task. The present study investigates age-related changes in cognitive motor performance through adolescence and adulthood in a complex real world task, the real-time strategy video game StarCraft 2. In this paper we analyze the influence of age on performance using a dataset of 3,305 players, aged 16-44, collected by Thompson, Blair, Chen & Henrey [1]. Using a piecewise regression analysis, we find that age-related slowing of within-game, self-initiated response times begins at 24 years of age. We find no evidence for the common belief expertise should attenuate domain-specific cognitive decline. Domain-specific response time declines appear to persist regardless of skill level. A second analysis of dual-task performance finds no evidence of a corresponding age-related decline. Finally, an exploratory analyses of other age-related differences suggests that older participants may have been compensating for a loss in response speed through the use of game mechanics that reduce cognitive load.
The SkillCraft project is ongoing, and we have several interesting things in the works.
I'll answer questions if people have them.
Thanks to all the players who contributed games to the project.
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
PS. I know I'm only one person but I started playing BW at 20 and now I'm 31. Even with very minor carpal tunnel in 1-hand I still have the same APM. Again, I think psychology is more involved in the study results, but that is my opinion.
I think that this has a lot to do with it. I know that when I was young, my gaming sessions were uninterrupted. I have a family now, so even when I play I am constantly being interrupted, this in turn slows me down as I have to answer questions from the kids, or answer the phone etc. Plus I cant take the game as seriously because these interruptions would result in rage if I still did.
Physically, I feel I peaked at 28, but thats athletics where a lot of people are trying to draw parallels.
...being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23.
...don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline?
... I know I'm only one person but I started playing BW at 20 and now I'm 31. Even with very minor carpal tunnel in 1-hand I still have the same APM. Again, I think psychology is more involved in the study results, but that is my opinion.
Let me take these in turn.
1. You might expect people to take a more relaxed approach, but speed decreases with age. I guess I find it strange that 30 is more relaxed than 25, and 35 is more relaxed that 30 and so on. We have no way to rule it out, but it doesn't seem like to me.
2. I don't think it's MORE beneficial (it can be difficult to parcel out the practice from the aging), but I do think it would be a useful complement to this study. We have some data that does basically that now, but it will take some time to sort through.
3. As you note, it is a sample of one. The findings we describe in the paper are measured in thousands of players. Nevertheless, APM changes with age AND with experience. As you get better, you get faster; as you get older, you get slower. They offset each other, so it doesn't surprise me that some people's APMs do not shift much and it looks like nothing is changing. The bad news is that older is slower, the good news is that you are probably getting better!
1. The LDL seems to increase more with age in the lower leagues than it does in higher leagues. Wouldn't there be the same rate of LDL increase with age in all leagues if it were purely because of the brain slowing down? Also, from 25 > the sample size looks to be decreasing, which makes what you can take from those results less reliable. I would argue that from 25 to 35 responsibilities are steadily increasing on average, though less so than they are from 20 to 25.
On April 11 2014 10:56 BuddhaMonk wrote: The question of wrist problems comes to mind. It could be that wrists are just not meant to do so much and you top out at a lower age than other physical sports.
It's a shame though, as others have said, it does seem that the data is just random ladder players. While interesting, it says nothing as to the "slowing down" of pro players.
I dare say most players don't do the proper exercises/stretches to maintain their wrists.
On April 11 2014 08:46 BisuDagger wrote: I have actually improved a ton recently. At 26 my typing dexterity and apm has greatly increased, but I'm also someone who matured late mentally too.
I would expect that everyone ages in exactly the same way as everyone else. Remember, though, that aging and experience are independent factors. You can get better with practice, even as you get slower with age.
How can you say everyone ages in the same way? I've always been 3-4 behind in maturity. While I have always been intelligent, I didn't start thinking very independently till much later the most. I don't practice so lot, I just understand the game better now and decisions are much easier/quicker to make.
That's actually a mistake. I meant to type that I would NOT expect everyone to age in exactly the same way, so in a sample of over 3000 players not every 35yr old will be slower that every 30 year old, even in the same league.
1. The LDL seems to increase more with age in the lower leagues than it does in higher leagues. Wouldn't there be the same rate of LDL increase with age in all leagues if it were purely because of the brain slowing down? Also, from 25 > the sample size looks to be decreasing, which makes what you can take from those results less reliable. I would argue that from 25 to 35 responsibilities are steadily increasing on average, though less so than they are from 20 to 25.
It doesn't though, not significantly. There is no interaction between age and league, which means that the affect of age is NOT influenced by skill.
The sample size is, literally, 10 time larger than other studies of it's kind, at ages above 35. That's one of the nice things about dealing with replay data like this.
I really don't see how having a day job steadily makes your reactions slower after 24. You could be right of course. That sounds like a great headline " Scientists discover that having a day job slows your cognitive-motor system: Thousands of people quit their jobs." It's an empirical question. You should do a study.
Not fan of these "studies" most are not very correct at all and sometimes silly. Maybe in athletics for professional sports like Baseball, Football(American) ECT, but saying your performance decreases on computers/games in your late 20s is just down right silly and false.
Our world functions on technology, sorry but if musicians can play at a high professional level until they are in their late 80s with a healthy brain, no way in hell a healthy 25 -35 year old is going to see a decrease in starcraft 2 performance at a professional level. Koreans stop around that age due to mandatory military service or real life priorities outside of their gaming career such as marriage ECT.
If you don't take care of yourself, you will see health problems at a young age. Pro Koreans play sc2 +12 hours a day, of course some of them will see wrist problems.
On April 11 2014 08:46 BisuDagger wrote: I have actually improved a ton recently. At 26 my typing dexterity and apm has greatly increased, but I'm also someone who matured late mentally too.
How late? Were you learning algebra at 20 or something?
Your APM/WPM has probably gone up from just practicing more honestly.
Many good points raised I think more specific research is required to remove the outstanding variables.
Some information
1) You cannot assume the reduction of players APM is due to a reduction in physical ability as others have pointed out practice time etc has an effect. 2) Also the study seems to be talking about reaction time. APM is not a measure of reaction time it is a measure of the speed something can be done at. I might be able to press a hundred keys a minute but how long will it take me to observe something and then react to it. That’s the real test of reaction time. 3) What this study shows is that speed not reaction time is less for older players of StarCraft 2 than younger players of StarCraft 2. You cannot draw any conclusion about reaction time nor can you conclude that a reduction in speed is due to an actually physiological cause (other factor may play a role).
On April 11 2014 08:46 BisuDagger wrote: I have actually improved a ton recently. At 26 my typing dexterity and apm has greatly increased, but I'm also someone who matured late mentally too.
How late? Were you learning algebra at 20 or something?
Your APM/WPM has probably gone up from just practicing more honestly.
I don't practice nor play like I used to 4+ years ago. And I meant just behavioral maturity. My education has always been up to par. It's nothing major. And I guess most people say males are way behind in maturity years then females. I am just willing to admit that was true for me growing up. Now I feel like I'm caught up to the curb.
funny to see the relatively older people here vehemently deny getting slower with age though lol.
i'm 30+ myself and i wouldn't dare claim to be as fast as i was in my 20s. it's just not true. i don't feel too bad about it though cause wisdom and experience more than make up for it
On April 11 2014 12:48 Marcinko wrote: So what you're telling me is that at the ripe age of 31, I am pretty screwed?
No, just that you wouldn't play as well now as you would have if you were younger. That said, if you have the skill, go for it. See if you can't get into WCS Europe, Americas, or hell... fly to Seoul and give Code B a shot.
There are statistical outliers, always, so just because there are no great and amazing pro players over 30 doesn't mean you couldn't be one! (Just that, y'know, the odds are low. Lower than if you were doing it while you were 19.) (Also, apologies to Nestea - but he's been napping for the past year or so.)
The present study investigates age-related changes in cognitive motor performance through adolescence and adulthood in a complex real world task, the real-time strategy video game StarCraft 2.
Haha, really? Sc2 has nothing to do with the real world, regarding both story and skills.
In a competitive point of view I'm not even sure it changes anything on BW, and it certainly doesn't change anything for SC2. And for any RTS, APM doesn't change because of the age, RTS mechanics only depend of the practice, these are not reflexes. It may however influence on games like QuakeLive (maybe CS), where you need insane reflexes.
On April 11 2014 08:46 BisuDagger wrote: I have actually improved a ton recently. At 26 my typing dexterity and apm has greatly increased, but I'm also someone who matured late mentally too.
I would expect that everyone ages in exactly the same way as everyone else. Remember, though, that aging and experience are independent factors. You can get better with practice, even as you get slower with age.
How can you say everyone ages in the same way? I've always been 3-4 behind in maturity. While I have always been intelligent, I didn't start thinking very independently till much later the most. I don't practice so lot, I just understand the game better now and decisions are much easier/quicker to make.
Ha, well it's always easy to say to ones self "I'm intelligent! I do things well!"
I think the data of this study is interesting, if not a little skewed (what study isn't?). Most people around that age are joining the workforce/marriage, etc.
I know this is not actually what the article is about but this seems to be where the conversation is heading :
Unless you're only counting pros, I think the analysis is pointless.
I'm 27 and I work a full-time job at a bank. I have a buddy who is 18 and in High School. Sure you could say that he is younger and has quicker reflexes and dexterity, but he sure as hell also has a lot more time to play the game.
Similarly, I have another friend who's 32 and has two daughters. He plays whenever he can and has in the past beaten me while holding one of them in his lap. Sure he plays at like 4APM, but he makes a lot better macro decisions than I do and plays in a way that compensates for his slowness.
TLDR So basically it comes down to: unless everyone has equal opportunity to practice you can't necessarily say that getting old produces worse results.
On April 11 2014 23:26 LuckyGnomTV wrote: Luckily SC2 is not only about cognitive-motor performance.
THIS. x1000.
Sure they may begin to slow down at 24, but with age comes experience. You learn things such as how to read your opponent, how to prepare for a match, how to handle high stress situations... which in a game as complex as StarCraft I think are very important.
Maybe for FPS games the 24 age barrier is more relevant since (and no insult to FPS players) it comes down to "click on his face before he clicks on your face."
what most people (including this study) forget is that after years and years of progaming there are a lot of people who lose their passion.
it's because the years of playing pc games are much more intense compared to RL sports. you don't practice soccer 10 hours a day and sleep with 10 teammates in a dormlike appartment with 25+ years
it is way harder to "live" pc games for more than a decade (considering you start at smth like 14-15 years of age) thus many pro gamers retire in their mid 20's and only the most passionate ones will do it longer professionally.
On April 11 2014 11:55 LingBlingBling wrote: Not fan of these "studies" most are not very correct at all and sometimes silly. Maybe in athletics for professional sports like Baseball, Football(American) ECT, but saying your performance decreases on computers/games in your late 20s is just down right silly and false.
Our world functions on technology, sorry but if musicians can play at a high professional level until they are in their late 80s with a healthy brain, no way in hell a healthy 25 -35 year old is going to see a decrease in starcraft 2 performance at a professional level. Koreans stop around that age due to mandatory military service or real life priorities outside of their gaming career such as marriage ECT.
If you don't take care of yourself, you will see health problems at a young age. Pro Koreans play sc2 +12 hours a day, of course some of them will see wrist problems.
So basically you are saying that the study is false because you feel like it. Strong argument. There is a lot of mental faculties that start to decline around 25-30 years. Actually most of abstract and very complex problem solving starts to decline at about that time. Most people do not notice it until later, because they are not doing anything on the level that you could notice it. Musicians are not a good counterexample, how do they require quick reactions or complex problem solving ? Experience can balance the aging issues and does so, but to different degrees in different areas.
I am turning 28 in a couple months, and I know my hands have slowed down and my reactions aren't quite as good as they used to be. On the other hand I think I'm better at SC2 and Dota then I was a couple years ago despite slowing down. A lot of both of these games are about predicting and decision making, and I know both of those have improved for me.
That would probably explain a lot of these anomolies of older progamers being successful. They might not be the fastest or have the highest reaction times, but they can read and predict the game better and don't have to constantly be reacting. Both SC2 and Dota are not twitch games, but games that are about decision making more than reactions.
On April 11 2014 23:39 effecto wrote: I don't believe in those studies. Only time involved into the game decrease after 24 yo not reaction time.
And I do not believe in gravity. I am not saying that the study is correct, as many purely statistical studies are very flawed, but you need a better argument than : "I do not like it". And it is not like it is some unexpected result. There is a lot of supporting evidence for this actually happening in the 25-30 interval.
How do you know that older players just aren't taking more time to think than younger players are? Not to mention you split up the groups by league, which is hardly fair because anyone who has an advantage in non-mechanical abilities (older players) will inevitably have a disadvantage in mechanical abilities, because otherwise they wouldn't be in the same league.
i kind of agree, but it is also more related to wokring hours.. you take a relaxed aproach.. when i was around 20-21 my apm and concentration skill were much much better. Now I take the game more relaxed since i know i cannot improve too much with the amount of time i invest in the game. But hey, watching SC2 competition is more fun after you have more then 24 years
I would rather read the statistics saying that players above the age of 24 are slightly slower, not that you get slower after the age of 24. There are other factors not taken into account that can give you the same result.
By 28 traditional athletes are pretty much all slowing down so there is no reason to think that by 28 esports players will start slowing down. However, some people do start slowing down way before 28 in traditional sports as well. Also, studies have shown the same age is about when chess players start losing the ability to process information as quickly, but in chess they balance that with a larger bank of total knowledge and familiarity so that they are worse at processing but also find themselves needing to process less. This allows the chess player to make a trade off that can keep them going for quite awhile.
Also, remember that a person with 600 APM slowing down will not become 60 APM over night...its just natural aging.
On April 12 2014 00:11 nkr wrote: I would rather read the statistics saying that players above the age of 24 are slightly slower, not that you get slower after the age of 24. There are other factors not taken into account that can give you the same result.
This is serious scholarship, guys. Unless, having actually read the article, you can point to a particular factor that they didn't take into account, you shouldn't just assume that they didn't consider it and integrate it into the work.
Let me repeat that: this is obviously serious scholarship, published in a peer-reviewed journal. There's a ton of generic "Oh, I dunno about that" in this thread by people who obviously haven't actually read the piece. This isn't some dude saying 'oh, you know, you can just tell that they're slower;' this is a rigorous statistical assessment of a substantial data set. If you're not going to read it, at least give it the credit that peer-review deserves.
I would expect such a result to come out of statistical analyses even if speed was independent of age, because of (but not limited to) the age of gaming in general, the age of sc2 specifically and the age dependence of practice time availability.
On April 12 2014 00:20 HelpMeGetBetter wrote: I love these players/people/threads that STILL proclaim APM equals skill/knowledge. Can't decide if its just ignorance, or trolling, or what.
Also, I'm 30. And I've been improving over the past couple months....
Nothing new, but it is true that you can't show great performance anymore ( ~80% chance) if your are >25. extreme example is Go (board game), best performanced people (only fulltime players) if you are 17 or 18. ~22yo in Go is like 33 in football relating to performance.
At the same time, there are numerous studies stating that you can practically re-wire your brain - this is by no means a 'law' that at age 24 you're not going to play as well as you do/did.
On April 12 2014 00:40 Nethune wrote: At the same time, there are numerous studies stating that you can practically re-wire your brain - this is by no means a 'law' that at age 24 you're not going to play as well as you do/did.
The study doesn't say that. The study says that, in general, people start getting worse at a particular aspect of playing SC2 around age 24. That is substantially different from saying that, starting at age 24, you're not going to play as well as you used to.
I'm sure there are plenty of instances where this isn't the case (I'm 20 and my APM is only about 80, though I am crap at the game, so I expect as I improve so too will my APM), but I think it's true for a lot of sports as well. In soccer/football, the "development phase" is considered over by 24, and by 27/28 they will peak and by 31ish will be on the decline. People do get naturally slower as they get older.
On April 12 2014 00:11 nkr wrote: I would rather read the statistics saying that players above the age of 24 are slightly slower, not that you get slower after the age of 24. There are other factors not taken into account that can give you the same result.
This is serious scholarship, guys. Unless, having actually read the article, you can point to a particular factor that they didn't take into account, you shouldn't just assume that they didn't consider it and integrate it into the work.
Let me repeat that: this is obviously serious scholarship, published in a peer-reviewed journal. There's a ton of generic "Oh, I dunno about that" in this thread by people who obviously haven't actually read the piece. This isn't some dude saying 'oh, you know, you can just tell that they're slower;' this is a rigorous statistical assessment of a substantial data set. If you're not going to read it, at least give it the credit that peer-review deserves.
I've read it, and I don't disagree with their methods or findings, only the conclusion they've drawn. The statistics DO show that the older players are slower, but not that a player gets slower as he/she gets older. If you wanted to measure the impact of age on a persons reaction times, you'd have to gather data from the same set of people over a period of time relevant to the study, and having them maintain the same effort of playing during that period.
The statistics simply do not show that players get slower as they get older, because that's not what the gathered data means in my humble opinion. It shows that the older players are slower. There is a significant distinction to be made here, in my eyes.
On April 12 2014 00:31 Dingodile wrote: Nothing new, but it is true that you can't show great performance anymore ( ~80% chance) if your are >25. extreme example is Go (board game), best performanced people (only fulltime players) if you are 17 or 18. ~22yo in Go is like 33 in football relating to performance.
Go Seigen (said to be one of the strongest players of all time) dominated the japanese Go world (in its prime) for over twenty years in ten-game matches, starting with around 20 years. (Sensei's Library)
Yi Ch'ang-ho "is considered to have been the strongest player in the world from around 1995 through 2006" (Sensei's Library), while being 20-31 years old.
Yi Se-tol "is known for being regarded as the best player in the world in 2008 and 2010-2" (Sensei's Library), while being 25-29 years old.
Gu Li "is one of the strongest players in the world" (Sensei's Library) and won his first international title with 24 (promoting him to 9-dan).
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I didn't read the study but as long as human history keeps refuting data suggesting something like "too young / too old / unlikely / impossible", I don't need to ^^
I've always wondered about age decline myself. I think this should be looked at from a country-to-country basis, with culture taken into consideration.
In the USA - 24 is the age where college/work-life transition kind of begins. Gaming can still be taken seriously, but not nearly as serious as a younger gamer that is not in such an important transition period.
In Korea, where gaming is taken (in my experience and knowledge) much more seriously as far as career goes. I think Europe is similar to the USA when it comes to school/workforce transition in life, but I honestly think that has a LOT to do with it.
Motor skills, and reaction times - hm i have a really hard time believing that has anything to do with the decline, as I believe just lack of time investment is the true reason. There are people that transition from gaming - college - to careers that require EXTREMELY good reaction times and motor skills (on a professional level, from engineering, to law enforcment, medicine) - some of the jobs where the decision making and consequence of a mistake are much more dire than sc2 (sc2 you can recover from mistakes whereas precision in some careers are very unforgiving).
with that said, i think this has a lot to do with the age of the game, the transitionary periods that people take in their 20's (which are extremely important in western countries, ESPECIALLY the USA - i can't stress enough that this period being a "pro gamer" in your mid twenties is something that might hurt you more than help you in this country at this age, when it comes to relationships, career, personal financing, and school).
My opinion. I am 29 now, and I have transitioned to more casual games (like WoW), and I'm not the warcraft 3 or starcraft legend I once was, not so much because of my reaction times slowing down or anything, but more with my invested time. I was a semi-pro at warcraft 3 when i was 17 through college. I only achieved that goal through practice. I just don't have the time to invest in the game anymore.
I'm just one example, but I think this is a study that should continue, and hopefully they continue to explore it a lot more. Great post and keep us posted on what you find! please, because I think it's already interesting as is...
Gaming is like a sport, and even in professional sports, we see athletes decline at certain ages (in certain sports), so it would be interesting to see some conclusions drawn here.
I just hope the data gets broken down a little more - taking culture, country, etc. into account.
On April 12 2014 00:40 Nethune wrote: At the same time, there are numerous studies stating that you can practically re-wire your brain - this is by no means a 'law' that at age 24 you're not going to play as well as you do/did.
The study doesn't say that. The study says that, in general, people start getting worse at a particular aspect of playing SC2 around age 24. That is substantially different from saying that, starting at age 24, you're not going to play as well as you used to.
Hmm, that's not that far either? If you start getting worse at some particular aspect of the game, all other things being equal, it's tough to argue that you can continue playing as well as you did. Unless you had like "too many APMs for the game", but I don't think anyone has that problem. Unless you meant "maybe the study doesn't apply to you", in which case, well: no shit.
On April 12 2014 00:11 nkr wrote: I would rather read the statistics saying that players above the age of 24 are slightly slower, not that you get slower after the age of 24. There are other factors not taken into account that can give you the same result.
This is serious scholarship, guys. Unless, having actually read the article, you can point to a particular factor that they didn't take into account, you shouldn't just assume that they didn't consider it and integrate it into the work.
Let me repeat that: this is obviously serious scholarship, published in a peer-reviewed journal. There's a ton of generic "Oh, I dunno about that" in this thread by people who obviously haven't actually read the piece. This isn't some dude saying 'oh, you know, you can just tell that they're slower;' this is a rigorous statistical assessment of a substantial data set. If you're not going to read it, at least give it the credit that peer-review deserves.
I've read it, and I don't disagree with their methods or findings, only the conclusion they've drawn. The statistics DO show that the older players are slower, but not that a player gets slower as he/she gets older. If you wanted to measure the impact of age on a persons reaction times, you'd have to gather data from the same set of people over a period of time relevant to the study, and having them maintain the same effort of playing during that period.
The statistics simply do not show that players get slower as they get older, because that's not what the gathered data means in my humble opinion. It shows that the older players are slower. There is a significant distinction to be made here, in my eyes.
Certainly that's a relevant distinction, but the paper discusses possible other explanations and argues that they are not as likely as age-related decline. You're entirely correct that the data shows that the older players are slower, but the authors also argue that it's not because of any differences (besides age) in the under-24 and over-24 cohorts. For example, they go into detail as to why the slowdown likely isn't because the older players were exposed to RTS games at a later age.
But my original post was probably too antagonistic, and picked your post out because it was the more recent when there were definitely much more egregious examples of the problem in the thread, so I should be more careful in the future.
On April 12 2014 00:40 Nethune wrote: At the same time, there are numerous studies stating that you can practically re-wire your brain - this is by no means a 'law' that at age 24 you're not going to play as well as you do/did.
The study doesn't say that. The study says that, in general, people start getting worse at a particular aspect of playing SC2 around age 24. That is substantially different from saying that, starting at age 24, you're not going to play as well as you used to.
Hmm, that's not that far either? If you start getting worse at some particular aspect of the game, all other things being equal, it's tough to argue that you can continue playing as well as you did. Unless you had like "too many APMs for the game", but I don't think anyone has that problem. Unless you meant "maybe the study doesn't apply to you", in which case, well: no shit.
They actually explicitly argue that for any particular person, the other things aren't really equal. For example, for any particular person, age is related to increased experience, which means that age-related decline is counterbalanced to a varying extent with experience-related improvement in other areas.
But also, it's important to highlight the distinction between claims about populations and claims about individuals. The paper argues that, as a group, people older than 24 will be slower than people younger than 24. But that does not imply that any particular person will start getting slower, just that in general, people get slower starting (roughly) at 24.
On April 12 2014 01:06 Chaplin wrote: I didn't read the study but as long as human history keeps refuting data suggesting something like "too young / too old / unlikely / impossible", I don't need to ^^
This is such a mentally weak statement.
If we were to just rate speed from 1 to 100 for any sport. Michael Jordan may have been winning later in his career while having declined to 80 from a peak when he wasn't winning at 85. Jordan was never the fastest player.
There have been so many serious studies on how professional athletes quickness slows down starting around 27-29 for most athletes and independent studies also show that chess players brains begin to slow down in processing speed around the same time. Luckily for both speed isn't the only factor. In chess having a greater knowledge base helps the older players, etc.
So human history has never refuted anything in the article. Its stupid to even suggest this doesn't happen as every single person on the planet knows that you don't play in the NFL until you are 75...the German side at this world cup is not featuring Kahn or Matthaus or Beckenbauer. Brazil isn't featuring Pele and Ronaldo.
To even suggest that the overwhelming body of common sense and the already established same aspects happening in other sports doesn't exist is akin to proclaiming the world is flat and not round.
On April 12 2014 01:37 Scones wrote: To quote my Psychology exam, correlation does not equal cause and effect ^_^
Do you seriously believe that is the case in this study? I strongly doubt that age and motor skills are independent of each other.
Nice study, I'm not confident with the error bound given the nature of APM in games but I'm sure in a larger sample population the same would be the case. Thanks for the great work. Are you an actuary or just someone that likes statistics?
I don't understand why people who play SC/video games would start slowing down at 24, but professional athletes don't hit their peak until about 27 (MLB players). I think there are some cultural and psychological aspects not really being accounted for.
I can completely attest to this. I have been playing Starcraft for 4 years now and from where I started compared to now, I am much, much slower compared to when I started and compared to when I used to play other competitive games. It definitely takes a much more conscious effort for me to play and keep up with what is going on.
I am 29, Masters Protoss, about 140 APM is my limit. I am sure this is easy to shrug off if you haven't experienced it, but I most definitely have and it's a crappy feeling.
On April 12 2014 01:56 GrapeApe wrote: I don't understand why people who play SC/video games would start slowing down at 24, but professional athletes don't hit their peak until about 27 (MLB players). I think there are some cultural and psychological aspects not really being accounted for.
Here's a proposal: the skills are different. The things you need to be good at to be a world-class baseball player are not the same skills as those you need to be a world-class SC2 pro, and they develop differently. It's actually the case that some skills in baseball peak earlier than 26-27 as well, like defense and throwing velocity.
Personally I am just turning 20 and every year I find starcraft less important. I have kept my passion, but as I have matured I have found my performance in video games be less relevant. I no longer find myself turning on my game mode after school and put my 110% focus on a video game. I don´t even know if I can get so hectic about a good game as I did a couple years back when I used to game past mid-night on almost every single weekend.
I like to think that the study neglects the fact that it is much easier to get serious about a game like Starcraft when you are in your late teens or early twenties than when you are getting close to thirty.
Good article. I may have overlooked it but your methods never really described how you used the data for analysis and results were confusing to me.
Specifically your first and second research question. You stated that "it appears that there is age-related slowing of looking-doing responses, but that this decline is not ameliorated by level of expertise."
You are comparing how fast the player can react to what he or she sees to their overall mechanical understanding of the game. Assuming I am talking about high level players, If age related decline does effect the player, it would most likely be very very very very mild and have little effect on their overall performance. A player should not have to compensate for their latency by reducing their normal actions to increase mechanical efficiency. The latency decline would be too minor, and that is to say there really is a noticeable decline at all.
On April 12 2014 01:57 Magnet wrote: I can completely attest to this. I have been playing Starcraft for 4 years now and from where I started compared to now, I am much, much slower compared to when I started and compared to when I used to play other competitive games. It definitely takes a much more conscious effort for me to play and keep up with what is going on.
I am 29, Masters Protoss, about 140 APM is my limit. I am sure this is easy to shrug off if you haven't experienced it, but I most definitely have and it's a crappy feeling.
This could also attest to any lifestyle changes that may have happened over the past few years. Maybe you have other things that you give more attention to or your focus has changed. The list could go on and on. Although I am not saying you are wrong, I just have a personal doubt that your "age related decline" could become so significant over just a couple of years. Your conscious effort is devoted somewhere else.
Seems to me that unrelated to physical capability you are always going to find a downward trend in speed related to age in esports when you do a research like this.
People are less motivated to play games intensively once they reach at a certain age. There's a few reasons for this. One: esports is incredibly tough mentally and most people just can't keep up the same level of intensity. Two: you need to start thinking about other options in life. Less motivation leads to lower APM.
There are also other possibilities to explain a speed discrepancy such as the youngsters of our scene growing up with trying to be fast. If in 2006 one kid of the age of 7 schools himself to have an high APM, and one guy who is 16 does the same, then, if all else is the same, in 2014 guaranteed the 15 year old will be faster than the 24 year old. Because gaming and esports are still new things the older you are the more likely it is you started at a later age.
Whether or not slowing down at these specific ages is related to physics I'm not convinced about.
Similarly in response to some posts in the topic I don't think examples of individuals getting faster is relevant at all. There are pretty much unlimited variables that can explain this for an individual.
I don't know about 26 but age brings some problems in terms of dedication, drive, time and skill. If you don't try to train yourself and do something casually(playing games for instance), you can feel the degradation of "speed" and increase in decision making, oversight and experience. 28 here and it is quite obvious I rely on more "seeing" than doing" comparing to early 20's. In addition I was far more accurate in writing with keyboard before. Sigh, I guess I am an old geezer now.
On April 12 2014 01:57 Magnet wrote: I can completely attest to this. I have been playing Starcraft for 4 years now and from where I started compared to now, I am much, much slower compared to when I started and compared to when I used to play other competitive games. It definitely takes a much more conscious effort for me to play and keep up with what is going on.
I am 29, Masters Protoss, about 140 APM is my limit. I am sure this is easy to shrug off if you haven't experienced it, but I most definitely have and it's a crappy feeling.
This could also attest to any lifestyle changes that may have happened over the past few years. Maybe you have other things that you give more attention to or your focus has changed. The list could go on and on. Although I am not saying you are wrong, I just have a personal doubt that your "age related decline" could become so significant over just a couple of years. Your conscious effort is devoted somewhere else.
I understand that argument but in this case it isn't true. I play Starcraft more often and more intensely than I had in the past. I can feel myself working as hard as I can and be in much worse spots in the game than what I would expect after so much time.
When I first started playing, I was slower/worse because I just didn't understand the game and didn't understand what was important. Now I understand every important aspect of the game, after having played regularly for 4 years with no breaks. When I call on my speed and need to get several things done at once, I just can't do everything I need or want to, wheras in the past that was no problem. The clear distinction is knowing what needs to be done but just not being fast enough to be able to do it. Any sort of intense micro situation I am bound to screw up because I just can't control units like I used to, either.
The other aspect of this is fatigue. Even my 5th consecutive game is far worse executed than my first. My first game I usually easily win over my opponent because I have all my energy, but even just a few games later I am much worse and can't properly execute even the simplest builds.
Either way, about 6 months to a year ago I distinctly remember myself getting ridiculously slow and it made me not want to play anymore. Getting even 100 APM was challenging and it was hard to find ways to still play at a level that I expected out of myself. I have worked pretty hard the last while to improve that but I am clearly fighting my body's aging process and it's pretty obvious.
Like I said, it's easy to shrug off if you've never felt it before, but I have and it's definitely a real thing.
I should also mention that in regards to having more responsibility, etc, etc, I actually have less responsibility right now than when I started. I don't have kids or anything, had a wife the entire time, all that good stuff. It's not a matter of being less interested in the game, either. It's just the simple natural fact that at this age you just can't do the things you used to, both physically and mentally. You won't know unless you consistently do something really challenging throughout your late 20's and feel that decline for yourself.
On April 12 2014 01:56 GrapeApe wrote: I don't understand why people who play SC/video games would start slowing down at 24, but professional athletes don't hit their peak until about 27 (MLB players). I think there are some cultural and psychological aspects not really being accounted for.
It's a fair point, but it seems like you are comparing apples to oranges. You are comparing reaction time in SC to overall career performance in basketball.
It's possible, likely in my view, that pro SC players peak sometime after 24. Because they can still be gaining knowledge about the game, improving LAN performance, they can still increase their LDL, even as age begins to take it's toll. Their experience and knowledge can be more valuable than a younger players raw speed.
Remember also (it's part of the paper, but people seem to be missing it) that people compensate by adjusting their play style. Older Platinum players are slower, on average than younger Platinum players, but they are all still in platinum.
The main take-home message of the paper, in my view, is that age-related changes are basically always happening (parts of the brain are still developing at 24yrs), and we have to constantly adjust our play to compensate for a changing set of skills and capacities.
Adapting to the constant changes within yourself is what wins the day.
I noticed that your introduction got a bit defensive when it came to SC2's legitimacy as an expertise task. Have you run up against much resistance among peer reviewers to using this dataset in the stuff you've published so far?
Also...
the sample includes 3276 males and 29 females, so no generalizations here will be extended to the latter population
Interesting study, but like other people are mentioning, I think there are just too many other factors to actually make an ultimatum as such.
It's kind of generally accepted that people in their early/mid 20's have the highest bodily advantages, but an advantage is simply an advantage. a 50 year old who has not spend their entire life over stressing their hands/wrists/fingers, they would be able to come over and train themselves to have just as high of an APM. If you've overstressed your body, your body is going to suffer in that region over time.
Anyways, I think that this study is pretty correct, but should be taken with a grain of salt. We kind of already knew that this information was true, it's pretty common sense, but hearing that someone took the time to scientifically back it up is nice. In the end though, none of this matters. The important thing is the situation and condition of the individual.
I think there are too many variables to come to the conclusion you have, but thank you for the research nonetheless.
For example, I find it intersting that 24 is the age where we see this slowing since that coincides pretty closely with the age where people start to leave college and get a job (typical bachellors taking 4-6 years to complete here in the US), and also typically have to start taking care of all the things that come with being an adult (Rent / bills / insurance / ect).
Having less time to play makes a huge difference; my replays of my games from MLG last year (When I was arguably at my peak) put me at 170-190 apm, but my more recent replays put me at 110-130 apm (and with much slower response times as well) just because I haven't been able to play much in the past 6 months or so, and when I have found time I haven't been playing with the mentality of improving but with the mentality of enjoying myself.
On April 12 2014 02:05 Frex wrote: Personally I am just turning 20 and every year I find starcraft less important. I have kept my passion, but as I have matured I have found my performance in video games be less relevant. I no longer find myself turning on my game mode after school and put my 110% focus on a video game. I don´t even know if I can get so hectic about a good game as I did a couple years back when I used to game past mid-night on almost every single weekend.
I like to think that the study neglects the fact that it is much easier to get serious about a game like Starcraft when you are in your late teens or early twenties than when you are getting close to thirty.
Did you notice that they do not actually claim that skill level decreases, just that the speed is, so your objection completely misses.
Eh, not exactly sure how they come to the conclusion that skill declines with age just because a good portion of the older players are slower. Seems to me like they kinda just scratched the surface on the irl interferences like work, family etc. pp. and shrugged it off to a certain extent.
As long as even 40+ year old guitar players like Petrucci or Broderick (among a ton of others) can shred faces off, flying across 7-strings, playing 16th triplets at 200 bpm, while keeping track of the song, the rest of the band members and both the fretting and picking hand, I think I will be fine as long as I can spend quality time in games practicing.
The amount that people "slow" as they get older is so small it's irrelevant. Look at all the piano greats that still play the hardest songs imaginable well into their 70s. Their hands are still flying across the keys, so I wouldn't let this aging dissuade you at all.
On April 12 2014 02:22 Liquid`Nazgul wrote: Seems to me that unrelated to physical capability you are always going to find a downward trend in speed related to age in esports when you do a research like this.
People are less motivated to play games intensively once they reach at a certain age. There's a few reasons for this. One: esports is incredibly tough mentally and most people just can't keep up the same level of intensity. Two: you need to start thinking about other options in life. Less motivation leads to lower APM.
There are also other possibilities to explain a speed discrepancy such as the youngsters of our scene growing up with trying to be fast. If in 2006 one kid of the age of 7 schools himself to have an high APM, and one guy who is 16 does the same, then, if all else is the same, in 2014 guaranteed the 15 year old will be faster than the 24 year old. Because gaming and esports are still new things the older you are the more likely it is you started at a later age.
Whether or not slowing down at these specific ages is related to physics I'm not convinced about.
Let me respond to a few of these points.
Point 1: Less motivation leads to less APM. - I completely agree with this as an explanation for why there are proportionally fewer high level players that are older. Gaining and maintaining a high level of skill require commitment and time, and when that wanes, so does performance. BUT, What we find is the same speed effect in every league Bronze 20s are faster than bronze 30s, Silver 20s are faster than Silver 30s, and on up. I have a hard time believing that speed differences within bronze and silver are due to motivation. I'm certainly motivated to win, as, I'm sure, is everyone who plays.
Point 2: 8 years of speed training will benefit a 7yr old more than a 16 yr old. Your argument is that there is a physiological "critical period" wherein an equivalent amount of training will benefit a younger person more than an older person. Perhaps. We certainly don't have the data to rule out this kind of effect. There is lots of expertise research, though, that seems to show that performance is a product of training time, and that, given equivalent training, you will see equivalent gains. The problem is that the 16yr old won't really spend the equivalent time to train (your point 1, perhaps), and so everything is not equal. Note though, that in our sample there are no differences in total SC2 experience among the different ages, and thus there is no reason to believe that older people aren't doing the same kind of training.
Point 3: These changes are not physiological changes. There are many studies of human physiology which show degradation of various kinds at this general time period, so there's not much disagreement about the possibility that these changes are biologically based. When we wrote the paper, we had to keep fighting with one reviewer who wanted us to speculate about the neurophysiological underpinnings of this effect. We were reluctant to do that because we don't have any biological data. So, I agree that we can't say for sure that these changes are biological degradation, but I don't think it's implausible that they are.
On April 12 2014 02:05 Frex wrote: Personally I am just turning 20 and every year I find starcraft less important. I have kept my passion, but as I have matured I have found my performance in video games be less relevant. I no longer find myself turning on my game mode after school and put my 110% focus on a video game. I don´t even know if I can get so hectic about a good game as I did a couple years back when I used to game past mid-night on almost every single weekend.
I like to think that the study neglects the fact that it is much easier to get serious about a game like Starcraft when you are in your late teens or early twenties than when you are getting close to thirty.
Did you notice that they do not actually claim that skill level decreases, just that the speed is, so your objection completely misses.
You make a good point, however, for me personally focus equals higher APM. If I´m not as motivated to play it also shows in my speed since I don´t have the same drive to reach high APM.
On April 12 2014 02:05 Frex wrote: Personally I am just turning 20 and every year I find starcraft less important. I have kept my passion, but as I have matured I have found my performance in video games be less relevant. I no longer find myself turning on my game mode after school and put my 110% focus on a video game. I don´t even know if I can get so hectic about a good game as I did a couple years back when I used to game past mid-night on almost every single weekend.
I like to think that the study neglects the fact that it is much easier to get serious about a game like Starcraft when you are in your late teens or early twenties than when you are getting close to thirty.
Did you notice that they do not actually claim that skill level decreases, just that the speed is, so your objection completely misses.
You make a good point, however, for me personally focus equals higher APM. If I´m not as motivated to play it also shows in my speed since I don´t have the same drive to reach high APM.
That objection seems to be mitigated by the fact that they actually observed this on all skill levels (leagues).
On April 12 2014 02:30 ASoo wrote: Great work on this study, I enjoyed the read.
I noticed that your introduction got a bit defensive when it came to SC2's legitimacy as an expertise task. Have you run up against much resistance among peer reviewers to using this dataset in the stuff you've published so far?
the sample includes 3276 males and 29 females, so no generalizations here will be extended to the latter population
lol
We are careful to make the arguments to establish it as legitimate expertise. I do this in talks as well. Mostly people are just surprised to find that eSports is a thing. It will change over time, as long as the eSports demographic opens up beyond the 16-24 male crowd.
We're candid about the sample, so we haven't had any trouble there. I was surprised at the degree of skew. Our sample was primarily from the TL and Reddit groups, so perhaps female SC2 players hang out someplace else.
One time I had a professor interested in studying mentoring programs for video game communities call me up. When she found out only 1% of the players were female she practically hung up on me, lol.
On April 12 2014 01:06 Chaplin wrote: I didn't read the study but as long as human history keeps refuting data suggesting something like "too young / too old / unlikely / impossible", I don't need to ^^
This is such a mentally weak statement.
This is such a mentally weak statement.
On April 12 2014 01:24 Eliezar wrote: To even suggest that the overwhelming body of common sense and the already established same aspects happening in other sports doesn't exist is akin to proclaiming the world is flat and not round.
The overwhelming body of common sense argued in the (I believe) 70's that runners won't surpass the 100m world record at that time. Suggesting that humans simply can't run faster. (We are now almost half a second faster.) It was also believed and common sense that women had no shot in professional chess (deficit in the visual-spatial realm and all that good jazz). Then Judith Polgar became Grandmaster at a younger age than Bobby Fischer. A whole lot of people still think that you need talent in any given field to achieve expert status.
There are a plethora of possible reasons why people in physical demanding sports don't last long (read: physically decline while still being relative young). One might be very well that people train in harmful ways. I can imagine that this even multiplies when you start young. I for one don't question an advancement in sports medicine. (Wikipedia says: "Athletic training has been recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA) as an allied health care profession since 1990." Seems not that long for a profession?)
On April 11 2014 23:39 Kitaen wrote: what most people (including this study) forget is that after years and years of progaming there are a lot of people who lose their passion.
it's because the years of playing pc games are much more intense compared to RL sports. you don't practice soccer 10 hours a day and sleep with 10 teammates in a dormlike appartment with 25+ years
it is way harder to "live" pc games for more than a decade (considering you start at smth like 14-15 years of age) thus many pro gamers retire in their mid 20's and only the most passionate ones will do it longer professionally.
On April 12 2014 02:50 Azelja wrote: Eh, not exactly sure how they come to the conclusion that skill declines with age just because a good portion of the older players are slower. Seems to me like they kinda just scratched the surface on the irl interferences like work, family etc. pp. and shrugged it off to a certain extent.
As long as even 40+ year old guitar players like Petrucci or Broderick (among a ton of others) can shred faces off, flying across 7-strings, playing 16th triplets at 200 bpm, while keeping track of the song, the rest of the band members and both the fretting and picking hand, I think I will be fine as long as I can spend quality time in games practicing.
Response time is the slowing they're talking about, not simple finger-speed. Looking-doing latency, as they call it, is not relevant to nearly the same degree in practiced musical contexts.
On April 12 2014 01:06 Chaplin wrote: I didn't read the study but as long as human history keeps refuting data suggesting something like "too young / too old / unlikely / impossible", I don't need to ^^
On April 12 2014 01:24 Eliezar wrote: To even suggest that the overwhelming body of common sense and the already established same aspects happening in other sports doesn't exist is akin to proclaiming the world is flat and not round.
The overwhelming body of common sense argued in the (I believe) 70's that runners won't surpass the 100m world record at that time. Suggesting that humans simply can't run faster. (We are now almost half a second faster.) It was also believed and common sense that women had no shot in professional chess (deficit in the visual-spatial realm and all that good jazz). Then Judith Polgar became Grandmaster at a younger age than Bobby Fischer. A whole lot of people still think that you need talent in any given field to achieve expert status.
There are a plethora of possible reasons why people in physical demanding sports don't last long (read: physically decline while still being relative young). One might be very well that people train in harmful ways. I can imagine that this even multiplies when you start young. I for one don't question an advancement in sports medicine. (Wikipedia says: "Athletic training has been recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA) as an allied health care profession since 1990." Seems not that long for a profession?)
Says a guy who did not read the study and did not even properly read the abstract in the OP.
On April 11 2014 23:39 Kitaen wrote: what most people (including this study) forget is that after years and years of progaming there are a lot of people who lose their passion.
it's because the years of playing pc games are much more intense compared to RL sports. you don't practice soccer 10 hours a day and sleep with 10 teammates in a dormlike appartment with 25+ years
it is way harder to "live" pc games for more than a decade (considering you start at smth like 14-15 years of age) thus many pro gamers retire in their mid 20's and only the most passionate ones will do it longer professionally.
What most responds to this thread are missing is that the study is across players of all leagues, so there's not really any progamer burn-out effect (which we can all see whenever legend xyz fails a come back or transition to SC2).
On April 11 2014 23:39 Kitaen wrote: what most people (including this study) forget is that after years and years of progaming there are a lot of people who lose their passion.
it's because the years of playing pc games are much more intense compared to RL sports. you don't practice soccer 10 hours a day and sleep with 10 teammates in a dormlike appartment with 25+ years
it is way harder to "live" pc games for more than a decade (considering you start at smth like 14-15 years of age) thus many pro gamers retire in their mid 20's and only the most passionate ones will do it longer professionally.
What most responds to this thread are missing is that the study is across players of all leagues, so there's not really any progamer burn-out effect (which we can all see whenever legend xyz fails a come back or transition to SC2).
well, as mentioned before, there are several reasons to slow down gaming hours in the mid 20's.
and btw, it was more of a theory than a backed up fact
but then again i know that playing 10 to 12 hours a day while maintaining top level is incredible exhausting if you HAVE to do it. it's not the same if you play for fun 10 hours, take a day off, party on the weekends with friends, fuck your girl 3 days a week when she's in town etc. if you play professionally for almost 10 years and only have average succes like most foreigners or b-teamers, ofc you will retire with 20 something when you still have all options to live a regular life.
The problem with this study is: The motor skills are refined at a very young age. That means, if someone starts playing too late he won't compare well against players that started at a young age. Therefore, to be meaningful, the study needs to compare players that started playing at the same age with each other.
On April 12 2014 01:06 Chaplin wrote: I didn't read the study but as long as human history keeps refuting data suggesting something like "too young / too old / unlikely / impossible", I don't need to ^^
This is such a mentally weak statement.
This is such a mentally weak statement.
On April 12 2014 01:24 Eliezar wrote: To even suggest that the overwhelming body of common sense and the already established same aspects happening in other sports doesn't exist is akin to proclaiming the world is flat and not round.
The overwhelming body of common sense argued in the (I believe) 70's that runners won't surpass the 100m world record at that time. Suggesting that humans simply can't run faster. (We are now almost half a second faster.) It was also believed and common sense that women had no shot in professional chess (deficit in the visual-spatial realm and all that good jazz). Then Judith Polgar became Grandmaster at a younger age than Bobby Fischer. A whole lot of people still think that you need talent in any given field to achieve expert status.
There are a plethora of possible reasons why people in physical demanding sports don't last long (read: physically decline while still being relative young). One might be very well that people train in harmful ways. I can imagine that this even multiplies when you start young. I for one don't question an advancement in sports medicine. (Wikipedia says: "Athletic training has been recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA) as an allied health care profession since 1990." Seems not that long for a profession?)
Says a guy who did not read the study and did not even properly read the abstract in the OP.
Says a guy who did not even say what the guy who says he did not read the study and therefor did not say anything about its specific content missed out or got wrong. But at least he had something to say.
On April 12 2014 03:24 Chaplin wrote: A whole lot of people still think that you need talent in any given field to achieve expert status.
becoming the expert is never the problem, becoming better than most experts requires the extra talent.
there is a reason we don't have 10 messis, 10 federers or 10 gretzkys.
then again, talent is smth you cannot deny.
it's not a training regime that seperates young boys in school weather they are good or bad at sports, some simply have it some don't.
So, we start off by putting yet another level on top of the one we call "expert" to justify "talent". Makes things too easy, in my opinion.
Of course there are reasons why some people are better than others. I would even say, there are many! Only the so called "talent" isn't one of them. But I can understand that it's an easy way out: If you don't succeed, you simply lack talent and can therefor give up with a clear conscience. It's also very easy to just speak out one word as a commentator instead of giving a thorough analysis of what makes you outstanding in any given field.
But since you mentioned tennis and because I accidently read something about the Williams sisters this day: Their father decided that they would become tennis professionals. Quite like the Polgar sisters and coincidently both fathers got their wish and they raised extraordinary "talents" or "geniuses".
On April 12 2014 01:06 Chaplin wrote: I didn't read the study but as long as human history keeps refuting data suggesting something like "too young / too old / unlikely / impossible", I don't need to ^^
This is such a mentally weak statement.
This is such a mentally weak statement.
On April 12 2014 01:24 Eliezar wrote: To even suggest that the overwhelming body of common sense and the already established same aspects happening in other sports doesn't exist is akin to proclaiming the world is flat and not round.
The overwhelming body of common sense argued in the (I believe) 70's that runners won't surpass the 100m world record at that time. Suggesting that humans simply can't run faster. (We are now almost half a second faster.) It was also believed and common sense that women had no shot in professional chess (deficit in the visual-spatial realm and all that good jazz). Then Judith Polgar became Grandmaster at a younger age than Bobby Fischer. A whole lot of people still think that you need talent in any given field to achieve expert status.
There are a plethora of possible reasons why people in physical demanding sports don't last long (read: physically decline while still being relative young). One might be very well that people train in harmful ways. I can imagine that this even multiplies when you start young. I for one don't question an advancement in sports medicine. (Wikipedia says: "Athletic training has been recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA) as an allied health care profession since 1990." Seems not that long for a profession?)
Says a guy who did not read the study and did not even properly read the abstract in the OP.
Says a guy who did not even say what the guy who says he did not read the study and therefor did not say anything about its specific content missed out or got wrong. But at least he had something to say.
On April 12 2014 03:24 Chaplin wrote: A whole lot of people still think that you need talent in any given field to achieve expert status.
becoming the expert is never the problem, becoming better than most experts requires the extra talent.
there is a reason we don't have 10 messis, 10 federers or 10 gretzkys.
then again, talent is smth you cannot deny.
it's not a training regime that seperates young boys in school weather they are good or bad at sports, some simply have it some don't.
So, we start off by putting yet another level on top of the one we call "expert" to justify "talent". Makes things too easy, in my opinion.
Of course there are reasons why some people are better than others. I would even say, there are many! Only the so called "talent" isn't one of them. But I can understand that it's an easy way out: If you don't succeed, you simply lack talent and can therefor give up with a clear conscience. It's also very easy to just speak out one word as a commentator instead of giving a thorough analysis of what makes you outstanding in any given field.
But since you mentioned tennis and because I accidently read something about the Williams sisters this day: Their father decided that they would become tennis professionals. Quite like the Polgar sisters and coincidently both fathers got their wish and they raised extraordinary "talents" or "geniuses".
Funny how things go.
The book outliers casts a ton of doubt on the innate talent aspect.
On April 12 2014 01:06 Chaplin wrote: I didn't read the study but as long as human history keeps refuting data suggesting something like "too young / too old / unlikely / impossible", I don't need to ^^
On April 12 2014 01:24 Eliezar wrote: To even suggest that the overwhelming body of common sense and the already established same aspects happening in other sports doesn't exist is akin to proclaiming the world is flat and not round.
The overwhelming body of common sense argued in the (I believe) 70's that runners won't surpass the 100m world record at that time. Suggesting that humans simply can't run faster. (We are now almost half a second faster.) It was also believed and common sense that women had no shot in professional chess (deficit in the visual-spatial realm and all that good jazz). Then Judith Polgar became Grandmaster at a younger age than Bobby Fischer. A whole lot of people still think that you need talent in any given field to achieve expert status.
There are a plethora of possible reasons why people in physical demanding sports don't last long (read: physically decline while still being relative young). One might be very well that people train in harmful ways. I can imagine that this even multiplies when you start young. I for one don't question an advancement in sports medicine. (Wikipedia says: "Athletic training has been recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA) as an allied health care profession since 1990." Seems not that long for a profession?)
I actually can't believe you are as intellectually challenged as you are pretending to be here, I mean its possible, but its more likely that you are wanting to argue for the sake of arguing and not realizing how completely off base you are being.
It is simply a fact that people in every way become weaker over time. Obviously you have the current hard ceiling of telomeres and how many times they can divide. You also have the plethora of studies that show that response time (not reaction time) is slower for humans the older they are and has been looked into with the safety of older drivers. If people's response time slows over time...then yes it happens to gamers too even if Artosis seems to often spout off information that seems to be totally ignorant of that fact.
Your response is to talk about people thinking a record would never be broken for runners? This makes me believe you have to be trolling for several reasons.
1) What does "projections" which cannot be tested but only be theorized have to do with studying the decline the body goes through while aging? Nothing
2) What data about people not being able to continue to perform at peak level do you not believe? It happens in all professions whether mental or athletic. Studies have been done on chess players and how their ability to analyze slows as they get into their 30s. Studies have been done on how older drivers react as fast as younger drivers, but their physical response comes slower. Individuals have been documented as losing a step over time in all major sports leagues. How does people "believing" women couldn't be a grandmaster in chess relate in any way to studies that document that people degrade over time?
Literally, your entire post was basically spouting off random dumb stuff that has nothing to do with whether or not the human body decays over time in every way.
Your response is akin to me saying...people said you get fat on fast food, but Jared lost weight eating subway therefor StarCraft players won't slow down over time.
Again...I have a hard time believing you are actually as challenged as you are portraying yourself.
Anyone TLDR this? I don't understand where LDR is being extracted from. Read the first 4 pages, skimmed the rest, and there seem to be too many outside variables. There are multiple factors which contribute to skill in sc2.
I think in order for any study in this genre to be successful, it needs to follow the same pro players. Professional players in the top .001% respond differently than the rest. Looks like this guy agrees with me.
On April 12 2014 00:11 nkr wrote: I would rather read the statistics saying that players above the age of 24 are slightly slower, not that you get slower after the age of 24. There are other factors not taken into account that can give you the same result.
This is serious scholarship, guys. Unless, having actually read the article, you can point to a particular factor that they didn't take into account, you shouldn't just assume that they didn't consider it and integrate it into the work.
Let me repeat that: this is obviously serious scholarship, published in a peer-reviewed journal. There's a ton of generic "Oh, I dunno about that" in this thread by people who obviously haven't actually read the piece. This isn't some dude saying 'oh, you know, you can just tell that they're slower;' this is a rigorous statistical assessment of a substantial data set. If you're not going to read it, at least give it the credit that peer-review deserves.
The statistics simply do not show that players get slower as they get older, because that's not what the gathered data means in my humble opinion. It shows that the older players are slower. There is a significant distinction to be made here, in my eyes.
Simplistically (I couldn't really follow all the statistics), the paper says that: - the time it takes to do something after moving the camera view in game is a good way to measure reaction time (the 'Looking-Doing Latency'). This very little to do with APM (how fast you can generate input). - the league a player is in is a good overall measure of skill - from their data, older players in tend to be slower at this than younger players - also from their data, age isn't a good predictor of skill - This suggests that, while reaction times increase with age there are other ways that players can compensate for this - e.g. better use of the game interface, better understanding of how the game works, etc
There was also some other stuff about multi-tasking that I didn't really follow
For a pro player this could suggest that, assuming an equal level of knowledge and proficiency with the game interface (and other non-reaction time factors) a player that is significantly older will be at a disadvantage because they can't react as fast.
In relation to 'only being meaningful if pro player data only is considered' I don't think that would really help achieve their objective of understanding more generally how [males] change as they get older. Pros are, by their nature, outliers to the general population - they are significantly better at certain things than almost everyone else. For example, people who end up as pro players might naturally have faster reaction times than normal people.
It seems that the study only shows that the speed of the players tends to decline with age. I think it's very interesting as it corresponds to the age when people start to have a stable life, so maybe the brain becomes less responsive at this time. Also, the study doesn't seem to measure skill in sc2 but reaction time, so we should not forget that reaction time is just one of the many things that make skill.
I'll never accept that age is an excuse for being bad at the game or not producing results. You have players in the NFL that are in their late 30's, you have powerlifters in their 40's and 50's. Not to mention people like Jack Lalanne who are able to remain physically active into their 90's until they drop dead. You're telling me people are capable of all that, but can't play games optimally past age 24? Lol.. just lol. Not buying it.
On April 12 2014 12:07 Havik_ wrote: I'll never accept that age is an excuse for being bad at the game or not producing results. You have players in the NFL that are in their late 30's, you have powerlifters in their 40's and 50's. Not to mention people like Jack Lalanne who are able to remain physically active into their 90's until they drop dead. You're telling me people are capable of all that, but can't play games optimally past age 24? Lol.. just lol. Not buying it.
That's not what it's saying. It's talking about averages. If you want to talk about a specific person, you can imagine it like this: suppose there'll be a 45 year old bonjwa in SC2 at some point. That person is winning everything. This study is only suggesting that the same person would have been even better would he have been 25 and with the exact same background of years of playing games and stuff.
On April 12 2014 00:11 nkr wrote: I would rather read the statistics saying that players above the age of 24 are slightly slower, not that you get slower after the age of 24. There are other factors not taken into account that can give you the same result.
This is serious scholarship, guys. Unless, having actually read the article, you can point to a particular factor that they didn't take into account, you shouldn't just assume that they didn't consider it and integrate it into the work.
Let me repeat that: this is obviously serious scholarship, published in a peer-reviewed journal. There's a ton of generic "Oh, I dunno about that" in this thread by people who obviously haven't actually read the piece. This isn't some dude saying 'oh, you know, you can just tell that they're slower;' this is a rigorous statistical assessment of a substantial data set. If you're not going to read it, at least give it the credit that peer-review deserves.
I've read it, and I don't disagree with their methods or findings, only the conclusion they've drawn. The statistics DO show that the older players are slower, but not that a player gets slower as he/she gets older. If you wanted to measure the impact of age on a persons reaction times, you'd have to gather data from the same set of people over a period of time relevant to the study, and having them maintain the same effort of playing during that period.
The statistics simply do not show that players get slower as they get older, because that's not what the gathered data means in my humble opinion. It shows that the older players are slower. There is a significant distinction to be made here, in my eyes.
Certainly that's a relevant distinction, but the paper discusses possible other explanations and argues that they are not as likely as age-related decline. You're entirely correct that the data shows that the older players are slower, but the authors also argue that it's not because of any differences (besides age) in the under-24 and over-24 cohorts. For example, they go into detail as to why the slowdown likely isn't because the older players were exposed to RTS games at a later age.
But my original post was probably too antagonistic, and picked your post out because it was the more recent when there were definitely much more egregious examples of the problem in the thread, so I should be more careful in the future.
I read that part of the study and in my opinion it was seriously deficient. They didn't put nearly enough work into assessing possible sources of bias and looking at how their methodology or experimental design could be improved to adjust for them. Exhibit A is the factor that SirPinky and countless others have pointed out, namely that older players typically can't devote the time or focus to the game that younger players can. The authors admit earlier in the paper that they observed this in their data ("Older players do report playing fewer hours per week, however (fewer with age; p*<0.001)." However they never mention it in the discussion of cohort effects (which seems to be the social science term for potential sources of bias and unmeasured variables) even though they already admit it exists. Correlation is not causation - to give one example, there is a fairly close correlation between the number of priests in a community and the total liquor consumption (10 points if you can say why).
The statistical methodology is also lacking - it seems to be more like data mining with ex post facto hypothesizing than a real statistical experiment (to be fair, the social sciences are notoriously bad at this, so they may simply be following the normal approach for their field, but that doesn't make it right).
That sounds a bit harsh, so I'll add that I think this is an interesting question and area for research, I agree with the statements about SC2 being particularly suitable for this type of analysis (and their reasons why) and I suspect there is probably a genuine result lurking out there. But I'd find the paper more convincing if it used a more rigorous statistical approach. Lest I be accused of not being constructive, that goes something like this:
1. Decide on the question you're trying to answer. 2. Design an experiment (that is repeatable, predictable and falsifiable) that you believe answers the question. 3. Make a prediction. 4. Perform the experiment and see if you were right. 5. If you were, then repeat with a different data set to confirm repeatability. Also analyse the hell out of any possible sources of bias and hidden variables and try to improve your design to account for them - and get peer reviewers to do the same, preferably including at least one statistician. 6. Repeat iteratively with your design improvements (and new data) and see if the result still holds up.
I'm a mathematician, not a statistician, so I may have parts of this wrong, but I think it's roughly correct. Do all of that and if the effect you're analysing is real (which I think it probably is, but that's only my opinion) then you'll have a much stronger proof.
This has been proven with a scientific study in korea based on starcraft progamer Xellos and other gamers using brain scans.
Generally up until the age of ~23 players use a completely different part of their brain based on instinct. Eventually after around this age, this decision making process starts to disappear, no matter what. As a result, response times also slow down.
I think a lot of people are just in denial about this and therefore are highly critical about it, in the end the study came to the correct conclusion regardless of how comprehensive the study was.
The problem is that people are disagreeing with the methodology of the study because they disagree with the answer.
I don't really understand why this study is insufficient. For the question it is trying to answer, I think its sufficient.
On April 12 2014 13:03 Chutoro wrote: Correlation is not causation - to give one example, there is a fairly close correlation between the number of priests in a community and the total liquor consumption (10 points if you can say why).
Ooh, I'll try.
More liquor has more people in rehab/programs has more priests?
Interesting how they don't mention the hours of play per week for each age. Starcraft being a game of repetition and time played has a huge correlation to how skilled you are. Funny how studies only show main points they want to "prove" and not state the facts. I'm not saying this study is complete bs, but if the researcher isn't going to look thoroughly at their study. How can you just accept this study. It has a lot of holes. Think for yourself, don't just read the headlines. Most of the time its just someone trying to make a big splash with a pebble.
On April 12 2014 01:06 Chaplin wrote: I didn't read the study but as long as human history keeps refuting data suggesting something like "too young / too old / unlikely / impossible", I don't need to ^^
This is such a mentally weak statement.
This is such a mentally weak statement.
On April 12 2014 01:24 Eliezar wrote: To even suggest that the overwhelming body of common sense and the already established same aspects happening in other sports doesn't exist is akin to proclaiming the world is flat and not round.
The overwhelming body of common sense argued in the (I believe) 70's that runners won't surpass the 100m world record at that time. Suggesting that humans simply can't run faster. (We are now almost half a second faster.) It was also believed and common sense that women had no shot in professional chess (deficit in the visual-spatial realm and all that good jazz). Then Judith Polgar became Grandmaster at a younger age than Bobby Fischer. A whole lot of people still think that you need talent in any given field to achieve expert status.
There are a plethora of possible reasons why people in physical demanding sports don't last long (read: physically decline while still being relative young). One might be very well that people train in harmful ways. I can imagine that this even multiplies when you start young. I for one don't question an advancement in sports medicine. (Wikipedia says: "Athletic training has been recognized by the American Medical Association (AMA) as an allied health care profession since 1990." Seems not that long for a profession?)
I actually can't believe you are as intellectually challenged as you are pretending to be here, I mean its possible, but its more likely that you are wanting to argue for the sake of arguing and not realizing how completely off base you are being.
It is simply a fact that people in every way become weaker over time. Obviously you have the current hard ceiling of telomeres and how many times they can divide. You also have the plethora of studies that show that response time (not reaction time) is slower for humans the older they are and has been looked into with the safety of older drivers. If people's response time slows over time...then yes it happens to gamers too even if Artosis seems to often spout off information that seems to be totally ignorant of that fact.
Your response is to talk about people thinking a record would never be broken for runners? This makes me believe you have to be trolling for several reasons.
1) What does "projections" which cannot be tested but only be theorized have to do with studying the decline the body goes through while aging? Nothing
2) What data about people not being able to continue to perform at peak level do you not believe? It happens in all professions whether mental or athletic. Studies have been done on chess players and how their ability to analyze slows as they get into their 30s. Studies have been done on how older drivers react as fast as younger drivers, but their physical response comes slower. Individuals have been documented as losing a step over time in all major sports leagues. How does people "believing" women couldn't be a grandmaster in chess relate in any way to studies that document that people degrade over time?
Literally, your entire post was basically spouting off random dumb stuff that has nothing to do with whether or not the human body decays over time in every way.
Your response is akin to me saying...people said you get fat on fast food, but Jared lost weight eating subway therefor StarCraft players won't slow down over time.
Again...I have a hard time believing you are actually as challenged as you are portraying yourself.
Don't you find it akward that you have to compensate on a forum? Makes me wonder: "Weak mental state", "challenged"... ever heard of psychological projection?
1) / 2) When is the expiration date on data? In the time where people generally died in their 30's or 40's, did they also peak in sports at 20-something?
To elaborate a bit: I don't question aging as a factor. I question nailing down a specific age (relating to my first post "too young / too old").
Since you liked Outliers, you could check out Dr. K. Anders Ericsson.
However, biologists found out that people "get slower" at about the age of 29; thats a huge cap from 24. So how can there be such a big difference? The answer lies in day-to-day routine. At the age of 24 many people finish college and go to work. And everybody who has ever worked 40h/a week while managing social duties and a household all at once will agree on the following: They won't have the time needed to be at the same level in starcraft than before.
As many pros already stated out, at some point (high M/GM) it comes down to playing a buttload of games every day in order to get better. And even if you dont have the desire for getting better, it also takes a few hours of gaming to remain the same skill level and remaining the same "Looking-Doing-Latency".
For myself, im soon to be 25, some seasons i am high master, in some i can manage to get in GM league. From my experience at least the reason is NOT that i was older. In some seasons i just have way too much to do in order to just play enough. However if i do have the time to put in the time i want to i dont feel like im playing slower compared to a few years ago.
On April 12 2014 17:17 roythereaper wrote: Interesting how they don't mention the hours of play per week for each age. Starcraft being a game of repetition and time played has a huge correlation to how skilled you are. Funny how studies only show main points they want to "prove" and not state the facts. I'm not saying this study is complete bs, but if the researcher isn't going to look thoroughly at their study. How can you just accept this study. It has a lot of holes. Think for yourself, don't just read the headlines. Most of the time its just someone trying to make a big splash with a pebble.
Look at that. Upset a lurker so much that he makes a TL account just to condemn someone else's hard work. Must be doing something right.
On April 12 2014 13:14 sluggaslamoo wrote: This has been proven with a scientific study in korea based on starcraft progamer Xellos and other gamers using brain scans.
Generally up until the age of ~23 players use a completely different part of their brain based on instinct. Eventually after around this age, this decision making process starts to disappear, no matter what. As a result, response times also slow down.
I think a lot of people are just in denial about this and therefore are highly critical about it, in the end the study came to the correct conclusion regardless of how comprehensive the study was.
The problem is that people are disagreeing with the methodology of the study because they disagree with the answer.
I don't really understand why this study is insufficient. For the question it is trying to answer, I think its sufficient.
Except that it is generally recognized that cognitive decline starts around 29-33 and not 24 (in the sciences). If you take a look at sports where reaction times are paramount (e.g. Baseball), you'll notice that most players peak during their age 27 to 30 years. This is no coincidence as our cognitive abilities peak, and then decline starting at the tail end of this age. It isn't even that large of a drop-off. You don't start seeing large cognitive decline until your late 50s early 60s. There's a reason that you're able to better hit 98 MPH fastballs and 83 MPH change-ups when you're in your late 20's as opposed to your early 20's. If cognitive abilities peaked in your early 20's you would see more Mike Trout's, but you don't. (And please, don't tell me Starcraft is a more plausible case study than a 10+ billion a year industry where reaction times are hundreths of a second for success or failure...)
Okay, so finally read it, so a few points of curiosity then my critique, if the OP could address:
So the data was collected by informed consent (online checklist) then they submitted a single replay. I'm curious if there was some stipulation about the replay - could the participants choose any game they wanted to showcase, were they to play a game after the survey and submit it, last game played, etc?
The vast majority come from the United States and Canada - not the best to be making worldwide sweeping conclusions. Were there any Koreans, or enough to have a good sample? I would be interested to see any differences by race/culture
Speaking of race... was the same thing observed for each of the playable races? I'd be interested to see if the same conclusion came from off-racing, too
Due to the repetitive nature of a lot of Starcraft tasks, I wonder if there are earlier-onset injuries - I could see wrist issues and such (typically older users, whether they play a lot of starcraft or not) affecting the LDL as cognitive motor skills
The main problem I had with the study is that it didn't properly(in my opinion - and it seems a lot of amateur research critiquers) take into effect the vastly changing social circumstances that someone 24 and older finds oneself in - specifically in hours played weekly. (well, aside from a completely untouched ("Older players do report playing fewer hours per week, however (fewer with age; p*<0.001").
Especially if you're getting the majority of your data from USA/Canada, the time available for Starcraft will generally go down - and probably by a lot. Because someone is playing less, and probably theorycrafting/keeping up with metagame less, the LDL must go down. So unless you address the hours played (incl hours spent around the game), and work that into the data, I can't buy it.
I also question the usefulness of measuring one single user-decided game for the data. I think also when people play a lot more they will have a larger sample from which to choose for their choice game, so scores will be better. Those who play more are probably more competitive about what they submit, more casual players less. Doing an average of replay stats per participant (including playing all races, beginning and end of daily laddering, etc.) would be better - though I don't know if you have the resources to do something like that.
I like the information on the hotkey variety, and usage, and complex unit information, but I fear they would also be a result of fewer hours/week. You miss the feel of things like how often units spawn, what the perfect balance of unit composition in reaction, the best ways of microing different situations on different maps, etc.
To summarise, if you're going to make sweeping statements that challenge the body science of when the cognitive-motor functions start to deteriorate, you need to look into the total starcraft time / week and factor that in convincingly. Or at the very least add a bolded addendum to your paper that while you feel it's not important, the majority of people who play the game feel that way - so the academics know there's dissenting opinions.
I really liked the paper though, or at least its inclusion of Starcraft II as a legitimate example of cognitive-motor skill and measurement. (EDIT- I also like how the frozen left-pane of the webpage tells me which header I'm on as I scroll down. Technology these days.)
Sorry for the really bad sentence structure, I've been up all night.
On April 12 2014 13:14 sluggaslamoo wrote: This has been proven with a scientific study in korea based on starcraft progamer Xellos and other gamers using brain scans.
Generally up until the age of ~23 players use a completely different part of their brain based on instinct. Eventually after around this age, this decision making process starts to disappear, no matter what. As a result, response times also slow down.
I think a lot of people are just in denial about this and therefore are highly critical about it, in the end the study came to the correct conclusion regardless of how comprehensive the study was.
The problem is that people are disagreeing with the methodology of the study because they disagree with the answer.
I don't really understand why this study is insufficient. For the question it is trying to answer, I think its sufficient.
Except that it is generally recognized that cognitive decline starts around 29-33 and not 24 (in the sciences). If you take a look at sports where reaction times are paramount (e.g. Baseball), you'll notice that most players peak during their age 27 to 30 years. This is no coincidence as our cognitive abilities peak, and then decline starting at the tail end of this age. It isn't even that large of a drop-off. You don't start seeing large cognitive decline until your late 50s early 60s. There's a reason that you're able to better hit 98 MPH fastballs and 83 MPH change-ups when you're in your late 20's as opposed to your early 20's. If cognitive abilities peaked in your early 20's you would see more Mike Trout's, but you don't. (And please, don't tell me Starcraft is a more plausible case study than a 10+ billion a year industry where reaction times are hundreths of a second for success or failure...)
It's possible that hitting a fastball gets easier with experience (being able to recognize the pitchers queues or grip) and actually needing LESS reaction time to be better. I wouldn't be surprised if overall performance would actually be a combination of cognitive-motor performance and experience. If you gain experience faster than you lose cmp your overall performance would continue improving into your late 20s. Once you've reached your skill cap your overall performance begins to decline with cmp decline.
The other thing people are not discussing is the rate of decline. According to the last graph 10 years of decline result in a diamond league player having the "look & react" time of a < 24 platinum league player.
Maybe it's just because I'm already past my 20's I'm more willing to accept that I'm dying :D
On April 11 2014 07:55 CrushDog5 wrote: We find no evidence for the common belief expertise should attenuate domain-specific cognitive decline. Domain-specific response time declines appear to persist regardless of skill level. A second analysis of dual-task performance finds no evidence of a corresponding age-related decline. Finally, an exploratory analyses of other age-related differences suggests that older participants may have been compensating for a loss in response speed through the use of game mechanics that reduce cognitive load.
Dual-task performance could also contribute to increased and improved use of game mechanics that reduce cognitive load. Are you able to make a determination on the possibility that dual-task performance might actually improve as players get older?
On April 12 2014 13:14 sluggaslamoo wrote: This has been proven with a scientific study in korea based on starcraft progamer Xellos and other gamers using brain scans.
Generally up until the age of ~23 players use a completely different part of their brain based on instinct. Eventually after around this age, this decision making process starts to disappear, no matter what. As a result, response times also slow down.
I think a lot of people are just in denial about this and therefore are highly critical about it, in the end the study came to the correct conclusion regardless of how comprehensive the study was.
The problem is that people are disagreeing with the methodology of the study because they disagree with the answer.
I don't really understand why this study is insufficient. For the question it is trying to answer, I think its sufficient.
Except that it is generally recognized that cognitive decline starts around 29-33 and not 24 (in the sciences). If you take a look at sports where reaction times are paramount (e.g. Baseball), you'll notice that most players peak during their age 27 to 30 years. This is no coincidence as our cognitive abilities peak, and then decline starting at the tail end of this age. It isn't even that large of a drop-off. You don't start seeing large cognitive decline until your late 50s early 60s. There's a reason that you're able to better hit 98 MPH fastballs and 83 MPH change-ups when you're in your late 20's as opposed to your early 20's. If cognitive abilities peaked in your early 20's you would see more Mike Trout's, but you don't. (And please, don't tell me Starcraft is a more plausible case study than a 10+ billion a year industry where reaction times are hundreths of a second for success or failure...)
Who said anything about cognitive ability?
Cognitive decline does not equal response time decline. Peak response times do not equal skill either. Especially in baseball, a player often basically has to guess what ball to hit by looking at certain factors such as the pitchers grip and statistics, in which case response time is barely even a factor.
The players are improving inspite of their lower brain response time, this does not mean there is cognitive decline.
This is akin to saying Starcraft players peak at 25 therefore their response times must be at their maximum. No, if Starcraft players peak at a later stage it is inspite of their slower response times. This is because the game isn't purely centered around being the fastest person to react. Its a strategy game.
The world of a 35 year old is vastly different from the world of an 18 year old. This study IGNORES pscyho-socio factors of the players. One cannot adequately engage on cognitive tasks when they're, say, distraught for months on end.
The state of the mind is what is key, not the person's age.
I have played SC since it came out in 97/98, then BW, and now SC2 since WoL Beta, I have been playing regularly, and in BW I would play 8-12 hours a day , 30-50 games a day, I crunched out 145 games in 1 week last week on SC2 just to get back into masters on time, and I am 26 years old, so I think this study is BS, like people say it has to do with whats going on in your life, and if you can sit and play SC still at an older age.
On April 11 2014 08:44 CrushDog5 wrote: 1. You might expect people to take a more relaxed approach, but speed decreases with age. I guess I find it strange that 30 is more relaxed than 25, and 35 is more relaxed that 30 and so on. We have no way to rule it out, but it doesn't seem like to me.
As a 42-year-old who plays Starcraft 2, I'm not necessarily discounting a straightforward slowing of neurological response with age for other reasons, but I can say that the hormonal situation of teenagers and early-20s adults probably favors intensity and focus in practice and gameplay. There's no way that I bring the competitive spirit to the game that I might have at 18. I just don't care that much, and especially for young men, a lot of that is likely driven by their sex hormones. (This is not to say that they view the game as bringing them a sexual advantage of any kind, by the way, it's just that those hormones can induce a higher level of competitiveness and drive in many different types of creative or expressive areas.) This would explain why people at higher ages might be progressively more relaxed, and less focused, about the game.
What would be interesting would be distinguishing between basic neurological factors and higher-level factors like mood and focus. Not sure how you'd construct a study to do that.
On April 12 2014 12:07 Havik_ wrote: I'll never accept that age is an excuse for being bad at the game or not producing results. You have players in the NFL that are in their late 30's, you have powerlifters in their 40's and 50's. Not to mention people like Jack Lalanne who are able to remain physically active into their 90's until they drop dead. You're telling me people are capable of all that, but can't play games optimally past age 24? Lol.. just lol. Not buying it.
Those powerlifters in their forties and fifties will have to put in far more effort to reach a certain level than a twenty-year-old will. At an older age people generally have more important things to worry about than how fast and how strong they are too. Priorities and interests change as you get older. You get a partner, a job, a place of your own, kids maybe ... I think the main reason why so many progamers 'retire' around 25-26 is that they start to realise that they won't be able to do this for all of their lives. Many of them skipped higher education degrees just to become as good as they are, but the word "progamer" doesn't mean anything on your CV. On the contrary, where I'm from they'd probably ask you if you had nothing better to do than play video games all the time. Look at Boxer: a brood war legend, managed to make some money off of his BW fame in SC2 but now he plays poker for a living (if I'm not mistaken). Is he really gonna rely on gambling to finance the coming 40-50 years of his life?
This is why I really respect Stephano and Thorzain. These guys realised that, and got out while they still could (admittedly after having raked in a lot of prize money).
On April 12 2014 13:03 Chutoro wrote: Correlation is not causation - to give one example, there is a fairly close correlation between the number of priests in a community and the total liquor consumption (10 points if you can say why).
Ooh, I'll try.
More liquor has more people in rehab/programs has more priests?
Wrong. Although number of people in rehab programs would probably be pretty closely correlated as well.
The answer is that they are all proportional to population number - so larger communities have more priests, more total liquor consumption and more of a lot of other things. Population number is an example of a hidden variable - if X and Y both depend on Z, but you're only measuring X and Y and have forgotten that Z exists, then it can be tempting to conclude that X causes Y or vice versa. In reality X and Y may be completely unrelated, and just appear closely related because of the hidden variable.
On April 11 2014 08:46 BisuDagger wrote: I have actually improved a ton recently. At 26 my typing dexterity and apm has greatly increased, but I'm also someone who matured late mentally too.
I would expect that everyone ages in exactly the same way as everyone else. Remember, though, that aging and experience are independent factors. You can get better with practice, even as you get slower with age.
How can you say everyone ages in the same way? I've always been 3-4 behind in maturity. While I have always been intelligent, I didn't start thinking very independently till much later the most. I don't practice so lot, I just understand the game better now and decisions are much easier/quicker to make.
That's actually a mistake. I meant to type that I would NOT expect everyone to age in exactly the same way, so in a sample of over 3000 players not every 35yr old will be slower that every 30 year old, even in the same league.
I'd say it's impossible to determine the factors in which older players decline. - Getting a fulltime job - Getting a fulltime relationship - Getting children
Each of the above will seperately impact the free time you have to play/practice and will also (indirectly) adjust your mentality and approach at gaming, most likely. There's so many different factors that you really can't seriously link aging <-> speed. For example, testosterone averagely peaks at your 24th till your 28th, at which a decline will happen, and you say that at the prime of a male (age 24), they start declining in cognitive abilities? Sounds off.
On April 12 2014 12:07 Havik_ wrote: I'll never accept that age is an excuse for being bad at the game or not producing results. You have players in the NFL that are in their late 30's, you have powerlifters in their 40's and 50's. Not to mention people like Jack Lalanne who are able to remain physically active into their 90's until they drop dead. You're telling me people are capable of all that, but can't play games optimally past age 24? Lol.. just lol. Not buying it.
Muscle and strengths take years to build, bodybuilding/powerlifting is one of the sports, at which athletes get better by age. You don't 'max out' on your muscle/strength potential till your mid/late 30s, since it's an ongoing process that takes literally years.
On April 11 2014 07:55 CrushDog5 wrote: We find no evidence for the common belief expertise should attenuate domain-specific cognitive decline. Domain-specific response time declines appear to persist regardless of skill level. A second analysis of dual-task performance finds no evidence of a corresponding age-related decline. Finally, an exploratory analyses of other age-related differences suggests that older participants may have been compensating for a loss in response speed through the use of game mechanics that reduce cognitive load.
Dual-task performance could also contribute to increased and improved use of game mechanics that reduce cognitive load. Are you able to make a determination on the possibility that dual-task performance might actually improve as players get older?
The preponderance of evidence is that dual-task performance declines with age, which is why we thought to include workers made in the study. There is some evidence (which I'm a bit skeptical of) that suggests that playing some kinds of video games helps reduce some of the affects of aging. If that kind of effect were going on here, though, you would expect it to get larger as league increased (more experience, better dual task) and there fore we should see the affect of age on dual-task get smaller as league increases (i.e., there should be a age*league interaction). We don't find that, though.
Yeah this crap is total bs. Top ssbm melee players are getting up there in age and that game is a way better example of reflexes(reacting as fast as possible to whats on the screen) wheras sc2 is a lot more about raw speed/multitask. I wonder if this study took into account the amount of time players had time to practice or their total amount of time invested in the game. I don't care if you're 35, your only excuse for losing is that you didn't practice and focus hard enough.
On April 11 2014 08:46 BisuDagger wrote: I have actually improved a ton recently. At 26 my typing dexterity and apm has greatly increased, but I'm also someone who matured late mentally too.
I would expect that everyone ages in exactly the same way as everyone else. Remember, though, that aging and experience are independent factors. You can get better with practice, even as you get slower with age.
this is wrong. Maturing and aging are different for each person. Also "experience" and how fast it is gained and how it is used is different for every person, depending on LOTS of things in your brain, education, society etc.
On April 14 2014 04:07 Jank wrote: Yeah this crap is total bs. Top ssbm melee players are getting up there in age and that game is a way better example of reflexes(reacting as fast as possible to whats on the screen) wheras sc2 is a lot more about raw speed/multitask. I wonder if this study took into account the amount of time players had time to practice or their total amount of time invested in the game. I don't care if you're 35, your only excuse for losing is that you didn't practice and focus hard enough.
While I don't agree with the method surely it would be different from game to game. I mean take the ten plus years of history we've had with BW and all the analyzing we've done with it. Those statistics don't lie.
On April 11 2014 08:46 BisuDagger wrote: I have actually improved a ton recently. At 26 my typing dexterity and apm has greatly increased, but I'm also someone who matured late mentally too.
I would expect that everyone ages in exactly the same way as everyone else. Remember, though, that aging and experience are independent factors. You can get better with practice, even as you get slower with age.
How can you say everyone ages in the same way? I've always been 3-4 behind in maturity. While I have always been intelligent, I didn't start thinking very independently till much later the most. I don't practice so lot, I just understand the game better now and decisions are much easier/quicker to make.
That's actually a mistake. I meant to type that I would NOT expect everyone to age in exactly the same way, so in a sample of over 3000 players not every 35yr old will be slower that every 30 year old, even in the same league.
I'd say it's impossible to determine the factors in which older players decline. - Getting a fulltime job - Getting a fulltime relationship - Getting children
Each of the above will seperately impact the free time you have to play/practice and will also (indirectly) adjust your mentality and approach at gaming, most likely. There's so many different factors that you really can't seriously link aging <-> speed. For example, testosterone averagely peaks at your 24th till your 28th, at which a decline will happen, and you say that at the prime of a male (age 24), they start declining in cognitive abilities? Sounds off.
On April 12 2014 12:07 Havik_ wrote: I'll never accept that age is an excuse for being bad at the game or not producing results. You have players in the NFL that are in their late 30's, you have powerlifters in their 40's and 50's. Not to mention people like Jack Lalanne who are able to remain physically active into their 90's until they drop dead. You're telling me people are capable of all that, but can't play games optimally past age 24? Lol.. just lol. Not buying it.
Muscle and strengths take years to build, bodybuilding/powerlifting is one of the sports, at which athletes get better by age. You don't 'max out' on your muscle/strength potential till your mid/late 30s, since it's an ongoing process that takes literally years.
It actually really isn't that impossible when we look at the Koreans who's full-time job was playing BW. Did some of them have girlfriends and play other things like WoW (cough)? Yep. We've seen the decline. SC2 is just more widespread where technically everyone can fall under the category as a "pro gamer," but that wasn't really what this study was all about. Maybe we should bring up those old bw threads. There's a reason why teams back then were trying to recruit young guns. Just saying.
Skimmed over the report and I have to agree that there are so many other exogenous variables that the report doesn't consider, which could all be just as important factors in the correlation between age and slowing down.
On April 14 2014 04:07 Jank wrote: Yeah this crap is total bs. Top ssbm melee players are getting up there in age and that game is a way better example of reflexes(reacting as fast as possible to whats on the screen) wheras sc2 is a lot more about raw speed/multitask. I wonder if this study took into account the amount of time players had time to practice or their total amount of time invested in the game. I don't care if you're 35, your only excuse for losing is that you didn't practice and focus hard enough.
While I don't agree with the method surely it would be different from game to game. I mean take the ten plus years of history we've had with BW and all the analyzing we've done with it. Those statistics don't lie.
On April 11 2014 08:46 BisuDagger wrote: I have actually improved a ton recently. At 26 my typing dexterity and apm has greatly increased, but I'm also someone who matured late mentally too.
I would expect that everyone ages in exactly the same way as everyone else. Remember, though, that aging and experience are independent factors. You can get better with practice, even as you get slower with age.
How can you say everyone ages in the same way? I've always been 3-4 behind in maturity. While I have always been intelligent, I didn't start thinking very independently till much later the most. I don't practice so lot, I just understand the game better now and decisions are much easier/quicker to make.
That's actually a mistake. I meant to type that I would NOT expect everyone to age in exactly the same way, so in a sample of over 3000 players not every 35yr old will be slower that every 30 year old, even in the same league.
I'd say it's impossible to determine the factors in which older players decline. - Getting a fulltime job - Getting a fulltime relationship - Getting children
Each of the above will seperately impact the free time you have to play/practice and will also (indirectly) adjust your mentality and approach at gaming, most likely. There's so many different factors that you really can't seriously link aging <-> speed. For example, testosterone averagely peaks at your 24th till your 28th, at which a decline will happen, and you say that at the prime of a male (age 24), they start declining in cognitive abilities? Sounds off.
On April 12 2014 12:07 Havik_ wrote: I'll never accept that age is an excuse for being bad at the game or not producing results. You have players in the NFL that are in their late 30's, you have powerlifters in their 40's and 50's. Not to mention people like Jack Lalanne who are able to remain physically active into their 90's until they drop dead. You're telling me people are capable of all that, but can't play games optimally past age 24? Lol.. just lol. Not buying it.
Muscle and strengths take years to build, bodybuilding/powerlifting is one of the sports, at which athletes get better by age. You don't 'max out' on your muscle/strength potential till your mid/late 30s, since it's an ongoing process that takes literally years.
It actually really isn't that impossible when we look at the Koreans who's full-time job was playing BW. Did some of them have girlfriends and play other things like WoW (cough)? Yep. We've seen the decline. SC2 is just more widespread where technically everyone can fall under the category as a "pro gamer," but that wasn't really what this study was all about. Maybe we should bring up those old bw threads. There's a reason why teams back then were trying to recruit young guns. Just saying.
Exactly, nearly every rebuttal to this study is just purely anecdotal.
... when the best anecdotal evidence that exists is of all the older BW progamers who complained that their hands could no longer keep up with their minds and that they had to play strategic to compensate.
You do lose speed as you get older due to less motivation,brain functionabilty ,stress,sickness and time to play shortens slowing you down..But this can also be an avantage as you age you become more expericed and you will be out smart(use your experience) younger counterpart. It really can go both ways if you think about it.
From my experience im 23 turning 24 iv lost speed due to less motivation to play. But this could vary from person to person there are a lot of factor to consider. But you do lose speed as you age.
Sorry, hard to read because of a head injury: can you summarize what the older successful players do in order to compensate for their slower reflexes? I'm in that group, I wonder what they do that I could try out. My hands are way slower these days than 5 years ago (29yrs).
Typically studies of the effects of aging on cognitive-motor performance emphasize changes in elderly populations. Although some research is directly concerned with when age-related decline actually begins, studies are often based on relatively simple reaction time tasks, making it impossible to gauge the impact of experience in compensating for this decline in a real world task. The present study investigates age-related changes in cognitive motor performance through adolescence and adulthood in a complex real world task, the real-time strategy video game StarCraft 2. In this paper we analyze the influence of age on performance using a dataset of 3,305 players, aged 16-44, collected by Thompson, Blair, Chen & Henrey [1]. Using a piecewise regression analysis, we find that age-related slowing of within-game, self-initiated response times begins at 24 years of age. We find no evidence for the common belief expertise should attenuate domain-specific cognitive decline. Domain-specific response time declines appear to persist regardless of skill level. A second analysis of dual-task performance finds no evidence of a corresponding age-related decline. Finally, an exploratory analyses of other age-related differences suggests that older participants may have been compensating for a loss in response speed through the use of game mechanics that reduce cognitive load.
The SkillCraft project is ongoing, and we have several interesting things in the works.
I'll answer questions if people have them.
Thanks to all the players who contributed games to the project.
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
PS. I know I'm only one person but I started playing BW at 20 and now I'm 31. Even with very minor carpal tunnel in 1-hand I still have the same APM. Again, I think psychology is more involved in the study results, but that is my opinion.
Pretty much what happened to me. Entered the work force, extremely more relaxed approach to the game. Losing has an absolute minimal affect on me in 1's, it used to tick me off.
It is hilarious to see at least half of the posters are defending themselves with the argument of "I am better then before, blah blah" and completely miss the point of the research.
Your are improving f'ing slower than you should when you get older. You are probably getting better because you are trying to improve. Any near 30's or 30's people can agree that after mid 20's you are missing the old days of being fast and ambitious
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24).
I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either.
regardless of this study i don't buy it.. i played quake 2 online back in 1998-2001 an going to my 1st lan(Lanwar KY) one of the best players on my clan(team) was a 45 year old man. he was just as good as any kid at that lan, an he was easily one of the best players i played with online back then.
On April 15 2014 05:00 EiBmoZ wrote: regardless of this study i don't buy it.. i played quake 2 online back in 1998-2001 an going to my 1st lan(Lanwar KY) one of the best players on my clan(team) was a 45 year old man. he was just as good as any kid at that lan, an he was easily one of the best players i played with online back then.
FFS the study wasnt about YOU or your MAN... It studied the average of thousands... You will understand what a study is when you grow up.
This study is so uninteresting and despite the fact it should be common knowledge that the older you get the slower you will be on average, tons of nerds are getting offended and claiming this isnt true.
On April 15 2014 05:00 EiBmoZ wrote: regardless of this study i don't buy it.. i played quake 2 online back in 1998-2001 an going to my 1st lan(Lanwar KY) one of the best players on my clan(team) was a 45 year old man. he was just as good as any kid at that lan, an he was easily one of the best players i played with online back then.
The study was done for an RTS game not a FPS results will vary from person to person, game to game. Being old does not make you a bad player. Older players are just slightly slower then young players.
On April 14 2014 16:54 CutTheEnemy wrote: Sorry, hard to read because of a head injury: can you summarize what the older successful players do in order to compensate for their slower reflexes? I'm in that group, I wonder what they do that I could try out. My hands are way slower these days than 5 years ago (29yrs).
Personally, I use strategies that avoid really intense unit control. I'll be the first to admit I'm slower than I was in BW. For reference, I'm 34 and Diamond league (maybe I'll get back to Masters if I can ever fix my awful PvZ). It's not just that I'm slower (average ~115 APM, peak ~250), but my unit control is not nearly as good as it used to be. Even when I feel like I'm playing fast (for me), I have trouble being accurate.
The first thing I do to compensate is not playing styles that I know I won't do well at. I don't do things like proxy gate since that's invariably a Zealot micro battle. I avoid the Phoenix heavy openings that often require higher APM to get value out of them. I also haven't been exploiting the Blink builds that have been so heavily in use recently because I know I can't execute them as well as most people.
Another thing is to scout really diligently (especially early on). IMO, a safe style where you have as much info as possible is going to be better as you get older. A lot of contemporary builds have minimal early scouting and rely on really crisp mechanics to hold all-ins. Since I know I struggle with that, I'll send a Probe to check the obvious proxy locations. You'll invariably play from an economic disadvantage, but you're less likely to lose early games due to mechanics. In the mid-game, you just have to focus on strategic choices (tech switches, getting your opponent out of position) instead of winning battles through mechanics.
Hope this helps and try to keep perspective. I'm sure there's plenty of players that are older than me, but I feel like I do pretty well for my age and I'm happy with that. I know I'll never make GM, so I just focus on goals that are at my level and smile when I can beat these young whippersnappers. I should start yelling at my opponents to get off my lawn whenever I activate Photon Overcharge.
Have you statistically accounted for time spent practicing? I wouldn't know for certain, but I suspect the younger the players are the more time they have on their hands to actually practice. I wouldn't be surprised if the cognitive-motor performance of a pro-player was directly correlated to the time spent practicing, as well as age.
On April 15 2014 05:00 EiBmoZ wrote: regardless of this study i don't buy it.. i played quake 2 online back in 1998-2001 an going to my 1st lan(Lanwar KY) one of the best players on my clan(team) was a 45 year old man. he was just as good as any kid at that lan, an he was easily one of the best players i played with online back then.
FFS the study wasnt about YOU or your MAN... It studied the average of thousands... You will understand what a study is when you grow up.
so a lan is nto good enough to be a sample of "pro" gamers ? man those studies are totaly bs i tell you .You improve slower when you practice less . end of story . no matter what age you are
Seems like a decent study. As with observational research of this kind you can make A LOT of remarks which may effect the results greatly. Maybe some age related variable was not corrected for (like older players playing less serious or having less time). Possibly there is some selection effect with self reporting etc. It's just the nature of this kind of research, making the conclusion very difficult if not possible to make so harsh. The statistics itself seem fine though I wouldn't be surprised if there are some other choices you can make which might have a decent impact on the value of K which basically leads to the conclusion of saying 24 is the tipping point. Interesting methodology though, don't have the time unfortunately to look too deep into it.
On April 15 2014 05:00 EiBmoZ wrote: regardless of this study i don't buy it.. i played quake 2 online back in 1998-2001 an going to my 1st lan(Lanwar KY) one of the best players on my clan(team) was a 45 year old man. he was just as good as any kid at that lan, an he was easily one of the best players i played with online back then.
FFS the study wasnt about YOU or your MAN... It studied the average of thousands... You will understand what a study is when you grow up.
so a lan is nto good enough to be a sample of "pro" gamers ? man those studies are totaly bs i tell you .You improve slower when you practice less . end of story . no matter what age you are
Although if you actually knew what the study was about you would realise it has nothing to do with improvement.
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24).
I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either.
People that have a computer capable of playing SC2 are far more likely to come from a well educated family. That's quite simple.
The less money you have, the less likely you're going to have a graphics card in a computer - definitely a luxury. I'd argue the less wealthy you are, also the more likely you'd be a console gamer, although I don't have anything to support that, just seems intuitive.
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24).
I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either.
People that have a computer capable of playing SC2 are far more likely to come from a well educated family. That's quite simple.
The less money you have, the less likely you're going to have a graphics card in a computer - definitely a luxury. I'd argue the less wealthy you are, also the more likely you'd be a console gamer, although I don't have anything to support that, just seems intuitive.
Blizzard games are famous for being low-PC requirements. Look at WoW, as of MoP it still supports Windows XP, which came out in 2001(!).
I was even playing D3 on my old laptop that's still running Tiger, so I know for a fact that their games run on really old machines.
So it seems that you're making quite a lot of assumptions there.
Just look at the Korean scene, for a long time most people played games at PC Bangs, you don't need to come from a well educated / off family to play any game you want there.
On April 14 2014 16:54 CutTheEnemy wrote: Sorry, hard to read because of a head injury: can you summarize what the older successful players do in order to compensate for their slower reflexes? I'm in that group, I wonder what they do that I could try out. My hands are way slower these days than 5 years ago (29yrs).
Personally, I use strategies that avoid really intense unit control. I'll be the first to admit I'm slower than I was in BW. For reference, I'm 34 and Diamond league (maybe I'll get back to Masters if I can ever fix my awful PvZ). It's not just that I'm slower (average ~115 APM, peak ~250), but my unit control is not nearly as good as it used to be. Even when I feel like I'm playing fast (for me), I have trouble being accurate.
The first thing I do to compensate is not playing styles that I know I won't do well at. I don't do things like proxy gate since that's invariably a Zealot micro battle. I avoid the Phoenix heavy openings that often require higher APM to get value out of them. I also haven't been exploiting the Blink builds that have been so heavily in use recently because I know I can't execute them as well as most people.
Another thing is to scout really diligently (especially early on). IMO, a safe style where you have as much info as possible is going to be better as you get older. A lot of contemporary builds have minimal early scouting and rely on really crisp mechanics to hold all-ins. Since I know I struggle with that, I'll send a Probe to check the obvious proxy locations. You'll invariably play from an economic disadvantage, but you're less likely to lose early games due to mechanics. In the mid-game, you just have to focus on strategic choices (tech switches, getting your opponent out of position) instead of winning battles through mechanics.
Hope this helps and try to keep perspective. I'm sure there's plenty of players that are older than me, but I feel like I do pretty well for my age and I'm happy with that. I know I'll never make GM, so I just focus on goals that are at my level and smile when I can beat these young whippersnappers. I should start yelling at my opponents to get off my lawn whenever I activate Photon Overcharge.
Just a random question but what mouse DPI / screen resolution are you playing on? I thought I had a similar problem for awhile (being less accurate than I had been in WC3), and it annoyed me and made me think I had gotten worse / slower. But really I had been playing WC3 on a 400 DPI mouse on a 800x600p screen, while I was playing SC2 at 2000 DPI on a 1920x1080p screen.
Going from 2000 DPI to 800 DPI on a 1080p screen increased my accuracy from 'can sometimes click on the zergling if I get lucky' to 'almost always hits the zergling spot on', and after I got used to the change if anything I'm playing faster despite having a lower DPI.
It's basically the equivalent of playing Tennis with a racket that's strung too tight or trying to dribble with a basketball that's over inflated. Makes it harder to be accurate. Worth checking out at any rate.
On April 14 2014 16:54 CutTheEnemy wrote: Sorry, hard to read because of a head injury: can you summarize what the older successful players do in order to compensate for their slower reflexes? I'm in that group, I wonder what they do that I could try out. My hands are way slower these days than 5 years ago (29yrs).
Personally, I use strategies that avoid really intense unit control. I'll be the first to admit I'm slower than I was in BW. For reference, I'm 34 and Diamond league (maybe I'll get back to Masters if I can ever fix my awful PvZ). It's not just that I'm slower (average ~115 APM, peak ~250), but my unit control is not nearly as good as it used to be. Even when I feel like I'm playing fast (for me), I have trouble being accurate.
The first thing I do to compensate is not playing styles that I know I won't do well at. I don't do things like proxy gate since that's invariably a Zealot micro battle. I avoid the Phoenix heavy openings that often require higher APM to get value out of them. I also haven't been exploiting the Blink builds that have been so heavily in use recently because I know I can't execute them as well as most people.
Another thing is to scout really diligently (especially early on). IMO, a safe style where you have as much info as possible is going to be better as you get older. A lot of contemporary builds have minimal early scouting and rely on really crisp mechanics to hold all-ins. Since I know I struggle with that, I'll send a Probe to check the obvious proxy locations. You'll invariably play from an economic disadvantage, but you're less likely to lose early games due to mechanics. In the mid-game, you just have to focus on strategic choices (tech switches, getting your opponent out of position) instead of winning battles through mechanics.
Hope this helps and try to keep perspective. I'm sure there's plenty of players that are older than me, but I feel like I do pretty well for my age and I'm happy with that. I know I'll never make GM, so I just focus on goals that are at my level and smile when I can beat these young whippersnappers. I should start yelling at my opponents to get off my lawn whenever I activate Photon Overcharge.
Just a random question but what mouse DPI / screen resolution are you playing on? I thought I had a similar problem for awhile (being less accurate than I had been in WC3), and it annoyed me and made me think I had gotten worse / slower. But really I had been playing WC3 on a 400 DPI mouse on a 800x600p screen, while I was playing SC2 at 2000 DPI on a 1920x1080p screen.
Going from 2000 DPI to 800 DPI on a 1080p screen increased my accuracy from 'can sometimes click on the zergling if I get lucky' to 'almost always hits the zergling spot on', and after I got used to the change if anything I'm playing faster despite having a lower DPI.
It's basically the equivalent of playing Tennis with a racket that's strung too tight or trying to dribble with a basketball that's over inflated. Makes it harder to be accurate. Worth checking out at any rate.
I'm currently running 1600 DPI on a 1680x1050 screen (one of these days I'll break down and get a 1080p monitor...), and on the 4th speed tick in the Windows mouse control. I used to have it faster and found the same thing you did; it was too sensitive. This has felt like a good balance of speed and control, but it might be worth slowing it down a little more and see what happens...
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24).
I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either.
People that have a computer capable of playing SC2 are far more likely to come from a well educated family. That's quite simple.
The less money you have, the less likely you're going to have a graphics card in a computer - definitely a luxury. I'd argue the less wealthy you are, also the more likely you'd be a console gamer, although I don't have anything to support that, just seems intuitive.
Blizzard games are famous for being low-PC requirements. Look at WoW, as of MoP it still supports Windows XP, which came out in 2001(!).
I was even playing D3 on my old laptop that's still running Tiger, so I know for a fact that their games run on really old machines.
So it seems that you're making quite a lot of assumptions there.
Just look at the Korean scene, for a long time most people played games at PC Bangs, you don't need to come from a well educated / off family to play any game you want there.
No, they aren't. Almost none of the games when released were playable on a "standard" PC.
They are known for aging well, not for being low-PC requirements on release. SC2 is extremely CPU demanding, more so than most games still being released today. You also couldn't play it without a GPU when it was released.
My 2007 rig I had that was a prebuilt, $2,500 new could barely play SC2 upon release - it was bad enough I learned how to build a new CPU from scratch. To think the average household had a computer that could play it is nonsense.
South Korea is also an anomaly in which the culture is entirely dominated by electronics, more so than almost any other in the world.
On April 14 2014 17:17 Laserist wrote: It is hilarious to see at least half of the posters are defending themselves with the argument of "I am better then before, blah blah" and completely miss the point of the research.
Your are improving f'ing slower than you should when you get older. You are probably getting better because you are trying to improve. Any near 30's or 30's people can agree that after mid 20's you are missing the old days of being fast and ambitious
Its like arguing against a round world which was known since 2600 years ago, but even though people could verifiably see the earth was round (they noticed ships sinking into the ocean as they sailed away, they noticed that during a lunar eclipse that the shadow of the earth on the moon was rounded) and yet people would still argue against a round earth still 2600 years later Flat Earth Society.
This is especially troubling when arguing against this is like arguing people don't have noses or something.
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24).
I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either.
People that have a computer capable of playing SC2 are far more likely to come from a well educated family. That's quite simple.
The less money you have, the less likely you're going to have a graphics card in a computer - definitely a luxury. I'd argue the less wealthy you are, also the more likely you'd be a console gamer, although I don't have anything to support that, just seems intuitive.
Blizzard games are famous for being low-PC requirements. Look at WoW, as of MoP it still supports Windows XP, which came out in 2001(!).
I was even playing D3 on my old laptop that's still running Tiger, so I know for a fact that their games run on really old machines.
So it seems that you're making quite a lot of assumptions there.
Just look at the Korean scene, for a long time most people played games at PC Bangs, you don't need to come from a well educated / off family to play any game you want there.
No, they aren't. Almost none of the games when released were playable on a "standard" PC.
They are known for aging well, not for being low-PC requirements on release. SC2 is extremely CPU demanding, more so than most games still being released today. You also couldn't play it without a GPU when it was released.
My 2007 rig I had that was a prebuilt, $2,500 new could barely play SC2 upon release - it was bad enough I learned how to build a new CPU from scratch. To think the average household had a computer that could play it is nonsense.
South Korea is also an anomaly in which the culture is entirely dominated by electronics, more so than almost any other in the world.
Back when WC3 was under development they were quite explicit in addressing criticism that their game engine was outdated, saying it was because they didn't want the game only playable on cutting edge machines. That was a long time before SC2 of course, but I never saw anything that contradicted that stance. I guess your experience and mine are opposite ends of the spectrum, because I never had a problem playing the latest Blizzard games on my old laptop (~2008 and raided Cata and played D3 at lanch). I know I installed SC2 on my work laptop when it came out, but I have no idea the specs / age of that machine since I've gotten a new laptop since then (in 2010, so that one must have been older).
In any case, there are plenty of people who play SC2 on laptops, which come premade and retail about the cost of a console system. They don't get the best resolution / ect of course (wasn't LastShadow or one of those guys playing on a PoS laptop for a while?), but it plays, so I don't think it's so unbelievable that 'poor' gamers are limited to consoles only.
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24).
I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either.
People that have a computer capable of playing SC2 are far more likely to come from a well educated family. That's quite simple.
The less money you have, the less likely you're going to have a graphics card in a computer - definitely a luxury. I'd argue the less wealthy you are, also the more likely you'd be a console gamer, although I don't have anything to support that, just seems intuitive.
Blizzard games are famous for being low-PC requirements. Look at WoW, as of MoP it still supports Windows XP, which came out in 2001(!).
I was even playing D3 on my old laptop that's still running Tiger, so I know for a fact that their games run on really old machines.
So it seems that you're making quite a lot of assumptions there.
Just look at the Korean scene, for a long time most people played games at PC Bangs, you don't need to come from a well educated / off family to play any game you want there.
No, they aren't. Almost none of the games when released were playable on a "standard" PC.
They are known for aging well, not for being low-PC requirements on release. SC2 is extremely CPU demanding, more so than most games still being released today. You also couldn't play it without a GPU when it was released.
My 2007 rig I had that was a prebuilt, $2,500 new could barely play SC2 upon release - it was bad enough I learned how to build a new CPU from scratch. To think the average household had a computer that could play it is nonsense.
South Korea is also an anomaly in which the culture is entirely dominated by electronics, more so than almost any other in the world.
Back when WC3 was under development they were quite explicit in addressing criticism that their game engine was outdated, saying it was because they didn't want the game only playable on cutting edge machines. That was a long time before SC2 of course, but I never saw anything that contradicted that stance. I guess your experience and mine are opposite ends of the spectrum, because I never had a problem playing the latest Blizzard games on my old laptop (~2008 and raided Cata and played D3 at lanch). I know I installed SC2 on my work laptop when it came out, but I have no idea the specs / age of that machine since I've gotten a new laptop since then (in 2010, so that one must have been older).
In any case, there are plenty of people who play SC2 on laptops, which come premade and retail about the cost of a console system. They don't get the best resolution / ect of course (wasn't LastShadow or one of those guys playing on a PoS laptop for a while?), but it plays, so I don't think it's so unbelievable that 'poor' gamers are limited to consoles only.
They also said it about WoW which had graphics that were not as good as games released well before it. Blizzard's push in the 2000s was definitely to put out games that were playable on old PCs.
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24).
I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either.
People that have a computer capable of playing SC2 are far more likely to come from a well educated family. That's quite simple.
The less money you have, the less likely you're going to have a graphics card in a computer - definitely a luxury. I'd argue the less wealthy you are, also the more likely you'd be a console gamer, although I don't have anything to support that, just seems intuitive.
Blizzard games are famous for being low-PC requirements. Look at WoW, as of MoP it still supports Windows XP, which came out in 2001(!).
I was even playing D3 on my old laptop that's still running Tiger, so I know for a fact that their games run on really old machines.
So it seems that you're making quite a lot of assumptions there.
Just look at the Korean scene, for a long time most people played games at PC Bangs, you don't need to come from a well educated / off family to play any game you want there.
No, they aren't. Almost none of the games when released were playable on a "standard" PC.
They are known for aging well, not for being low-PC requirements on release. SC2 is extremely CPU demanding, more so than most games still being released today. You also couldn't play it without a GPU when it was released.
My 2007 rig I had that was a prebuilt, $2,500 new could barely play SC2 upon release - it was bad enough I learned how to build a new CPU from scratch. To think the average household had a computer that could play it is nonsense.
South Korea is also an anomaly in which the culture is entirely dominated by electronics, more so than almost any other in the world.
Back when WC3 was under development they were quite explicit in addressing criticism that their game engine was outdated, saying it was because they didn't want the game only playable on cutting edge machines. That was a long time before SC2 of course, but I never saw anything that contradicted that stance. I guess your experience and mine are opposite ends of the spectrum, because I never had a problem playing the latest Blizzard games on my old laptop (~2008 and raided Cata and played D3 at lanch). I know I installed SC2 on my work laptop when it came out, but I have no idea the specs / age of that machine since I've gotten a new laptop since then (in 2010, so that one must have been older).
In any case, there are plenty of people who play SC2 on laptops, which come premade and retail about the cost of a console system. They don't get the best resolution / ect of course (wasn't LastShadow or one of those guys playing on a PoS laptop for a while?), but it plays, so I don't think it's so unbelievable that 'poor' gamers are limited to consoles only.
If you're talking about "now" then that's fine, but computers are like 3 full generations ahead of where they were when SC2 was released. And it's safe to say that a lot of people probably didn't have the current generation when released, such as myself. Who is going to get into a game 3 years late?
A 2008 laptop would have heavily struggled with SC2 if it were not top of the line when released. Resolution is irrelevant to processing power, although you would absolutely have needed a discrete GPU as well, which are NOT standard whatsoever in laptops. Without both a top of the line processor and some sort of discrete GPU, a 2008 laptop could not have a smooth performance in SC2.
I have heard WoW particularly was very low demanding upon release, but I think that was a heavy outlier amongst games (I have never played WoW) and not as relevant to my point specific to SC2.
You can't really say there were "different experiences." Specs are specs - they are what they are.
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24).
I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either.
People that have a computer capable of playing SC2 are far more likely to come from a well educated family. That's quite simple.
The less money you have, the less likely you're going to have a graphics card in a computer - definitely a luxury. I'd argue the less wealthy you are, also the more likely you'd be a console gamer, although I don't have anything to support that, just seems intuitive.
Blizzard games are famous for being low-PC requirements. Look at WoW, as of MoP it still supports Windows XP, which came out in 2001(!).
I was even playing D3 on my old laptop that's still running Tiger, so I know for a fact that their games run on really old machines.
So it seems that you're making quite a lot of assumptions there.
Just look at the Korean scene, for a long time most people played games at PC Bangs, you don't need to come from a well educated / off family to play any game you want there.
No, they aren't. Almost none of the games when released were playable on a "standard" PC.
They are known for aging well, not for being low-PC requirements on release. SC2 is extremely CPU demanding, more so than most games still being released today. You also couldn't play it without a GPU when it was released.
My 2007 rig I had that was a prebuilt, $2,500 new could barely play SC2 upon release - it was bad enough I learned how to build a new CPU from scratch. To think the average household had a computer that could play it is nonsense.
South Korea is also an anomaly in which the culture is entirely dominated by electronics, more so than almost any other in the world.
Back when WC3 was under development they were quite explicit in addressing criticism that their game engine was outdated, saying it was because they didn't want the game only playable on cutting edge machines. That was a long time before SC2 of course, but I never saw anything that contradicted that stance. I guess your experience and mine are opposite ends of the spectrum, because I never had a problem playing the latest Blizzard games on my old laptop (~2008 and raided Cata and played D3 at lanch). I know I installed SC2 on my work laptop when it came out, but I have no idea the specs / age of that machine since I've gotten a new laptop since then (in 2010, so that one must have been older).
In any case, there are plenty of people who play SC2 on laptops, which come premade and retail about the cost of a console system. They don't get the best resolution / ect of course (wasn't LastShadow or one of those guys playing on a PoS laptop for a while?), but it plays, so I don't think it's so unbelievable that 'poor' gamers are limited to consoles only.
If you're talking about "now" then that's fine, but computers are like 3 full generations ahead of where they were when SC2 was released. And it's safe to say that a lot of people probably didn't have the current generation when released, such as myself. Who is going to get into a game 3 years late?
A 2008 laptop would have heavily struggled with SC2 if it were not top of the line when released. Resolution is irrelevant to processing power, although you would absolutely have needed a discrete GPU as well, which are NOT standard whatsoever in laptops. Without both a top of the line processor and some sort of discrete GPU, a 2008 laptop could not have a smooth performance in SC2.
I have heard WoW particularly was very low demanding upon release, but I think that was a heavy outlier amongst games (I have never played WoW) and not as relevant to my point specific to SC2.
You can't really say there were "different experiences." Specs are specs - they are what they are.
I bet this is a misunderstanding caused by what different people think is unplayable and what's not.
WoW was fine if you ran around outside and did quests and played the 5-man team-play part of the game. It breaks in large raids even today if you want 60+ FPS. So it's basically very similar to SC2. If you are fine with 25 FPS everything is okay and you can judge it as something that has "low PC requirement", but you'll be grinding your teeth if you pay a lot for an expensive PC and it still won't run perfect like similarly old games usually do.
Difference to SC2 is that you probably never really need high FPS in WoW as you can still play fine with things running a bit choppy. I played a lot on a crappy Athlon 64 X2 and the game always still reacted on key input while things were a slide show. The game only requires you to press a new key every second or so, so you'll always get enough feedback for what you are doing even if FPS are very low on your screen.
It would be interesting to see them replicate similar studies with other competitive esports games like Street Fighter, puzzle games, etc. Although, they don't have 3rd party apm type tools to track info as far as I'm aware.
Interesting study. But don't you find it coincidental that 22-24 years of age is typically when people enter the workforce fulltime and reduce the amount of time they play games like Sc2. Furthermore, being less rigorous in their playstyle, they might decide to take a more relaxed approach to the game. The benchmark for me was around 23. I appreciate the time invested in the study, but don't you think it would be more beneficial to track the same group of individuals 18-30 years of age over, perhaps, a 3-5 year period to demonstrate a true cognitive motor decline? I know you might not have that luxury. But I think the psychological maturity and stage of life is really at the crux of this observation. I have no empiracal data to prove it, just a hunch. Thanks for the contribution.
You know this point has been repeated a lot and I was thinking about it the other day. In the US, less than half of all adults have a bachelors / 4-year degree. So speaking for America, the majority of people actually enter the workforce much earlier than 22 (and certainly before 24).
I have a hunch that online communities like TL tend to be more educated, but I have no proof. I certainly have no proof (or even a suspicion) that SC2 players in general are more likely to go to college either.
People that have a computer capable of playing SC2 are far more likely to come from a well educated family. That's quite simple.
The less money you have, the less likely you're going to have a graphics card in a computer - definitely a luxury. I'd argue the less wealthy you are, also the more likely you'd be a console gamer, although I don't have anything to support that, just seems intuitive.
Blizzard games are famous for being low-PC requirements. Look at WoW, as of MoP it still supports Windows XP, which came out in 2001(!).
I was even playing D3 on my old laptop that's still running Tiger, so I know for a fact that their games run on really old machines.
So it seems that you're making quite a lot of assumptions there.
Just look at the Korean scene, for a long time most people played games at PC Bangs, you don't need to come from a well educated / off family to play any game you want there.
No, they aren't. Almost none of the games when released were playable on a "standard" PC.
They are known for aging well, not for being low-PC requirements on release. SC2 is extremely CPU demanding, more so than most games still being released today. You also couldn't play it without a GPU when it was released.
My 2007 rig I had that was a prebuilt, $2,500 new could barely play SC2 upon release - it was bad enough I learned how to build a new CPU from scratch. To think the average household had a computer that could play it is nonsense.
South Korea is also an anomaly in which the culture is entirely dominated by electronics, more so than almost any other in the world.
Back when WC3 was under development they were quite explicit in addressing criticism that their game engine was outdated, saying it was because they didn't want the game only playable on cutting edge machines. That was a long time before SC2 of course, but I never saw anything that contradicted that stance. I guess your experience and mine are opposite ends of the spectrum, because I never had a problem playing the latest Blizzard games on my old laptop (~2008 and raided Cata and played D3 at lanch). I know I installed SC2 on my work laptop when it came out, but I have no idea the specs / age of that machine since I've gotten a new laptop since then (in 2010, so that one must have been older).
In any case, there are plenty of people who play SC2 on laptops, which come premade and retail about the cost of a console system. They don't get the best resolution / ect of course (wasn't LastShadow or one of those guys playing on a PoS laptop for a while?), but it plays, so I don't think it's so unbelievable that 'poor' gamers are limited to consoles only.
If you're talking about "now" then that's fine, but computers are like 3 full generations ahead of where they were when SC2 was released. And it's safe to say that a lot of people probably didn't have the current generation when released, such as myself. Who is going to get into a game 3 years late?
A 2008 laptop would have heavily struggled with SC2 if it were not top of the line when released. Resolution is irrelevant to processing power, although you would absolutely have needed a discrete GPU as well, which are NOT standard whatsoever in laptops. Without both a top of the line processor and some sort of discrete GPU, a 2008 laptop could not have a smooth performance in SC2.
I have heard WoW particularly was very low demanding upon release, but I think that was a heavy outlier amongst games (I have never played WoW) and not as relevant to my point specific to SC2.
You can't really say there were "different experiences." Specs are specs - they are what they are.
I bet this is a misunderstanding caused by what different people think is unplayable and what's not.
WoW was fine if you ran around outside and did quests and played the 5-man team-play part of the game. It breaks in large raids even today if you want 60+ FPS. So it's basically very similar to SC2. If you are fine with 25 FPS everything is okay and you can judge it as something that has "low PC requirement", but you'll be grinding your teeth if you pay a lot for an expensive PC and it still won't run perfect like similarly old games usually do.
Difference to SC2 is that you probably never really need high FPS in WoW as you can still play fine with things running a bit choppy. I played a lot on a crappy Athlon 64 X2 and the game always still reacted on key input while things were a slide show. The game only requires you to press a new key every second or so, so you'll always get enough feedback for what you are doing even if FPS are very low on your screen.
Sure - if you want to be restricted to 1's and not play lategame, an Athlon is OK. But if you want to play custom games, or teams, which is what appealed to a large amount of gamers, it's not going to fly (well battlecraft would have been OK). But then as mentioned, you'd still need a discrete GPU.
Strange thing is that this is really not all that new, at least not regarding general cognitive decline (i.e., fluid intelligence). So no idea why people over the internet are so shocked. For speed, it is interesting for sure!
oh no, I'll be 25 in 2 months. Guess I'm only getting worse from here on out. But on a serious note, I believe it is the lifestyle change that really effects older gamers. Full time job, serious girlfriend, family, etc. Less time for gaming overall. It's just a matter of practice and putting in the hours and that not happening anymore. I always played sports and played D2 college sports as well and I see a definite decline after college from not putting in the time. I won't be in the same shape as I was training on a college team 4hrs a day, 6 days a week. I think it is older that physical abilities slow down, like early 30s, but that's all up to the individual.
EPT
