We live in interesting times. It used to be that video games were often considered time-wasters, especially by the parents of the kids playing them. Nobody thought that there were any benefits of spending so much time with their faces focused on a screen, though the downsides were always considered to be abundant.

These days, the opposite is true. Gaming has grown to become a global million-dollar industry, with plenty of research coming out to support the benefits experienced by people playing these games. While this covers all genres of gaming, this article will share a few benefits of playing racing and motorsports games and how it may apply to automotive or motorsports students such as yourself!

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Hand-eye coordination and motor skills

These two benefits are some of the most commonly recognized benefits of playing video games. With your eyes fixed on the screen, your hands are making use of a keyboard or controller with multiple buttons and sometimes even joysticks you operate with your thumbs. Throughout the gaming experience, your eyes almost never look down at the controller because you’ve already become so familiar with it you can operate it ‘blind’.

This ability to focus on something with your eyes while working using your hands is called your ‘hand-eye coordination’, and your ability to use your fingers and thumbs so efficiently, moving from position to position within a heartbeat, is referred to as your motor skills.

Combining these two abilities is useful when applied in real-world scenarios, such as when you’re learning how to do things in your practical classes. Working with hand-operated tools on equipment or vehicles of any kind requires you to be agile with both of your hands while maintaining your eyes focused and undistracted from whatever it is you’re working on. Gaming helps develop these abilities.

Realism in Virtual Reality

While you’re a student, most of your time and resources are spent in college. Chances are that your exposure to the real-world of motorsports is limited for now, if you have any at all. You may not be able to work on race cars as much as you like, nor would you be able to drive on the many great racetracks that exist all over the world.

The beauty of gaming these days is that their developers do a lot of research and try to be as realistic as possible with what exists in the real world, particularly in motorsports. Game developers are aware that people who play their games tend to be motorsports experts in one way or another and so they try to get details, such as race track layouts and even race car details as realistic as possible.

You, as a student of the motorsports field, can benefit greatly from this. Even though you are unable to experience a race track in say, Germany, through video games you’ll be able to explore every inch of that track in virtual reality. Best part is, you’ll be doing it in a virtual race car of your choice which you have built and configured just the way you like.

Decision-Making and Memory

That realism in motorsports video games also means that it requires input from players in the form of decision-making, such as which race car should be used and how to set up the vehicle’s anatomy and configuration. This gives you a chance to apply everything that you learn in your automotive college in a risk-free environment, since any losses or damage you experience as a result of those decisions are purely virtual. Any mistakes you make in virtual reality can be considered a form of immediate feedback as well, which enhances your learning overall.

This also trains your memory, because you are constantly processing and remembering important details about the track, about the car and its configurations, and then recalling what works and what does not. While externally to the untrained eye it may seem like you’re just playing games and having fun, the truth is that your mind, your eyes and your hands are constantly working at lightning speed throughout the gaming experience.

While you should always be aware of the differences between virtual reality and real life, always remember that there are some real benefits to playing motorsports video games. This is especially true for a student of the automotive or motorsports industries like yourself. Video games these days are as realistic as racing simulators and can be a great addition to your learning experience.