[mquander]

I don't know how you're using the word "concentration" here, but playing an FPS (for example) usually demands that you pay attention to something new every few seconds, and definitely does not encourage lengthy focus or sustained thought. I think tends to be even more true for console games than games in general.

In any case, I doubt it's so much that video games are detrimental and more that you ought to have a hobby which actively cultivates concentration.

[tansey]

Maybe something like UT or CS, where it's all over in 3 minutes, that's true.

I remember being a kid and playing games like Tomb Raider where you would have to really think and work hard to unlock puzzles. Even games that offered you the opportunity to just fly through them usually had some form of deeper gameplay. For instance, SF Rush was all about things flashing by really fast, but the real challenge was to collect all the keys in the game, which often required a lot of innovative thinking about finding things to jump off.

[Scriptor]

The main difference here is between action and puzzle games. I personally disliked the pure puzzles because they felt too restrictive. Large-scale strategy games like simcity were a better fit for me. The same pattern shows up in my coding. I really don't like simple puzzles, but love challenges where I feel like I'm building something, not just solving it.

[mquander]

You know, that's a pretty good point. Most console games have some "completionist" aspects that usually encourage some degree of cleverness and persistence, if nothing else. I know that I always enjoyed that aspect when I was a kid, although I don't know if it's the prevailing mindset.