What is the relationship between video games, and athletic cognition?
Quick thanks to the following folks:
Dr. Shawn Green, Professor at U. of Wisconsin
Dr. Graham Erickson, Professor at Pacific University
Andrew Hawkins, NFL Pro Era Founder
Halo Studios (letting me film in the Halo Museum)
Like many, I grew up with video games…and like many, I was always curious – is any of this helpful? Does any of this improve our athletic performance?
From Starcraft on the computer to Halo on the console…there are so many different types of video games that I played, I knew I couldn’t group them into one category. This led to a vision – a continuum.
There is so much to explore here, and in all likelihood, I will revisit the VR/AR world later with a few companies that are training athletes.
Hope you enjoy – feel free to drop a comment and subscribe if you do.
– Michael
00:00 Amtrak Ambition
01:30 The Continuum
02:35 Simulated Success
12:52 Console Sports Games
17:20 A New Practice Facility
22:16 VR Challenges
24:48 FPS Transfer of Skill
32 Comments
Well done video, as usual; however, for a topic like this 2 real life stories you did not delve into that would have helped your video: Jann Mardenborough, a British professional race car driver who went from playing Gran Turismo to racing in Formula 3 and other series. His story is the subject of the 2023 movie Gran Turismo and Will Still, a European Football Manager for French League 1 side Lens who partly credits his rise to becoming a manager through playing the popular Soccer (Football in Jamaica) simulation series Football Manager (FM).
Man Im usually a hater but your videos are so great i only have praise for it. I never commented throughtout my entire life of using internet but you made me keep it up appreciate your videos. feels like national geographic and shits
Best damn sports channel on YouTube!
Also, brilliant to drop this JUST before the Super Bowl. BRILLIANT.
Insane that you didnt spend a single second on Jayden Daniels AI simulation that he used in college
I am NOT watching this because you changed the thumbnail (in fact I prefer the first one I saw with the athlete in VR and the funky colours). I just saved it for later 😂 it's important you know that…for some reason
Haha ive been to that museum and done the moon landing and plane sims, love the content sir 🙏
This new icon isn't it
These last two videos have been so good. I really love your style of storytelling. Keep up the great work.
how is bro only on 200k subs, YT algorithm is the pits man.
Training on realistic simulators is definitely beneficial when actual training is constrained by cost or physical limitations. Simulators can also reinforce knowledge and sharpen reactions, so I consider it a form of practice.
Max uses iRacing
The most realistic (non-VR) sports simulation I've played is MLB The Show. Baseball is more suited to video gaming as there are more narrowly defined roles and positioning on the field, and fewer collisions. Collisions are so difficult to accurately simulate as we see in Madden and NBA 2K.
Some MLB pitchers will sim their next start on The Show to familiarize themselves with the opposing lineup. While I don't think playing The Show would translate to one's skills on a diamond, there is no question that my knowledge–and appreciation–of the nuances of baseball has greatly increased by playing.
10x Grand Prix champion is just so funny to me 😂 at the Bottas part at 5:05
In Europe if you're a champion, its for a whole season. He's a grand prix WINNER, he won 10 races 😊 just pointing it out, not a mistake at all, just something I found funny.
Great video as always!
My friends and family is telling me to shut up about MacKelvie. But I won't not until they watch the best content on the internet.
Well this video flopped 🙁
Awesome video
You are an artist sir 👏 u, thinkingbasketball and jxmyhighroller are my favourite YouTubers👑👑👑 Huge props from Toronto, Canada
Sick intro. Sick animations. Shout out to your editor.
Stan's not taking anyone home – nobody attractive finds golf the slightest bit appealing.
Halo 2 boots up: "Is there anything better than that sound?" That sound means: I'm about to be epic. That's what I hear, everytime.
I think an important aspect that wasn't addressed is the coaches POV, or even a general managers. That makes a game like Madden almost 100% real. How many times have we Maddinites sat at home on Saturday or Sunday and yelled at our team's head coach to call a time out because we understand clock management better than they do? Every NFL team should hire a 16 year old kid who plays professional Madden to be their clock manager.
This is a very good video in general, but mainly I love how it highlights the big gap in our actual understanding of these topics. Athletic performance is most testable in racing generally, it is also where simluations are fairly easy because the player is effectively stationary. A friend of mine did work on the topic creating an overview of the state of the literature in about 2003 or so which I did proof reading for and you had these same concepts of a 'simulation gap' and these doubts about realism being key to it at all.
At the time even mass consumer goods (games) were providing a simulated reality that was really quite decent in terms of visuals and physics, so the idea of closing the simulation gap looked to be a matter of computing power. However the theory was that a person will always know the sim from the real and as such it can not be a proper substitute. This is also talked about in the video. The most important piece of research (or at least it seemed so to me) at the time was one where they put different people into a sim and tracked their performance. Invariably those who had experience with sim racing were among the best performers, those who had little to no experience with racing were among the worst, nothing unexpected from the control groups, but those who did real racing at a high level showed a weird asymptote. Some of them were also among the very best easily, others were performing at a rate only just a bit better than complete non-gamers with zero racing experience. It was not a muscle memory thing, they were given a racing wheel with pedals etc. So the theory that arose here was one of there being a sort of mental mapping for the activity that just wouldn't load in the brain so to speak for a subset of people. It was not seen as the same activity, whereas for others it was. So fast forward to 2025 and we have Lewis Hamilton (best driver of the 2010s) who does not do sim racing and he probably sucks at it too, meanwhile Max Verstappen is the best driver irl and probably top 10 in sim racing. Clearly to Verstappen it's all the same thing. So yeah I am really interested in seeing how research progresses on this mapping issue, because to me it seems like that is indeed the big task ahead to unlock the potential of sims. Pushing for more immersion though does not seem to be the real fix as in these cases described the same issue existed when sims weren't nearly as good just the same as they do now when they are very immersive and realistic. The video kind of reaches the same conclusion that there is just something that we are missing and sims are just training tool, but for some it really works while for others it just doesn't seem to do the trick.
The production and concept of this video is amazing! However, just to really pick at something. As someone who unfortunately is addicted to playing madden every year. Do not give EA the excuse of diluted progress. EA has moved away from making a good game and towards money making (MUT). And even MUT has went from decently fun to just downright PayToWin. Although I definitely agree with the plateau of graphic capabilities
Madden is like the most arcade like game compared to fifa and 2k
The best sports youtuber alive
I first recognized the overall positive side of VR when I started seeing the news about people with disabilities using them to understand and do something they've never done. And I understood the effects of playing action games when my critical thinking, and overall IQ when playing basketball suddenly became average despite me almost never playing ball in life after becoming very good at 2K
Bro is HBO on YouTube
Another crazy good video man, great work!!
I definitely think VR is probably helpful for a qb for pattern recognition on coverages and blitzes.
The initial video on breaking into top sports leagues was nothing short of phenomenal. Watching this has left me wondering just how extraordinary your other content must be. The animation, storytelling, and depth of research on sports are truly impressive. Consider this a well-deserved +1 subscriber!
Totally unsolicited advice but I almost didn't click the video because the thumbnail doesn't look like your regular ones and I didn't notice it immediately in my feed. You should remove yourself, add a graph or chart from the video that gives the jist of the story and overlay some typical game graphics, "1up", a mushroom etc and add a title more in line with what you usually do and the video will probably perform better. Ex: "Why athletes are looking to video games to improve performance"
0:02 this is literally 1984
This is def true. I remember his bad I was at football till I started watching it and playing madden👍