Casual Games Are Good for You

Electronic Arts announced today that Pogo.com and The Stress Institute are teaming up to promote the positive impact playing games has on your health. Dr. Kathleen Hall, the founder of The Stress Institute, will interact with Pogo.com's over 13 million users through January of 2008, offering stress-management advice and relaxation tips. "Play time is not a luxury, it is an essential element for your mental and physical health and well being and is an excellent stress reliever," Dr. Hall said. "Stress is the driver for most diseases and the benefits of play and laughter in overcoming and preventing stress, aging and disease are too numerous to ignore."

According to the Institute, some of these health benefits include:

• Stress Reduction - Playing even five minutes of stress-busting games like Poppit! or Lottso! Deluxe, can lower blood pressure and stave off anxiety, depression and disease.
• Brain Health - Games like Word Whomp, Tumble Bees or any one of the 40-plus puzzle games found on Pogo.com stimulate the brain and help to keep it sharp and healthy.
• Social Community - By connecting with family, friends and new online buddies through unique chat features on Pogo.com, players can avoid feelings of isolation, loneliness and depression.
• Build self-esteem - Everyone enjoys winning and the games on Pogo.com allow even the most novice player an opportunity to be a winner. The vibrant and supportive Pogo community offers encouragement further building a strong sense of individual empowerment.

Remember that this holiday season when your family is driving you crazy - you're not sneaking off to grab time with your DS, you're meditating.

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If all of that is true then I should be a well adjusted, confident, healthy 35 year old with lots of friends. How come I'm an insecure, unhealthy, alcoholic loner?

Don't answer that!

Um... playing the wrong games maybe? *kniw*

CorvusE:
Um... playing the wrong games maybe? *kniw*

Yeah, obviously you aren't playing games from pogo.com. Duh~

Interesting idea, nonetheless. I just hope they are able to take the results and extrapolate to other games a bit, and not just present pogo.com as the be all, end all bastion of stress reduction.

While it's probably true that games are a stress buster, having a company involved in the research to promote their own product destroys the credibility. Do you believe the baloney health info on the cereal box? Cigarettes are good for you too! And, are games really better for you than active play? I'm all for researching games and showing benefits, but get business out of it!

Play time is not a luxury, it is an essential element for your mental and physical health and well being and is an excellent stress reliever.

Great, that takes all the fun out of it. Games are now a responsibility. Have you brushed your teeth? Have you played 5 minutes of Pogo?

No figures from the Grumpiness Institute by chance?

*veins start poping out of my head and make a frown*
Casual Games are the most aggravating games because they take everything I seem to like (exploring,fun,ect) and rape it out of a game and leave their wet and devoid of life lets not bring up FF12 with the broken class/skill system or DOOM 3 with the corridor shooter in the dark theme that devoid the game lets not talk about 9's and 10s for halo when at best its jsut a fun but flawed FPS....nnooo...... let not talk about it *shudders*

I'd hardly call Final Fantasy XII or Doom 3 "casual." Think Bejeweled.

After playing Steel Battalion, everything seems casual. :)