11 An America’s Army player was able to save a car crash victim without any prior medical training. He learned about controlling bleeding and saving the victim’s life from the game.

When Paxton Galvanek saw an SUV flip and crash on a highway, he immediately assisted the victim by bringing him out. He used a towel to stop the bleeding from the victim’s hand and other injuries. This is not the first time the knowledge people get while playing games have helped them in the real world.

Most high-end games are designed to be accurate enough to simulate real life situations and equip the player to respond as is necessary in real life as well.(source)

12 Video games used as therapy for fighting depression and other psychological problems in teenagers has proven more effective than counseling.

Depression is one of the psychological problems seen in both teenagers and adults that affects their quality of life and increases their psychological stress. In a study conducted with 168 teenagers, half were assigned to play SPRAX and the other half were assigned to attend traditional therapy. The first half were able to battle depression much faster, with 44% even completely cured, when compared to the other half.

People forget themselves when they are engrossed in a game and that is one of the important things you need to fight negative thinking. The excitement of the game can help people fight self-consciousness and feelings of inadequacy.(source)

13 A 12 year old Norwegian boy saved his sister and himself from a moose by taunting and feigning death – two skills he learned from playing World of Warcraft.

Hans Jorgen Oslen was walking home with his sister when they accidentally stepped into the territory of a moose, who then started attacking them. That is when Oslen used the knowledge that he learned from the game to themselves.

When the moose attacked them, Oslen knew the first thing he had to do was ‘taunt’ and provoke the animal so that it would leave his sister alone and she could run to safety. ‘Taunting’ is a move one uses in World of Warcraft to get monsters off of the less-well-armored team members. Once Hans was a target, he remembered another skill he had picked up at level 30 in ‘World of Warcraft’ – he feigned death. The moose lost interest in the inanimate boy and wandered off into the woods. When he was safely alone Hans ran back home to share his tale of video game-inspired survival.(source)

14 An Oxford study suggests that playing Tetris after a traumatic incident reduces the chance of developing traumatic memories by keeping the mind occupied from reliving the incident.

After a traumatic incident, people tend to recall what happened – either voluntarily or involuntarily, developing memories that are very sad and unpleasant.

There is also a tendency to subconsciously get used to depression because a person may feel there is nothing else left to live for. Tetris is known to intervene with the way these memories are created in the mind by distracting it from flashbacks or reliving them.(source)

15 In 2005 a highly contagious virtual plague ensued in World of Warcraft game draining points, killing many low-level players and causing others to abandon cities. The incident, known as Corrupted Blood, attracted the attention of epidemiologists and counter-terrorism researchers to learn how the real world would react to an epidemic.

Corrupted Blood was a spell that two raiders used on players when they raided cities. The effects were meant to last only a few seconds but a glitch in the game caused it to last longer and to spread to other players, their pets and other creatures.

The incident caused panic among players and led them into emptying their cities despite efforts to quarantine the infected players. After a week’s pandemonium the glitch was corrected with some patches.(source)