In Ian Bogost’s book “How to Do Things with Videogames,” he writes at one point that in music games, like Guitar Hero and Rock Band, mastering levels of higher and higher difficulty in the game “does not lead the player to a greater state of mastery as a musician, but to a greater depth of understanding as a listener.” And although Bogost is really only referring to these two musical interaction videogames and their relation to musical literacy as a result, I think that the idea that he presents here can be teased apart to represent a larger applicable argument to videogames and their ability to teach the player. One of the arguments that many parents and videogame critics present is that videogames are (gasp!) brain-rotting. However, I believe that if we use Bogost’s argument about the aforementioned games on a grander scale, we can in fact find greater benefit to the playing of videogames and to our mastery of certain skills. Take for example a first person shooter game like Call of Duty. Most parents would look at this game and think that it is nothing but a violence-promoting waste of time. Perhaps however, if we looked at the game and its intricacy and depth, we would be able to agree that although the game does not make one a better shooter or soldier, it does sharpen reflexes, promote critical problem solving, and an increase an aptitude for spontaneous strategy adjustment (ie. “Crap, we should probably take a different route since this one appears to be chock-full of zombies.”) I’d like to think that many videogames can promote this process of deeper understanding of something, and in fact teach the player something, even if it isn’t that which the game is mimicking or necessarily representing. After playing most games, even simple ones such as Words with Friends or Temple Run, we walk away having absorbed some sort of benefit. All of the chapters in Bogost’s book emphasize this idea of deeper content to videogames than meets the eye, and this statement and these reasons demonstrate the teaching ability of videogames that tends to get lost in the noise (since this specific chapter was about music after all).