Mafia is a dumb game.

I saw a forum post where Pro called mafia a dumb game. I have been a mafia player for a little over a year now. I believe it is a fun, intellectually stimulating, and valuable game. For anyone who doesn't know what mafia (also called werewolf) is, it's a game that pits an uninformed minority against an informed majority. The minority (the mafia) try to blend in with the majority (the town) while the town tries to locate and eliminate the mafia. For more detail, please reference [1]. It began as a party game, but is now a popular forum game, both on DDO and elsewhere on the internet. II. Mafia is an enjoyable gameWith the number of websites that play mafia, it is clearly very popular. In 2017, 165 communities sent representatives to play in the Season 4 Mafia Championship hosted on MafiaUniverse. com. [2] Popularity obvious stems from enjoyment. Players continue to partake in mafia because they enjoy the game and derive happiness from it. There are multiple tangible benefits to happiness. The first is health. A 2007 meta-analysis from Erasmus University Rotterdam reviewed 30 studies and concluded that happiness and longevity are positively correlated in healthy populations. The relationship between the two was profound, with a happy person outliving an unhappy person at a margin comparable to a smoker outliving a non-smoker. [3] If mafia contributes to happiness for thousands of players, it will positively affect their life expectancy. The second benefit to happiness is increased productivity. In 2014, a study was conducted by multiple professors from The University of Warwick to measure the effects of happiness on productivity. Three separate trials introduced subjects to something to induce happiness (comedy movie clips, candy, drinks, etc. ) and measured the productivity of these individuals against a control group. The ones who had the biggest jump in productivity were the same subjects who had the largest increase in happiness. The fourth trial measured productivity from the beginning. At the end, subjects were asked about whether they had suffered personal tragedies recently. Those who had suffered from such tragedies were notably less productive than those that had not. [4] Once again we can see that the happiness mafia provides has a real-world benefit by boosting productivity. III. Mafia is intellectually stimulatingMafia, at its core, is a game of deception. The mafia team aims to blend in with the town. The town aims to find the mafia. In mafia, you form "reads" based on behavior of other players. Inconsistency in thought processes, having more privileged information than the rest of the players, lies, or thinly veiled manipulation are ways mafia players give themselves away. Town attempts to catch mafia through these "slips" while mafia attempts to conceal themselves by acting as if they are town. The use of these skills requires a complex game of mental chess against other players. IV. Mafia teaches valuable skillsAs mentioned in the previous point, if you want to be good at mafia, you need to develop skills related to deception and detecting such deception. These are important interpersonal skills. A 2014 study from the University of Illinois concluded that mafia players are attuned to linguistic cues that help them succeed in the game. [5] This is the essence of emotional intelligence. Emotionally intelligent individuals are more likely to be able to "recognize, understand, and influence the emotions of [themselves and] others" and predict how these emotions will influence behaviors. [6] By forming a strong emotional intelligence, players can apply these skills in their real lives to recognize and manage their own emotions, as well as identify, influence, and shape the emotions and behaviors of others. The other skill mafia helps us develop is persuasiveness. Regardless of your affiliation (town or mafia) you must persuade the rest of the players to act in a way that furthers your win condition (wincon). Persuasiveness is an invaluable skill in both personal and professional lives of players. It can be as simple as persuading your friends to eat at Red Lobster instead of Applebee's, or as significant as convincing your boss to give you a raise or closing an important deal with a client. No matter how you draw it up, persuasiveness is important in influencing the behavior of others in a way that is beneficial to you. [7]V. ConclusionI have proven that mafia is a popular game with many tangible benefits. It also helps players develop soft skills that are incredibly important to success in both personal and professional lives. VI. Sources[1] . https://en.wikipedia.org...(party_game)[2] . https://www.mafiauniverse.com...[3] . https://link.springer.com...[4] . http://www.journals.uchicago.edu...[5] . https://www.aaai.org...[6] . https://www.ihhp.com...[7] . https://www.kent.ac.uk...