Do Modern video games teach Autistic behavior?

Just wondering. Gaming is a repetitive task. And it's a task which requires the player to repeat the same task over and over, possibly hundreds of thousands of times for simple virtual rewards.

Take a MMORPG for example where the aim of the game could be to spam the same five set of character skills for hundreds of hours on enemies which act exactly the same, the only difference in the enemies you face are possibly their aesthetics visuals and the enemies health bar. But the AI (in game scripting) for the enemy remains mostly the same. They run up to the player and stand there attacking and it's the players objective to do nothing but spam the same set of skills until the enemies health bar is depleted.

I believe at one point, gaming wasn't as repetitive as it has become. I'm talking about the early days of gaming where games such as MMORPGs were more about social interaction with other players instead of grinding. Take Ultima Online for example, a MMORPG where the game revolved around trade skills and housing and forming guilds and clans. Compare this to a modern day MMORPG such as WOW which is more or less about grinding repetitive quests and enemies and then at end game raiding (which = more grinding).

And it's not just the MMORPG genre. The same aspect can be seen in other genres. Games now days seem to push players to doing the same thing over and over again with no form of intellectual engagement except possible in-game virtual rewards such as trophies or in game items and armor. Take Destiny for example, a very popular FPS which seems to lack all forms of true intellectual engagement and just seems to require the player to complete mundane tasks repetitively hundreds if not thousands of times in order to progress and gain their in-game virtual rewards.

I'm questioning the hobby in general and wondering if the lack of intellectual engagement in modern core gameplay has possibly lead the hobby away from being a form of intellectual engagement ( comparable to completing a puzzle or a crossword) and more into a possibly negative mental exercise of nothing more than simple and baseless repetition. .

No, autistic behaviour isn't something that can be taught, at least in the sense that you're inferring. Also there was just as much repetition in games before as there is now and just as much intelectually challenging games now as there was before.

Im staying away from repetive grinding mmo games, i have found out it's not my cup of tea, i can play multiplayer shooters for a good while though because when competing against real human opponents there are many different situations you will come across and that to me keeps the game fresh and non repetetive. Whatever float your boat i guess. Some people enjoys grinding mmo's because of the end game when they get all the good stuff but to me the time it takes ain't worth it. Made it to lv 28 in Destiny and then i had to throw in the towel, felt just like a waste of time and ill probably never gonna get a game like that again.

There was repetition in many of the old games. But any decent game back from back in the day always had some form of intellectual engagement. Even FPS games such as Half Life required the ability for the player to figure out puzzles. Such as stacking boxes in a certain way to overcome a environment obstacle. The enemies had better scripting. They also required the player to navigate a map which was not linear. It seems that modern games have for gone all of this and just seemingly tell the player exactly where to go, either via linear map design or way points and map markers. Take an example of Resident Evil 1 or 2 and compare to Resident Evil 6. Resident Evil 1 being a game which required the player to find their path through a mansion via completing puzzles. And Resident Evil 6 a game which required nothing but following a waypoint. I don't believe your statement that there's as many intellectually challenging games now as there were before. Not unless you're talking about modern indie titles which are mostly throw backs to "old games".

Oh yeah, as soon as I begin playing I become the game, nothing else matters, my wife says there's no point in talking to me, I'm IN the game, the only annoying thing is that buzzing noise I'm able to detect sometimes ....... I imagine it must be her trying to comunicate but who the hell cares ?

I don't think games has changed that much over the past decades other than graphics and better animations, if anything games feels less frustrating today than before. The grinding aspect has allways been there in rpg's for as long as i can remember but mmo's like wow probably took the grinding to a whole new level. Remember i had a blast playing Phantasy star online and Everquest with a couple of buddys of mine back in the days, was alot of grinding in those games as well but i didn't really mind it because the atmosphere, level design and characters was so awesome. I think people who enjoys mmo's are in it for alot of other things than just the gameplay which do consist of alot of grinding and repetetiveness. I didn't quite get what you where refering to about autism though?

@ShimmerMan: No... It can't...