Fenzel meditates on the differences:
[In real life we] don’t just remember the specific things that hurt us, we are drawn to patterns or themes, building into our ancestral stories and wisdom guidelines and rules of thumb that will hopefully help others make better decisions in the future when they encounter situations that may or may not be new to the species. In many video games, these two skills — the skill to figure out which guesses are reasonable, and the skill to build on the information you already have about a situation, aren’t just useless, they are actively counterproductive.
A lot of the challenge in video games comes from the designers and developers picking smart moments to defy your expectations, prompting you to try the thing that you know isn’t supposed to work — to the point that players are conditioned it might be the best way to approach every problem. Perhaps it has contributed to a generation of contrarian curmudgeons who immediately look to what is wrong with any situation — which isn’t the worst point of view on things, but maybe isn’t always the best.
The Dish 