Goodbye, Socially Awkard Image of Gamers

The Loner. That’s how society thinks of the stereotypical gamer. He sits in his room all day, playing a never-ending game, while the only social interaction is the voice he hears in his headset while making his latest kill. Why does he do this? According to society it’s because he has little or no social skills, so he has to hide behind a make-believe character. Well society, you’re wrong!

As a study by Dan Loton, a Psychology graduate from Victoria University showed, contrary to popular belief there is no direct correlation between game-playing and social skills. In fact, even among the problem gamers (who were identified in the study as those who spend fifty hours or more a week gaming), only one percent of them were identified as having poor social skills.

True, certain role-playing games, such as World of Warcraft, do have a tendency to lead to an almost addictive habit. Still, while it is hard to have an active social life when one is more concerned about climbing the guild rather than the social ladder… this isn’t quite as common as your parents might have you believe. In fact, WoW can help develop skills that can be used in the real, as well as the virtual world.

Don’t be surprised if your next boss admits to having at one point been a fan of role-playing games. As the latest issue of the Harvard Business Review shows, these games that can so easily lead to addiction can also help to develop important leadership and management skills.

The “leadership online labs” that the researchers set up discovered three invaluable lessons that accomplished World of Warcraft players often learn on their way to success in the game. They learn to embrace failure as a rung on the success ladder, to rotate individual managers to individual goals, and that to get better management you need to change the game. Forget about youth sports teaching kids the necessary lessons to succeed. It’s time to sign up for your local WoW league if you want to create the next billion-dollar startup!

Not only do video games help hone your skills for business, they also help the Army to be all that it can be. The military, which has used networked scenarios as a training tool for building teamwork, is leaning more and more on video game technology. This is because today the gaming industry is actually outspending the military in human-interface technology. So in actuality, military simulators are reminiscent of your video game systems at home. We aren’t wasting our time on Halo or Call of Duty. We are preparing ourselves to be the soldiers of tomorrow. Sweet!