Slashdot Mirror
Today's Gamers, Tomorrow's Leaders?
slash-sa writes "Video games have become problem-solving exercises wrapped in the veneer of
an exotic adventure. In today's fast and rapidly-changing business environment,
the strategic skills they teach are more important than ever. From realistic battlefield simulations to the building of great nations, from
fantastic voyages through worlds of mythology to conquering space, "Generation
G" could well offer the answer to unlocking
great 21st century strategists and leaders."
If these people are the best and brightest we are fingered. play WoW sometime and you'll see.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Congratulations, you made it to the Senate.
Unlocking funds.
Congratulations, you made it into the White House.
Unlocking interns bras.
Congratulations, you became president.
Unlocking WMD.
liqbase
welcome our pasty-white girlfriend-less overlords.
Maybe video games teach problem solving skills, but equally important in the business world is paying attention to things that aren't an orgy of colors. In the end problem solving only comes after analysis, and video games aren't teaching that.
_____
Thank you.
Go and build a gamey gamey
Get those losers out of their basements
Leaders of the world...
I'm sure we'll all be glad that Johnny got his PhD in BattleCruiser 2000 when the aliens attack us.
Sure, they might go OK when there's fighting to be done...
but there's more to Life than just that!
Creativity has many faces, and their NOT all punched a virtual
black & blue from fights, even if that's the only way to win
some computer gamce.
Games just don't have the breadth of Life experiences for me.
Just like the squares are the ones from the hippie generation that are in power, the lamers are the ones from the gamer generation that will be in power.
You know, the kinds of kids whos parents idolize people like Jack Thompson and Hillary.
Living With a Nerd
There is no save-reload in real life.
Not to say that the experience offered by games isn't worthwhile but I find myself doing a lot of reloads too since I like to see if I can do stupid stuff and get away with it.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Shya... and monkeys might fly out of my butt.
There are alot of people on XBox Live that I would not want anywhere near a seat of power like the Presidency of the US.
I can see it now. "Let's nuke 'em again and see if that will complete this level. Where was that last save point?"
The simple truth is that interstellar distances will not fit into the human imagination
- Douglas Adams
It's not an entirely original article. A book was reviewed on /. along this line of thinking over 2 years ago.
http://books.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/03/09/2050249
The idea that you can train someone to disassociate the "person" from the "target" is well known and well applied in the modern military. Especially in the modern American military where nighttime raids are carried out in pitch darkness with only moving infrared blips representing the fleeing victims of computer-guided missiles, such disassociation has reached a very high level.
By getting kids into games earlier, and especially into games which allow multiple "lives" with very little cost for respawn, we can teach them to better separate their feelings towards others from their actions.
I can see only good things for military planning and warmaking coming from this.
Another point not mentioned in the article is that, yes, these people are more used to working in groups thanks to MMOGs and such. But group work is also far, far more prevalent in schools (from kindergarten straight through college math classes) than it was 20, even 10 years ago. More and more, students come out of school being thoroughly used to working in groups, delegating tasks, collaborating on the final product, etc. Some of this has been due to bottom-up pressure from educational researchers saying this works well, some of it has been top-down pressure from employers saying that this is a skill they want in their workforce. Either way, I'm not sure you can give video games all of the credit.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
Yet for some reason after only 11 comments the dicussion is already focused on these... what does this tell us about the slashdot readership?
OTOH, I for one welcome our BFG-toting million-polygon new overlords.
Hmph, I might change my title from Services Director to Services Masterchief.
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
We need to find a Moon Master to defeat the Gorgotron somehow! Think of the Mooninites!
The game.
since plenty of them are 30 and still virgins, i'm not too sure that can't be ruled out just yet.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Overheard from military war room: "I can dance all day! I can dance all day! Try and hit me! Try and hit me!"
Quiz: True or False -- On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your middle name?
Someone's got to lead those fry cooks. And that's where the big bucks start rolling in.
I think any reasonable study would also show that the best leaders are those who played just a little and have a lot of experience in real life.
Basically like with language acquisition theories we can either assume that leadership skill is either acquired during our life or we are born with it.
If it's genetic, then gaming has nothing to do it.
If it's not, I'd say leading a school research project or a community or anything really is better that gaming.
With all that said, it's time to head back to Portal for me (which btw is way too short and too easy).
That's all I have to say.
~= scwizard =~
AID: "Mister president! the terrorists just keep coming! what should we do?"
President: " easy, have some snipers camp around their spawn points and take them out. Come on guys this is basic stuff... you did tell the army about my circle strafe right?"
Oh yeah, I see this is gonna be fun!
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
How about we just recognise that since his very dawn, man has filled his life with things he *MUST* do in order to survive (i.e. eat, hunt, have sex, etc.) & things he *LIKES* to do when he's not doing the things he *MUST* do (i.e. eat, play games, have sex, etc.) so that computer games are just another facet of the the things man has always done to entertain himself?
Also, can we make the assumption that any human being with an IQ higher than a sub-normal woodlouse knows that *REALITY* is *OUTSIDE* of his head and *FANTASY* is *INSIDE* it? Therefore , in all likelihood, the online *FANTASY* persona a gamer portrays in a game (or indeed elsewhere online) is probably far removed from the *REAL* person in *REAL* life. Thus, a great "Commander Napoleon Patton" in Battlefield 1942 might well be "Little Mister Sheepman Incarnate" in real life.
Now, can I please get back to my game?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Gaming "today" is much more than button mashing and cheat codes.
-- if you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine
Ah yes, the folks who spend their lives glued to the blinking lights and canned music of the latest and greatest video game are quietly honing their UBER L33T Skilz. The 80 plus hours a week spent in the dark, alone, bereft of actual human contact - the pizza guy doesn't count, clearly develop the necessary and vital skills that the rest of the world is lacking. And in due time, the next video game will come around and those few, dedicated gamers will rise to the digital challenge and dominate the world. . .
for 15 bucks a month.
The reality is simple: those video game skills have to be translated into areas outside of the video game for any effective leadership to happen. With so much time spent in the game(s) and so much less in the real world, these leaders will be most often found with titles like: "Raid Leader," "Guild Master," or "Class Leader." We'll be lucky if these folks hold jobs long enough to qualify for social security.
Creative Spelling Copyright (2002). May use without Persimmons
I mean, the universe is at stake here!
Only when they stop gaming, get out from behind their screens and DO something.
The gamers I know prefer games over real-world politics.
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
although its kind of a non-claim anyway - as games take over from movies, its like asking "are today's movie watchers tomorrow's leaders?" 20 years ago, well of course they will be but that doesn't mean that gaming or movie-watching bears any relation to becoming or being a leader. if everyone plays games then some of them will become leaders. i play counter-strike but i must say it has had little bearing on why i was recruited into the SAS (super army soldiers) and have to leave my pc once in a while to go do some black ops....
Games involve a rule set that must be satisfied in order to succeed. When it comes down to it, it's literally a pre-defined set of button pushes that allow you to win the game (obviously, many different sets), with graphics, music, sound FX, and the like wrapped around it to make it fun. I've known this for a long time, and ignore like everyone else. Something that urks me is people who play sports games, when many of them can just walk outside with a basketball. I'm really confused by people who waste their lives away in front of The Sims. When they could be just living their own lives. Must just be a game that I will never understand.
Life, however, is infinitely more complex. No extra lives, continues, 'fantasy', or super powers. But most importantly, life always carries consequences for your actions. Games may hone some of your skills, but they sure as hell will not prepare you for actual reality. Only reality can do that.
So get off your keesters and play some actual basketball. Or go build an actual building (you can start with Legos if you like, then go to architectural school, or become a laborer, either way works!) Become tomorrow's leaders by training in today (minus the controller or KB/Mouse)
This sig isn't original enough, it's time to come up with something witty...
Games are not a plague and they are not the great almighty solution either.
/crawling back to work
They do not create murderers and they do not create the genius problem solvers of the next millennia.
You can have fun many ways, from just enjoying beautiful scenery in the mountains to leading a high-end guild in World of Warcraft.
You have a choice. Just because the available means to have fun these days are getting complicated doesn't mean today's games are something fundamentally different.
They are entertainment. Have fun.
*starts teabaggin*
didn't they write a book about this?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game
If you haven't read it - it's about training children to become future leaders through video games.
If a square is really a rhombus, why aren't all triangles purple?
...if some guy finds all the corporate easter eggs, he gets to be CEO? :P
"People" using "unnecessary" quotes should be "shot".
I agree with many posters (e.g., The_Mystic_For_Real), who point out that these games are not a substitute for real life. In fact, in real life, it is HUMAN INTERACTION that makes all the difference. Those who have good people skills are those who generally become leaders. Playing games does nothing to develop people skills. In fact, one could argue that it stunts one's development. Real life is about understanding others, patience, persistence over a period of years (perhaps decades), attention to detail, and being able to think clearly when idle.
We do what we must, because we can.
Calling your enemies dogs and infidels, inferior beings who deserve to die because God said so? That has worked very well in the past and is still actively used.
Getting your own side to view the enemy as less then human, yeah lets blame that on the americans and video games, it is not like that hasn't happened since mankind decided there was US and THEM.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Orson Scott Card was Right!
At least now we'll have a real reason to go to Mars.
Why would this be a 21st century phenomenon? In my ancient opinion games today are easier and more linear then yesterday's finest (and it didn't get us anywhere, did it?).
Try to have a kid today figure out one of Infocom's or Sierra's best adventure games from the 80's...they neither have the patience nor the attention span for it.
A kid today trying to play twelve hours of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspended? No chance for the future.
One of the things that struck me in the commentary to Portal is how often they changed things because the playtesters were being unsuccessful. Like changing the lighting to make them players look in the right direction. I'm not saying that's a bad idea when designing a game, quite the contrary, but it isn't training people to deal with real world problems. Real world problems are not deliberately set up to point you at the solution. If they were, then they wouldn't be problems.
To be a leader, you actually have to leave the house and interact with other human beings once in awhile.
You don't have to be smart to use a Mac, you just have to be smart enough to buy one
I cry bullcrap. Give me one who writes the games these people play over all the players that play the game, anyday. Besides, I wouldn't hire anyone who spends potentially productive hours of the day by gaming. Anyway, although there might be some connection between a certain kind of creativity and being good in certain types of games, I wouldn't prefer a gamer over a non-gamer just based on the gaming habits. As always with such opinions, one can find just as many counter-examples and pro-examples. Even I personally know many bright minds who do not spend countless hours playing games, but prefer cracking their minds on real life problems. And, believe us people, real life problems are far away from in-game problems and the in-game solutions are pretty much that, in-game manouvers that get you forward, and seldomly more. If someone says the gamer managers are so much better, I can only say that gamers or not, managers' capabilities fluctuate just as much - if not more - than anybody else's. And I'd prefer a manager having experience handling real people in real life issues than any secondlife or wow gamer who thinks that can handle a bunch of teens or midage smartasses who don't have anything else to do. There, I said it, suck it up.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I have rarely read anything this unpersuasive. TFA is basically a "Ender's Game" hard on of some sort. I found this quote to particularly stand out. "Future leaders will naturally be more collaborative and more willing to make decisions than many of today's managers. This willingness to share authority, to make decisions collaboratively and to assign the person most suited to any given task is what games teach." If the author had logged on for a session of Team Fortress 2 on any public server, he'd realize he's just dreaming. Computer games are not really teaching these skills more strongly than the games of our ancestors. They're just new is all.
Being a gamers myself, or at least having been one and seen a lot of other gamers, I will conclude that gamers, like everybody else are also just people. Some smart, some thick as a brick. I don't think games are in any way breeding a new generation of superb leaders or anything.
Speaking as a one time Generation X'er I can't help but think of Generation G as a bit of a downgrade.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
I have been playing Starcrack for 6-12, sometimes 30 straight hours a day for years now. Even when considering the 2 month break every 5 months I take to quickly try to sort out everything else I got going on in my life (computer science at university, a job here or there, and not losing contact with friends and other aspects of my social life I have riding in the back seat for the majority of the year), my unique experience is nothing to sneer at. I'm the whitest, pastiest, computer nerd stereotype you can think of. Even if I don't look like it, I'm also a pro con-man and actor.
When doing other things, I do sometimes make a conscious effort and think how I can use this starc playing into something beneficial for what I am doing.
It would be interesting for me to document everything I learned having invested this chunk of my life to. Do I multitask better than you at talking on the phone while programming? Can I also be working a math proof in the back of my head while planning dinner and next week's vacation? I don't know if I have enough overlords for all that.
Spawn more overlords! Our base is under attack!
What I do know is, from all the games I've played, and I think I have played many over the years, and Starcraft is a deel, analytical game you can really spent a lot of your time analysing a lot of aspects of. It keeps your attention when you're playing at a high level, you can't help it but focus. As fast as my fingers are moving on the keyboard when I'm playing it, what goes on in my head is what's actually keeping me occupied.
for producing problem solving leaders, for the simple reason that the supply of individual problem solving ability has always exceeded the number of leadership slots. The real difficulty is getting the problem solving individuals into those slots, then training them on how to exploit their problem solving capabilities in the real world.
There are two kinds of people: those who want to find a good enough solution as quickly as possible, and those who want to find the best solution and are willing to take as long as it takes. Neither extreme is right. Their's an art to making decisions, and much of that art is knowing when you don't have enough facts, and when gathering more facts will put you behind the pace at which a situation develops.
An effective problem solving leader not only has to find an artful compromise, he has to find a way to make it work where everybody who has to make it happen has a different idea of what the ideal compromise should be. In other words a problem solving leader has to build a flexible, problem solving organization. President Clinton was not my idea of a great president (unless we grade on a curve), but he had a saying that is very true that went something like this: people are policy.
I think computer games have some value in training problem solving, but I don't think they will produce a generation of superior problem solvers, so much as give superior problem solvers of the generation a different and not necessarily superior set of games than their predecessors. Imagine that one of the presidential candidates was a master of three games: chess, poker and bridge. Wouldn't that be just as intriguing as if he were a master of FPS games, strategy games and tetris?
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Just because someone is good at WoW, or has great 'camping skill', doesn't mean that they will be the next greatest business leader. There's definitely such thing as burn-outs, losers, slackers, etc. within the gaming community..
The flip side is that there are those who will grow up gaming and be able to learn from their experiences, wire their brains to think strategically, and succeed in life using the skills that they've been able to develop based on the way they have begun to think in life. It isn't A=B here.. it's A leads to B which allows for C.
I come from the text based MUD world of old, and I think that the interaction between the 'characters' and, late at night the regular people over the channels, does indeed increase your people skills. If you're a d!ck, people will tell you, and you'll learn.. if you can't make up your mind and do something, you'll be killed, looted and it'll suck.. so there's your problem solving/decision making skills.
I think the crux of this is the MMOG aspect of the games. It's not the single player Halo 3 gamers of the world that will benefit from the games, but those who understand that 1) it *is* just a game and 2) have the ability to transfer the skills in an abstract way to real life situations.
No matter what, John Doe won't end up being a CEO just because he's a gamer.. there are other aspects of his personality, character, abilities that are prerequisites to the position.
And all those new execs will prefer the superior sound quality of vinyl records
PJRC: Electronic Projects, 8051 Microcontroller Tools
In the past there have been some brilliant minds to come out of dirt poor poverty. I feel pretty safe in saying that every poor person is not a genius. In the same sense I think with the percentage of gamers out there now there are pretty good chances that some of them will become leaders and perhaps some of their experiences from say, operating as a squad, assessing complex plans will help them in their futures. THIS DOES NOT MAKE EVERY GAMER A GOOD LEADER.
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
I've seen a lot of posts here going on about the pasty faced kids or 30somethings locked away in their parents bedrooms etc. and the total lack of social skills. This isn't always the case and from some of the things I have seen from playing online games for 10-15 years now I can see some very real similarities between the business world and running long term guilds. I'm not talking about organizing a few raids in WoW, I'm talking about what it takes to start and keep a guild running for more than a few months. I'm currently in an EQ guild that was started about 6-7 years ago and the behind the scenes headaches of keeping 50-80 people (and these are people who are generally 20-45, not 12yr old kids) 'happy' aren't trivial. When you have that many people with their own agendas and personalities, managing them all, coming up with rules/guildlines/policies and enforcing them (and once again, these are people that average in age to be around 25-30 who are intelligent, employed and married in many cases) is VERY much like trying to run a business and balancing your employee's wants and needs against what you need to keep your business afloat.
sorry, I suck at spelling, I'm sure someone will point out all my mistakes.
Or were you already a leader type?
Cause and effect, did WoW make you a good leader because you were a succesfull guild leader OR where you a succesfull guild leader because you were already a good leader?
Winning the olympics improves your condition, why yeah, but some might say that having an excellent condition comes BEFORE you win the olympics.
I must admit, I like PUG's (Pick up groups, grouping with strangers) because they can be a lot of fun to see how different people play. You get some amazing idiots. The biggest I am currently faced with is pulling in Lotro. The hardest quests in Lotro don't require pulling, you are clearing an area, not trying to kill X of Y. Since the enemies are either far enough apart to not alert each other, OR so close you pull everything anyway, the best attack is to charge in with melee.
There is another reason for this. In LOTRO hunters are NOT good at melee. They are very good at damage, in fact they are the primary nuke class. This means that if a hunter pulls and criticals that the guardian (tank) has a hell of a job getting agro back. Meanwhile the minstrel (healer) has to spam heal to keep the hunter alive, creating even more agro.
Worse, most mobs in LOTRO consist of melee AND ranged, YOU CAN'T PULL RANGED, they simply shoot back. Ranged damage is often far more lethal, especially since a lot of people are incapable of spotting it. Most guardians can see it if a enemy starts beating up the support players but are unable to spot if they are being killed very fast by a hail of arrows.
Worse, the guardian and champion who both like enemies to be clumped together now got to pull the melee of the puller, then run to the archer to force it in melee mode, hoping the melee stays on them
DO NOT PULL
DO NOT PULL
DO NOT PULL
It is fun to see the players that know this, who have managed to learn that NOT all games play the same and when a certain tactic should be used and when it should not.
But I very much doubt that MMO's can teach you this. The reason? I seen to many player who sucked at level 1 and still suck at level 50. The good ones just stay good.
You can see a similar thing in IT, while the number of people who grow up with computers is on the increase, the number of people who actually know how they work is decreasing. It is getting almost impossible to hire developers who REALLY understand programming. I have had to deal with programmers who didn't even understand basic logic. They could use it, but only as long they got it right by accident, they could not spot bugs introduced by logical errors. The most bizarre case had to do with 0 == false. That does NOT mean 1 == true. Even if you accept that it sure as hell don't mean true == 1.
Let me just confirm my suspicion with you, do you in real life before you started working take the leadership role in say your class? A club? I think so.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Great Britain Representative: That "AssMan24" is just a pathetic camper! Look at him! Camper!
Russian Delegate: In Soviet Russia Base Camps You! Hahaha... I AM THE ASSMAN!
US Appointee: Fucking nubs, you better turn on teh ha40rs cuz I'm gunna pwn you all next round!
UN President: Hey! No talk of hacks! I'm demorecording this and it will be reviewed. If I see any sign of cheating your entire team will be banned from competition!
Yep... it's going to happen.
There are only 10 kinds of people in the world. Those that understand binary and those that don't.
Speaking as a one time Generation X'er I can't help but think of Generation G as a bit of a downgrade.
But jPod is a step up from iPod, so it's swings and roundabouts...
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
I'm a bit shocked at how many people have responded with stereotypical assessments on the gaming culture and those surrounding it (especially when it comes from people on Slashdot). You may be correct in identifying a portion of the World of Warcraft community by stating these inappropriate judgments, but it's time you get with the times and stop critiquing the entire gaming culture based on your lack of experience.
Take some time out of your day to look into the true gaming communities of Counter-Strike, and any game involved in what is being called, "E-Sports." Here is an entertainment industry built by people ranging from 10 to 30 years old, all with one goal in mind: to advance their game to the point where the public recognizes it as a true sport. Careers have been made from this, even DirecTV has gotten involved with the Championship Gaming Series which offers gamers over $30,000.00 each for competing in their televised series. Look at companies such as the World Cyber Games, World Series of Video Games, Major League Gaming, the Cyberathlete Professional League, and a host of others, you'll quickly see that gamers can change the way people perceive the gaming culture. The CPL alone just announced a $1,000,000.00 tournament for Halo 3! They wouldn't be putting that much money in a game if it wasn't taken seriously.
E-Sports alone is a direct product of what gamers are capable of. Individuals that consider themselves general managers of their gaming organizations have been shown capable of gaining sponsorships from companies such as Tylenol, Samsung, Microsoft, Intel, Subway, nVidia, and hundreds of other brand names. These are not people with degrees in marketing, nor even in public relations, these are passionate gamers that range in age, and that are able to convince a multi-million, and sometimes, billion-dollar company into a contractual agreement.
I could go on and on listing the characteristics that define true gamers, and the gaming industry in general, but it's not worth the time. Games teach people things that they never taught before. No longer are you trying to duke it out on Pong folks, you're now trying to develop strategic plans with four other friends, all the while considering a number of various factors, in the attempt to out-smart, out-aim, and basically, advance both yourself and your team into the limelight. That may sound hilarious to a few of you old-timers, but the time of e-sports, and the recognition of it, is now.
Who would've thought that a 16 year old could convince an internationally known company into a $17,000.00 product sponsorship with a brand new online gaming league without any experience in marketing, no classes in public relations, and no degrees in business? I would've. Someday many of you will too! This is not on accident, gamers are smart, and they're starting to show it.
My fellow Americans, people have come up to me and asked, "Why should you be president?" I'll tell you why -- I have a long history of leading this great nation to victory.
In the beginning, the Megapolis of Grandiloville was just a power plant and a couple of power lines. But centuries later, its skyscrapers stretched as far as the eye could see! It was the jewel of Anystate. What? Ok, it was a simulated city, but it's basically like the real thing, right?
Later, I enlisted in the Army and stormed Omaha Beach. I lost a lot of good friends that day. I probably would have bought the farm too if it weren't for all the first aid kits strewn about. And even though I lost good buddies, I could always count on finding more good buddies just around the next corner.
Then, in Earth's final century, I will have lead the survivors to a planet circling Alpha Centauri, where they will rebuild civilization. Rudy Guiliani may have watched the towers come down, but has he witnessed the death of an entire planet? I think not!
What? That hasn't happened yet? Well, of course not! You're just jealous because my experience is not limited to the past and present. You're not going to vote for me? Well, you'll wish you had when the Combine comes through an inter-dimensional portal and enslaves humanity.
It has just occurred to me that the brightest mind I have met so far in my 34 years WROTE games for a living.
Not really a leadership character though, to be fair!
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
Our videogames just got faster and more difficult until you ran out of extra men. We learned the futility of existence.
Yeah, games can make you a good strategist. But simply studying strategy is much faster for someone with talent.
Its the same as with languages. For an average person, living in a country which speaks another language will be an effective way to learn it. But for someone with talent, studying 8 hours per day will actually be many, many times faster (probably contrary to popular belief). A combination is obviously best, but if you have to choose, hard study is actually the fastest way to learn these kinds of mental abilities.
The time won't be far away when you won't be able to find a non-gamer, leader or not.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Someone who playes games = has more time ! He who has more time = is more succesfull ;)
Surely with all the time in college I spent playing Civ II, I should have been anointed Leader of the World by now. Or at least I could be a mayor, given all the different Sim City versions I mastered.
-GiH
Without having read the aforementioned article, I tend to agree with the gist of this topic. After watching a couple of the videos on YouTube of those televised Starcraft tournaments in South Korea, you certainly get the feeling that these guys can be dropped into the role of General or some senior officer in the military, and perform some masterful techniques in strategy. You can't help but be blown away by how quickly and efficiently these guys amass, coordinate and control their forces in what would be a logistical nightmare and extremely stressful scenario for the average person. There certainly is an art to war; so where Sun Tzu's philosophies can be applied in various ways in society, so too is the concept of gamers using the same strategies to becoming great future leaders.
If our futur leaders come from Wow and other mmporpg we are doomed for the lack of social abilities.
problem solving???? OK unless we get the perfect Ai that acts exactly like a human being meaning erratically most of the time we will not get much further.
Most of the games i have played have a pattern, when we talk about WoW and other games a like, we have the human factor but we are still bound by that programming which , even though want to resemble life, is not.
Try hacking your employee with with a Frezzing sword +10 damage of electrical,,,,,not many uses in real life.
Whether you're analyzing the competition in a game, or analyzing the competition in the corporate world, or analyzing the competition in the realm of diplomacy, it's all the same.
People put the same absurd levels of energy into all these pursuits, and they drive down into the nitty gritty details with a level of analysis and planning that would blow your mind.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Stephenson's book is more engaging, more complicated and a less cleanly resolved than Ender's Game. Very interesting stuff in there, with fun nanotech goodness!
No, it's worse than that...The people that are in power now, were the rebels back then. The damn president did cocaine and dodged the draft! For someone of his social class, that's as hippy as it gets.
It's always tempting to think that there must have been this other group of evil people who took over from the idealists and peaceniks, but the truth of it is, it's all the same people. They got older, they got good jobs, and they sold out to the system.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
A leader is only as good as the people they surround themselves with. Holds true in gaming and real life. Put the best leader in the world in WoW to lead a raid with a bunch of noobs, and they won't accomplish anything. Put an idiot in charge of the raid with a bunch of experience, well geared people and they will probably succeed despite the leader... making him look good.
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
this is nonsense. must be the ideas of deluded "gamers"
although I guess the notion of a slacker gamer being president isn't much worse than a coke-addled alcoholic
Chess has been a popular metaphor for war, life, strategic thinking, etc. for centuries, but I don't recall many national leaders drawn from the ranks of the Laskers, Capablancas, and Fischers.
Football (both U. S. and Rugby) are often thought to be good training for leadership. Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington, famously did not "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton," but even if he had, I don't think there's much evidence for correlation between football prowess and skill at national leadership.
As with football, to the extent that video gaming is ubiquitous among today's youth, it is vacuously true that our future leaders will probably have played video games, with varying degrees of skill.
But in seeking our future leaders, one might just as well look to today's [ cell phone users | Harry Potter fans | bottled water drinkers ].
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Yeah, and laebshade stands of laebshadeGAY!
No really, your joke was witless and lame.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
...time to export some more democracy!
... sounds like a bleak and dismal place if an accurate shot and the ability to hunt powerful demons are the kind of skills we look for in the next generation of leaders.
Myu:
Unfortunately. The leaders are those that do not posess valuable skills and compensate with being very competitive. Often I have the impresseion that some people only raise to leadership, because nobody wants to work with them. Look at them. Most do not understand how the world works and have no skills besides aquiring and keeping power. One of the major reasons for the sad state the world is in.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Unfortunately, success in the real world is far more dependent on social skills than technical skills. So, even if gaming produces the best analytical minds, it makes no difference if they can't climb up the political/military/corporate ladder.
Yeah, just like 1970s resumes featured a litany of acid trips and other drug experience, in the heyday of people overachieving in those virtual worlds looking to cash in during the "squaretime" necessary to pay the rent.
--
make install -not war
Playing games in my childhood gave me valuable skills that have helped me greatly as an adult.
The best example of this is the fact that I have never been eaten by a Grue.
tomorrow social outcasts!
... with games is that while they might teach you problem solving and yadda yadda yadda, they teach you another very worrying thing: "There's no consequences for half-assed decisions" and this is something that our leaders already know, so no changes there.
You kids and your fancy pants "WOW" "raids". As a child of the 70s and 80s I learned all the leadership training I needed from Pong and Zork. Served me well in grad school. Of course, now I'm a dice polisher for TSR^H^H^HWizards of the Coast.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
My son started playing RTS type games at age 5.
At first he struggled, but he wanted to play the same games I did. We did a lot of multi-player over our LAN. Early on, it was me beating up on the computer players and protecting him.
Now five years later he kicks **** in these games. He has developed his own style. He wins consistently. His strategies don't mimic my strategies. He has learned to view the process in the big picture way. Doesn't get bogged down in the details.
It is great fun to watch him solve the problems presented by these games. The more complex the game, the more he likes it.
He actually carries a notebook around with him writing down notes on the game he wants to build someday. At age 8 he told me that he was going to be a game designer when he grows up. I have no doubt that he will succeed. I can't hardly wait to play his game.
President x Bush: How do I turn God Mode on in this damn war?
gaming will have taught important skills such as taking over the world for instance? and stamping out global terrorism through the use of overwhelming uh.. terror? and violence? or in the case of Leroy Jenkins running headfirst into doom.
I remember when these same stories and arguments were being made for Table-top RPGs... yet I don't see much in terms of "leadership" touting the hours they played D&D. Though once we got out of Mom's basement... turns out there were all kinds of interesting reallife problems to solve.
:) Videogames may teach some virtues, but they teach a bunch of crap too... if you're not gonna get all up in arms and pretend it doesn't teach violence or turn you into a High School shooter, perhaps we should shy away from the reverse of that argument... cuz they're both basically equivalent. --Ray
Not to mention, with enough healing potions I was invulnerable...
http://www.beanleafpress.com
In games you get multiple lives. You can also always go back to your last saved game if you try something foolish. Real life doesn't have those luxuries but it does have the occasional cheat mode.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
This may be the stupidest story ever posted to slashdot.
Slashdot needs to interview Natalie Portman.
Games usually teach you specifically to think inside the box and follow the set rules, so I'm just not so sure it's good training for problem-solving.
If you run through a particular problem in a game enough times, dying and being resurrected each time, eventually you'll move through the problem because the game only provides you with a limited set of options. In real life, you don't have the luxury of attacking problems by trying your options until one of them works.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
Does anyone recall that game, "America's Army" that was put out by the U.S. army not too long ago? I think that some portions of the government have realized that the video game playing population is probably more quick-thinking than the general population.
This reminds me of a training course I went through that involved a decide to shoot/not shoot scenario played out in what was basically a giant video screen (made for police training). The instructor told me that its common for people that have never handled a weapon before to have the same aim and reaction speed of those that have spent their entire lives handling weapons. That and they always shoot for the head.
Well, I'm going to assume that that's just a verbose way of over-dissecting something. That you're not literally playing your game like that, nor literally thinking like that during a game. I haven't met you, I don't know what your play style really is, so I'm going to give you that benefit of the doubt. No need to assume the worst from the start, and all that.
Because, no offense, anyone who literally play the game while thinking about it as setting goals and evaluating performance, and thinking of their team mates as "there has to be consequences for people who are complete flakes"... *sigh* there is no nice way to put it, so I might as well be frank: those are the deranged sociopaths that ruin every last drop of enjoyment for everyone else.
Let's make a couple of things clear:
1. it's just a game. We're all there to have fun. That is the _only_ goal. Getting your MC gear or whatever else is just a prop, not the goal. If you got your prop, but noone had fun in the process, then you've utterly failed the real goal and missed the whole purpose of the exercise.
We're not at work, trying to meet some deadline within a budget. We're there to have fun. We're there to forget the stress of RL, and of dealing with clueless PHBs, and with arbitrary deadlines, and with all that crap. The _last_ thing I want there is some self-appointed PHB to turn a game into the same RL crap that I'm trying to escape from.
Trying to impose deadlines and goals and performance reviews there, is as fucking stupid as doing it when going with your friends at the pub. Do you set goals like "we must go through 100 pints today at all cost" there too? Do you do performance reviews and punish the flakes who drank too little? I should hope not, because it would obviously be just the most idiotic way to ruin everyone's enjoyment at that pub. Then, what madness or idiocy would posses someone to do the same in a friendly online game?
2. Noone is really my boss on a MMO. Sorry. Someone may think that being t3h gr3at guild leader makes him some sort of management, but truth is, that's at most a helper function, with at best advisory powers. It doesn't actually give him much right to tell anyone what to do.
I let some guys tell me what to do at work because they pay my wage. So essentially I sell my work and time in exchange for some money. That's how capitalism works.
That relationship just doesn't work that way in WoW. Unless someone wants to pay me my consultancy fee for my time there, that is. Be warned that it's not cheap, though.
Seriously. If I have to do what someone else tells me, and be subject to performance reviews and pep talks, then that's no longer playing the game, that's _work_. I'm essentially working for that guy, then, instead of having fun. It's only fair that he pays me, if he expects me to work for him.
Briefly, I've seen too many guilds in too many games that plain old sucked, and/or eventually disintegrated because a few people didn't understand point 1 or point 2.
Of course, they often ended up going hand in hand. The ones who didn't understand point 1 and obsessed about finally achieving a bunch of bits and bytes instead of having fun, often ended up grudgingly tolerating a wannabe PHB who didn't understand point 2, in the vain hope that it'll lead them to their precious reward. But then again, sometimes they happen separately too.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
23 years old, raised in the country ( not enough people to talk to )
gamer since 14 yrs
played and finished over 200 games ( strategy,fps,adventure)( single player )
stundent in politehnics
no backround in programming !
1 year cobol programmer ( they thought me )
promoted to admin...( loner's job )
Maybe they know what are they talking about !
Gets me a CEO position, cool!
Surprised not to see more mention of Orson Scott Card's well known book.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ender's_Game
The characteristics that make you a good gamer are normally not those that help you as a leader, in that one typically is anti-social or lacks social skills beyond those relevant to the gaming environment, and is too focussed on specific issues and not on the broader perspective.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
The Schwartz space ain't from Spaceballs.
This just proves that if China can find some real gold mines they'll be the richest nation in the world!
Read my short stories - You won't regret it.
Card's Ender scenario also included Ender's ultimate training at the hands of a human master... the computer games only provided initial training for those who tested well early for aptitude. Team scrimmage provided a venue for strategic and tactical development after the initial batteries of computer-based training. The ultimate honing of Ender's skills came from the only human that had bested the superior alien enemy in battle, Mazer Rackhamm.
Card's description of Rackham's training techniques had psychological as well as Eastern flavors involving tests and mental acuity exercises at the feet of the Master...
When computer games can teach children to heard cats or influence their peers more effectively than television advertising, then game programmers will have succeeded where the Elijahs of the Ivy league failed.
The lessons learned from playing adventure games should work well in real life:
1. Take everything that isn't nailed down.
2. Touch everything.
3. Put everything on everything until something happens.
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
I dunno the only real thing I learned was what to do if I wake up in hell, not all that unlikely actually.
... "look for a shotgun and get down".
Altogether now
Perhaps I wasn't too clear. My fault, I suppose.
I'm not against raids or raiding guilds... as such. What I was ranting about is the kind of person who'd be in such a raid and think about it as a "project", and as "meeting goals", and of evaluating performance, and of making sure there are conseqences for slackers, and all those other trappings of RL management. And applied to the awfully wrong problem and in the awfully wrong place.
It seems to me like someone has a blurred line between games and reality from the other direction, so to speak, _if_ they genuinely think like that. And I find such people to be not much fun, on the rare occasions when I run into them. They tend to actually act like a PHB, not like someone among equals, who just happens to have more experience and social skills and helps with organizing it.
And even when they it's not blatantly that, at some point you just _feel_ that things have been over-organized to the point where you're a faceless cog in someone else's mechanism.
Look, I'm not telling you how to have fun, if you're having fun and as long as you realize that that's the real goal. If grinding MC or the AQs or whatever was what kept you happy, go for it.
And if you want to share your experience about some easier way to do it (if there even was one), you're welcome.
As long as it's in those terms: Playing a game with some friends, having some fun together, sharing some experience, helping organize a fun evening together, etc.
When I start getting worried is the very notion that someone can't even just sit at the computer, relax and have fun, without their mind regurgitating "project", "goals", and all that RL crap right into it.
Some stuff is even good common sense. If one approach didn't work, sit, think and and try something else. Just please don't think about it in terms of "evaluating performance" and "setting goals" and all that crap. Just kick that stuff aside for once, and think it in plain English, like at a pub with some friends, not like in a management meeting.
That said, again, I'm not accusing the GP poster (nor you) of being a PHB. I probably haven't grouped with either of you, if nothing else, due to the sheer number of servers and guilds, so I can't make that judgment. For all I know, he could just be taking one metaphor too far, or over-dissecting something until something common sense ends up sounding stupid and revolting. I don't know.
In a nutshell, it's more the wording that caused the reaction than the content. But, as I was saying, for all I know, they might not have thought of it in those terms until they started dissecting it for that post.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
In my experience, anything outside the scope of computer games or simulations is all but invisible beyond the boundaries of complex artificially bounded competitive systems.
I believe that as we run up against the limits sustainability, strategic leadership of a type described by Fritoj Capra in The Turning Point will be ever more important. "Rule-Set-Reset" will happen more frequently as we struggle to overcome political, economic and environmental realities that our collective drain has recently revealed.
For me to believe that this discussion is important, someone would need to provide some evidence to suggest that even one computer game has been designed that can help me to think 'outside the box'. Of course the box should be sufficiently large, complex and lack the finite, winner-take-all state as the end goal.
Show me a game that allows me to move the goal posts and change the size of the end-zone.
Just like Pong never made an international tennis star, Need For Speed never created a racing car driver, nor did Doom create the ultimate soldier.
The only way this can be true is if George W actually played Command and Conquer, but as we all know, he probably doesn't know what a 'simulated' war is.
A better headline would be "Today's Gamers, Tomorrow's Losers". Gaming might even make you a better code monkey or assassin, but it's far more likely to make you a neurotic dork. Get a life outside of gaming. If the only way you can interact with people is by virtually shooting at them, they're unlikely to follow you.
I don't know about "leadership" and what all those other bullshit terms mean, but my thinking has been that you're not a very good leader if the only environment you can really think in is flopped in front of a desk or with your hands glued to a laptop. The ability to "think on your feet" comes from a regular exposure to the real world, not someone else's idealized (or perverse) version of it.
Give me a break. Has anyone, anywhere actually tried bringing this up during a job interview? Claiming management experience via online games likely works only if the interviewer plays online games or if you're interviewing for sales, in which case such a claim would be a superb test of persuasion skills.
Every interview I've been to was conducted by someone in the range of 60 to 70 years of age; they are not players, and mere use of the words "video game" will get snickers. Does anyone have real job interview experience with this?
Always someone has power over you. The thing to consider is this: Is the power good, or bad?
This article was based on research published in 2004; see Got Game. Seems like there might be more recent thinking available...
A quick googling reveals Prof puts gaming to work, which was actually published today.
Also, the authors and their publisher have republished the "Got Game" book this year with a different title (The Kids are Alright:...) but the same content. Seems a bit underhanded, says one recent reviewer.
Sure, sure... mod down for relevance to topic...
I'm going to have to call bullshit on this one.
First of all yes, games do teach you a skill set, however they teach you a game specific skill set, this includes strategy. To obtain a strategic skill set similar to the "finest leaders" you would need to continually change games to understand the various strategic incentives.
Second of all I'm currently looking at finishing up my MBA, I have studied with a lot of people of various ages. Very few of us play games, we are more likely to engage in chat/organizing warez groups/etc. The games we choose to play, are not the large scale time consuming MMORPG's, it's the instant gratification multi-player FPS games, like Counter-Strike, TF or the single player Hitman style game.
I am sure that there would be a lot of people who now a days play games, or consider themselves to play games which could be why they came up with the seemingly arbitrary metric of 80% of managers play games. More so, who did they poll, did they poll the "finest leaders" or did they poll middle managers? In my experience middle managers are often comprised more of promote through the system/fall into this job kind of guys, and they along with the actual workers, seem to be more composed of gamers.
In fact, I would go out on a limb and say that everybody now a days is exposed to some level of gaming, however the "finest leaders" might well be found either not playing games, or at least not high involvement games.
From the other comments, it seems I'm just beating the same drum as what other people have said, however if this is really the conclusion of "Goebel, Govender and Drake"'s paper, I hope they fail, as this is a quite poorly thought out report.
</rhetoric>
This is my footer. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Boy they got screwed when handing out the generational letters, didn't they?
That's got to be one of the crappiest generational names I've ever heard, I'll take my Gen X/Y over that any day -- even if it means I'm too old to build forts out of the extra sheets anymore.
If you can read this... 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100001 00100000 01100111 01100101 01100101 01101011