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Should Gaming Worlds Join the Workplace?
destinyland writes "A Stanford professor argues that gaming worlds can keep workers engaged, and advocates elements of World of Warcraft or Second Life to hone workplace skills like teamwork, leadership, and data analysis. An IBM report also argues games like World of Warcraft teach leadership and that 'there is no reason to think the same cannot be done in corporate settings of various sizes.' The professor even suggests putting online gaming experiences into your resume. ('There's just so much that gets done [in a virtual world] that's just right on target with what happens in real business.') And Google's CEO also claims that multiplayer gaming also provides good career training, especially for technology careers. 'Everything in the future online is going to look like a multiplayer game. If I were 15 years old, that's what I would be doing right now... It teaches players to build a network, to use interactive skills and thinking.'"
Leadership skills? Planning? Cooperation? Have them play D&D. (That's partly a serious comment, actually.)
I don't want work to be this endless soul crushing grind. I don't want my own experience to be considered worthless because the guy next door has the 4 str 4 stam belt. I don't want to be packed into a department of soulless adolescents who can't even talk normally. I don't want to push 90 hour weeks to hit my next milestone. I don't want my supervisor shrieking at me to get on vent for 21st century cutting edge micromanagement.
I cant speak for other countries, but there is a lot of crap on our cheesy news segments here in Australia (by that I mean the half hour after the actual 'whats going on in the world' news) about how women are 'bringing back the curves' and fighting the 'negative body image purported by the modern fashion industry' and then goes on to show obese women pretending to be models. It doesnt work because these women are unhealthy.
Whilst gaming being beneficial has more of a leg to stand on then being fat, there is no doubt that its a recreational activity.
gotta stop accepting things just because its too hard to make ween everyone off it.
First a lot of these skills can be gathered by more productive methods.
Things like. Joining a school club, peing part of a play, even joinging a sports team, or helping with public service.
Secondly with gaming if it is not fun you don't play the game. Unlike work sure you may love your job but there are some days/weeks that are just so boring that if it was a game you would say screw this game it is way to dull. And get a more interesting one. World of Warcraft makes sure you rewards and the amount of what is going is own is fast. Real life there could be weeks/months/years/decades before your work pays off.
Hiring someone who puts their video game skills on their resume would make me very iffy about hiring him. Once he finds that real work isn't as fun or ballanced or fair as it is in a video game he would most likely quit. Or just struggle in work as real work often require a UI that is a bit more complex then games are.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
A year or so ago, I helped my client (a large corporation) look into using virtual worlds and MMOs as platforms for learning and collaboration. I also play MMOs, which helped. And I am familiar with the notion put forth by this professor; companies like IBM have already done some research into the subject. Anyway...
WoW and similar games can indeed hone or help assess leadership skills.... but only with people who already play Wow. For newbies, the time to learn play the game and train up to a level where there are meaningful leadership and teaming aspects (raids) is largely wasted. There are already better business simulations out there that are tailored to business situations. For instance: running a raid organisation is closer to leading a group of volunteers than to managing a corporate team. Different objectives, different leadership style. If you are looking for leadership and team working simulations that can be done virtually, I'd look for existing p&p business simulation games and port them to a platform like Second Life. The big advantage being that such a simulation hardly requires any training to work the simulation itself; after a short newbie obstacle course you can jump straight into the game itself.
Virtual platforms offer a range of possibilities for new ways of learning, especially experiential learning in areas like HSE, leadership, self assessment and team working, but sadly there still is very little training material in virtual environments out there. We're proceeding to roll our own. WoW is far too complex a game and far too removed from business relevant objectives to serve as an effective learning platform.
Putting WoW skillz on your resume? Too early, perhaps. But... if someone is leading a consistently successful raid team, I would readily assume that they have leadership skills worth looking into.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
This is so true. I ended up putting down my professional experience on my resume, but it was my toying with WoW that really honed the ideas on a lot of my current projects!
Don't go putting your MMORPG experience on your resume. You will not get hired for one simple fact, people have figured out by now that WoW can cause addiction amongst its players. They are not going to hire you if they think all you're going to do at work is play your MMO.
Secondly, while MMO's can help someone gain leadership and organizational skills (I'd imagine EVE could even teach you some basic economical/business skills), they don't help with social skills. Having an avatar interact with other avatars is psychologically quite different from interacting with someone in front of you.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
In a MMORPG the rules are clear and you know what you can and cannot do. Follow the strategy and everything will come together, there are few surprises and the AI has no emotion, no ego. No raid boss will deny you victory because you stepped on its toes.
In the real world, that is not the case, you might have followed the right guide to grind your career to the next level and still never ping because the AI has decided that they shall promote the girl because she is prettier or the guy because he is not a girl. Or the minority because there ain't enough of them or the majority because everyone knows minorities can't cut it.
What I have noted is that younger people are very good at being assertive but not very good at being meek. They know how to succeed but not how to fail. And yet, when they finish school where many seem to believe they employ the teachers they are suddenly put in an environment where they are not the top, worse, the top positions are already taken and you will have to compete for them with people who got more experience.
If I would be hiring a new person fresh from school, then I would not be impressed with your raid leading capabilty. Now if you put on your CV that you are a good raid follower, that would matter a whole lot more. Anyone can shout orders, following them is a lot harder. Who needs the other more? Generals vs Soldiers? A simple head count will give you the answer. A new employer will not need another manager, another boss especially one who has not yet proven himself, but they will need people who can do the stuff that is required. And doing that stuff is often boring and unrewarding with you requiring years of grinding away at menial tasks to get anywhere, and there is no progress bar to follow.
Don't get me wrong, I do appreciate that gaming experience can enhance abilities in the real world. If you can organize your guilds supply chain (who crafts what) then you might be a good organizer in the real world. But say that you are REALLY good in arranging that harvested materials make their way to the crafters, does that make you a good procurer in the real world? No...
Why? Because the game world is consistent, eternally the same. If you want more light hides, you just go out an get them and you can just grind them in a respawn rich area. There are no government quatas, no competition, no disease or enviromental factors. It is, simple. The real world is everything but simple. Some of you might mentions Star Wars Galaxies resource system which changed quality. True, but you could freely travel and harvest all over the universe. As shown by a recent story, in the real world a rare mineral simply might no longer become available in the real world (China restricting exports or rare earth minerals).
Gaming experience is no more the playing experience. Sure, if you played with blocks as a small child, you MIGHT one day become an architect BUT if you are going for your first job interview as an architect I wouldn't list "block building" on my CV. You might mention it during your background story, "why do you want to be an architect" "Well I always liked the idea of building something, even as a small child when I made bridges with blocks". But it is PLAYING experience, not real world.
Being a raid leader does NOT make you a leader, it just gives you some play experience at doing it. If you use it at just a light intro to the real thing, then you will do fine. But if you think it prepares you for the real thing or even is the same as the real thing, then you will fail horribly.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I doubt that there are many people out there my age (50s) who have actually managed a WoW raid guild and worked in senior IT management (IT Director), I have DONT imagine that the skills that one acquires to manage a raid guild (or any other guild type for that matter) are necessarily of any relevance to the sort of teamwork needed in the office. If Google's CEO has actually had the experience of trying to mediate half a dozen petulant teenagers whining about this that and the other in the middle of a guild meeting or a raid, I would be surprised. Its a myth frankly and I certainly wouldnt bump someone up my list of possible hires on the basis that they had been a WoW guild leader - the real world IS NOT the same as any virtual or gaming world - you cannot see, touch , smell or interact with people in the same way - so the types of behavioural patterns that evolve in virtual worlds do NOT prepare people to manage real world human complex interactions - whereas If on the other hand you had done "real world" team work activities, outward bound courses for example , I would bump you up my list. The comparisons dont stack up - who do you want in charge of an engineering team ? someone who has managed groups of real people in testing circumstances or someone who has managed a bunch of pixels controlled by people who have learnt that they can get away with poor behaviour because they cannot be held to account in the same way ? My reasoning is quite simple and based on close to 4 years experience of playing WoW with (and I didnt start playiing until I was 45 and part of my reason was to actually explore this myth ) - most people ( note the use of "most" ) in WoW do not develop a balanced sense of responsibility towards others - (yes of course in elite hardworking raid guilds they do - but those environments are just that, elitist and they are non representative and usually arbitratrily disciplinarian and unforgivingly competitive and not real world useful either ) - a very large % of WoW players simply walk away from their responsbilities - they can behave in ways that are wholly unacceptable in an office environment and get away with it -you cant do that in the real world - you cant walk away in the same way - nor should you. If the teams flat out working to a deadline and everyone is dependent upon each other doing their job you dont want people in that team who imagine they can "log off" simply because the going has got tough. No - I personally doubt the people who say these things have actually taken the time to fully try out WoW to any great extent - of course there are exceptions and there are people who do learn mediation skills from team activities in these worlds - but give me someone who has captained a football team or a rugby team or set up and managed a club activity - someone who had dealt with "real" .. anyday
Or, if someone is a leader in a successful guild, that can be very noteworthy. If I found that on a resume, I'd be able to check out the organisation's structure and see just how good that person is. Even moreso than if that person had worked at an actual business as a leader.
At the first company I worked for, the entire department I worked with would shut the doors and get a massive game of Quake going every Friday. It was a great chance for team building. It was also a great level setter - the manager wasn't always the best shot, you know. I agree that this can be a really productive thing if it's done right.
"Before God we are all equally wise - and equally foolish"
Albert Einstein
True, but you touch on an important practical point: you have to go in and check. I can't judge the quality of a raid leader from the fact that they have downed Mork the Farty 20 times in a row with no wipes; I'd have to hop on his raid and see how they actually perform. Perhaps the raid leader is rather poor in reality, and it's a group leader giving the orders, and a team member who cools off budding conflicts, with the raid leader being little more than responsible for the loots and invites (come to think of it, I know a few managers who manage little more than "loots and invites").
So, to qualify my earlier statement a little: I know from experience that the good raid leaders I have raided with posess strong leadership qualities. Even so, that might not necessarily translate to being good business leaders, but at least you know the potential is there in their personalities.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
WoW and similar games can indeed hone or help assess leadership skills.... but only with people who already play Wow. For newbies, the time to learn play the game and train up to a level where there are meaningful leadership and teaming aspects (raids) is largely wasted.
So you're saying that leaders and managers need to learn how to do the job first? Where were you when we had consultants in?
The same was said about sports. "Leadership... teamwork... initiative... coordination... motivation... blah... blah... etc." And they were right. Up to a point. What I'd like to see commissioned is a study comparing the two: who makes for a better Future Corporate Asshole, the quarterback of the high school football team, or the high school WoW guild leader?
The element of a virtual world that I'd like to see in my RL workspace is a large rail gun out of Eve Online that I could use to convince clients to pay on time...
So you say that leading a guild is worth nothing, but being captain of a football team is... because everyone in IT is apparently a jock and responds the same as a football team?
Both of these activities are NOT the same as leading a business team, because the first two are VOLUNTEER teams.
I see three different forms of leadership experience can have.
The volunteer team, this is most often experienced in peoples youths and includes in my opinion school project experience and game/sport leadership. You lead people who more or less agree to be lead but can walk out at any moment. On the other hand, you can also get rid of people more easily.
The army team, in the army if you lead a team, then you are in charge, no question about it. It is very different (I was the rank of sergeant when drafted ages ago) to the first, you don't get to pick the members of your team, not the person giving you orders. More or less, everyone accepts the situation as it is and simply does as ordered and as such, the leading process is very simple. You really don't have to worry about the ego of your corporal and a private... are they even sentient? Who cares?
In business, what you would call the real world, because apparently the other two experiences ain't real in your eyes (which says a lot about you) leadership is a mix of the two. Your boss is your boss but you can always switch jobs and discipline is far less rigid. As a leader, you got to think of the feelings of the people you are trying to lead or you will soon find them seeking to be in a different group, they are not as free as volunteers but they haven't sworn an oath to you.
Experience in either the army method or the volunteer method can prepare you for the complexities of leading people who have different motivations and loyalties, but it is not the same.
So I think game leadership experience CAN be succesful. You say most WoW players have no sense of responsibility. Could be true (although this might more accurately reflect the people you played with and therefore reflect on you). But even if you take your opinion as fact, then how is leading a raid of selfish teenagers different from managing the same teenagers in the real world? Or do you think good leaders only get to lead highly motivated followers?
In some ways, I would be more impressed with someone who manages to lead massive PUG raids succesfully, then an officer who leads an army. What is harder? Herding cats or marching an army band? In IT, where you got to deal with people who have taken individualism to a new level, experience with leading the socially inept is an advantage. You say your WoW guild has no responsibilty but at the same time label those that do as elitist. Hard man to please ain't you?
In the real world, the hardest thing about leadership is NOT leading but getting people to follow in the first place. Anyone can shout orders, but getting people willing to listen to those orders is the real trick.
Getting 23 complete strangers, who don't know each other, don't speak the same language, got their own goals to function together for even a few hours, now that requires people skills. And the lack of direct interaction makes it only HARDER, not easier. People feel free to be real assholes online, something they would never dare to be face to face.
You seem to think good leadership comes from leading people who are easy to lead. I think a good leader is shaped by being able to manage people who are downright hostile to your leadership. The more opposition you face and still manage to make a success, the better you are.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
As virtual environments evolve and the workplace is eventually made completely virtual to eliminate transportation, the distinction between work and play will fade. People will be enjoying their jobs more, and they will be rewarded more for their efforts, as new technology (for example, the ability to manufacture super computers or robots for pennies) will provide greater wealth for everyone in society.
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MUD (& MMOD) Games Feed @ Feed Distiller
Corn, perhaps, can be grown by machine.
Who's going to wrastle the beef?
And who's going to sweat over the grill?
Computer memory is just fancy paper, CPUs just fancy pens with fancy erasers; the 'net is just a fancy backyard fence.
Perhaps the raid leader is rather poor in reality, and it's a group leader giving the orders, and a team member who cools off budding conflicts, with the raid leader being little more than responsible for the loots and invites
So basically you have the same possibilities with in-game leaders as you have with business ones.
you will find people who would slack the hell out in real life doing unbelievable amounts of administrative work for their gaming guild in online games. they do the stuff they wouldnt do if you paid them a fortune.
Read radical news here
Seen through the crystal ball: headline from an HR management magazine, 2013 A.D. approx.
Similar publication by 2017 ;-/
Super efficient tiny cheap robots.
I've been researching leadership and teams in MMOs for the past few years as part of my grad program in organizational psychology. In particular, I've studied players of EVE Online and looked at leadership behavior among guild/corp leaders as well as their followers. I'm still crunching the latest longitudinal data, but the early results point to average levels of transactional leadership behavior (a more managerial style; exchange based; you do X, I'll reward/punish you with Y) but strikingly low frequency of transformational leadership behavior (charismatic, visionary, empowering leadership; generally considered the "best" style of leadership).
Jargon aside, EVE players do not appear to be learning how to be better leaders by playing EVE Online. MMOs might help build follower skills (complete this quest/work assignment and I'll give you a gold piece/paycheck!) and make you a better wage slave, but I haven't seen empirical evidence that MMOs are teaching anyone how to be a leader in the workplace, as claimed by TFA. There are anecdotal stories from a few guild leaders, sure, but for now only guild leaders of large guilds should even consider putting MMO experience on their resume.
Finally, MMOs aren't going to teach /. readers about technology in the workplace. I am sorry if I crush anyone's dreams.
In the end it would have to come down to the company as to what criteria are desirable on a CV, such as expert raid leadership or guild crafting organization along with the other usual points that do relate to the position being offered. I agree that games in the fantasy field like "World of Warcraft" and "Age of Conan" might be too out there in terms relating to real world business activities and concerns. The concepts like leadership and organization though could apply, and these games do give someone a chance to practice these concepts, but those need then to be applied to real world situations, changes and society. Perhaps a game that mimics real world such as Second Life would be a better venue. All companies will be different, some may laugh at the idea, and refuse to implement it, while others may fully embrace it. As long as it does not harm productivity, then maybe it can work.
Yes and yes!
I must admit though, I don't give a shit about 'improving my interpersonal skills and business ethics'. I just want a tug and a nap in the middle of the day.