My job role is a Technical Lead. When researching some cloud technologies for adoption I came across the Cloud Native Computing Foundation’s Landscape web page which lists all cloud technologies that come under their umbrella.
The sheer number and variety of them made me realise that perhaps players of games like Magic The Gathering or Dota would probably feel right at home when designing cloud applications since the job involves identifying apps that synergize with each other and min-maxing their costs.
So I was curious if there were more such examples where gaming skill could translate well to real life jobs?
If you can use an Xbox controller, you can work for the military flying drones to murder people from the comfort of your desk chair.
Gaming teaches you how to navigate menus and utilize hotkeys to improve efficiency (at least on PC).
Sim racers definitely outperform an average person on a race track even when neither has driven an actual race car before.
I also remember hearing that surgeons who play videogames tend to perform better at their jobs too.
I also remember hearing that surgeons who play videogames tend to perform better at their jobs too.
Hand eye co-ordination (especially when looking at a screen without direct feedback in your hands), stressful situations, long stints of focus…
There’s lots of benefits to gaming!
I participated in a study a year ago where i had to solve visual YES/NO logic puzzles that relied on fast pattern and spacial recognition skills. While i was doing those for like 40 minutes i was getting my brain scanned in an MRT. Apparently i was well above average in speed and precision. I feel like video games might have helped with that but it might just be genetic idk.
Going back to my childhood: reading comprehension way ahead of my age group. You can’t play old jrpgs and point-and-click adventures without reading a lot.
Not sure how true it would be today with everything being voiced.
I would imagine logistics simulators like Satisfactory and Factorio would give you an eye for process design and flow diagrams. It’d probably help with understanding scale, inputs, and outputs too
Eye/hand coordination. Pattern recognition. Problem solving. Task prioritization. Cost/benefit analysis. Inventory management. I could probably think of others if i put effort into it.
Anyone who runs a guild, clan, corporation, or what ever your games group title is 100% has the skills to be a manager outside of cyberspace. If its a themepark MMO like wow, getting 10-25 nerds to clear their schedules to show up at the same time is a feat of organization, and your skills can be put to better use. If that group is a corporation in EvE Online, put that shit on your resume (I do). When I was at EvE Fanfest in 2023, there was a presentation on exactly this, a space game about cosplaying as a machiavellian space warlord turns out has a lot of overlap with being a manager in meat space.
Organizing, teaching and leading raids absolutely helped with my leadership skills and IRL confidence!
I’m so torn up about Even Online. On one hand, I love the idea of flying around in spaceships and doing shit in space. On the other hand, I’m endlessly confounded by how it’s supposedly in reality a business simulator with a space theme.
Its the hardest and best MMO to not play.
The gist is basicly it has the most complex in-game player organizations/managment and shockingly few “rules”. Your not allowed to RMT*, dont cheat the game client, and your not allowed to impersonate a dev/mod. Beyond that, go nuts, so the space conflict is real, the politics is real, the espionage is real. The actual game is very math focused, and slow (the server runs at a 1hz tick, most other MMOs are 60+) and that allows those big fights that make mainstream gamer news as armies of 10k angry nerds all try to murder their space rivals.
TLDR: I love the game. The people there are some of the most intense MMO players out there, its not everyones cup of tea because its spreadsheets in spaceships.
One thing I’m wondering is what part players play. From what I understand Eve doesn’t really have any kind of power fantasy to offer players, it’s pure business? Does that mean every player eventually becomes a cog in one of the big machines that run the world of Eve, much like in real life?
Functionally yes, being a worker bee in a large alliance is probably the most normal MMO expirence you can get. Fleets are called, you will have your own corp leaders that act as HR for the alliance, you go farm the space or just chat in stations with your friends. The power fantasy is there as well, but the process to get there involves being much more specialized and flying expensive things (Titans are 2k$ golden space coffins).
The nice part is being a cog is optional, but recommended, its a much more social game. Hell, ive been to several of my former corp mates weddings, and the Iceland/Las Vegas convention manyl times. The stress about going it alone mostly stems from the games rules of engagment. In a majority of star systems (anything not High Security space, but that opens up a new can of issues), if your alone, you truely are alone and people in the local system should be treated as hostile by default (if you can even see they are there).
I learned more about leadership than one would expect by being a leader in a major WoW guild back in the day. Managing people is managing people.
Obvious answer: problem solving games like infinifactory, Shenzhen I/O, Opus Magnum or spacechem. I mean, it’s literally problem solving. That’s real useful everywhere you encounter problems that need solving which is conveniently everywhere.
Not video games, but go/baduk taught me a lot about many things:
- the value of failure with review for learning
- the value of cycling between theory and practice for learning
- approaches to pattern recognition, or at least how to apply already recognised patterns (this is more or less all of thinking, IMO)
- reinforced my understanding of the ability of simple systems to produce very complex outcomes and emergent behaviour
I’m a scientist, so these are all relevant to my work, but I’ve also used some of them in my personal life.
More generally, C. This Nguyen frames games as “the art of agency” (where music is the art of sound, etc.). His observations of games are amazing and relevant to anyone working in a bureaucracy. An excellent intro to his work is his episode on Ezra Klein’s podcast. Well worth a listen: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/best-of-a-life-changing-philosophy-of-games/id1548604447?i=1000576579207
Kerala Space Program taught me orbital mechanics. Well, Scott Manley videos taught me orbital mechanics, but KSP was the motivating factor and let me learn by doing.
Sadly it’s imperfect orbital mechanics, since KSP has a simplified form of it and real life orbital mechanics has a lot more nuance
Oh sure, I’m not applying for NASA over here, but.
I can dance all day. I can dance all day. Try hitting me.
I learned to type gaming. Learned much better hand eye coordination. Learned about history. Learned about critical thinking and problem solving, context clues. All translate very well into life skills.
some competitive players can learn emotional control and flexibility especially during stressful moments
games like tetris and puyo-puyo train pattern-matching and real time cause-effect predictions
on the not so serious side, there are <job> simulator games out there
