World of Warcraft Can Boost Your Career 272
Hugh Pickens writes "Forbes reports that although videogames have long been thought of as distractions to work and education rather than aids, there is a growing school of thought that says game-playing in moderation, and in your free time, can make you more successful in your career. 'We're finding that the younger people coming into the teams who have had experience playing online games are the highest-level performers because they are constantly motivated to seek out the next challenge and grab on to performance metrics,' says John Hagel III, co-chairman of a tech-oriented strategy center for Deloitte. Elliot Noss, chief executive of domain name provider Tucows, spends six to seven hours a week playing online games and believes World of Warcraft trains him to become a better leader."
It makes sense. First heard this in December 1995 (Score:5, Informative)
There's definitely some truth in that. One thing that especially strategy games can teach is to deal with resource constraints and to strike a balance between the different objectives that must be pursued, especially a balance between short-term defensive action and the pursuit of mid-term to long-term strategic goals.
I first heard a manager say this in December 1995. He was one of my business contacts and around that time became VP Sales & Marketing of Germany's largest publisher of dictionaries and language-learning materials. I had done some work on the German version of Warcraft II - Tides of Darkness (PR, marketing, sales, and translation; got listed twice in the game's credits [mobygames.com]) and I gave copies to business partners like the person I just mentioned. He became addicted to it and told me that when his wife criticized him for spending so much time on the thing, he explained to her that this was basically like management training :-)
At the time computer games weren't online, so except for those who went to "LAN parties" with other gamers, gameplay was a solo mission. Now one can actually practice leadership and diplomacy. But even just the virtual resource management challenge of a game like Warcraft II has value in itself.
When I was running the NoSoftwarePatents campaign years ago, it also felt like real-time strategy in many respects :-) And lots of Orcs to fight against.
Re:Incredibly useful human group dynamics experien (Score:3, Informative)
I would absolutely agree.
I tend to be the follower type, happy to do as I am told rather than the leader type coming up with the big plan, so to get some experience in a leadership role, I started a guild in another game (not WoW, but one that tends to attract more players in the 30+ age group) specifically for this purpose. It was an interesting experience, and I was surprised at how willing people are to take direction from a leader and have the burden of decision making taken off their shoulders. I also learnt a lot about resolving group conflicts and expectation management.
Overall the experience greatly increased confidence in my ability to lead a group. Another thing I learnt was that often it doesn't matter what decision you make - right or wrong - as long as you make one and accept the consequences, rather than dithering and doing nothing.
Re:Trains him to become a better leader? (Score:2, Informative)
Actually, the term for playing an excessive amount of online games is "no-lifer". Noob is for people that are new or bad at the game. Casual is the term for people that play a few hours a week. On that note, 6-7 hours is nothing considering some guilds in WoW raid at least 4 hours a day, up to 7 days a week.
*WHOOSH*
Correction! (Score:5, Informative)
It can help your career skills! If anyone actaully finds out that you play, it can seriously harm your career. Regardless of what real-life benefits it might confer, it still comes with a huge stigma. This is the main reason why Blizzard recent efforts with RealID were uniformly rejected by the community. Many gamers, especially MMO-gamers, are still in the "closet" to their friends and co-workers.
Is this slashdot? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Incredibly useful human group dynamics experien (Score:2, Informative)
Re:It stands to reason (Score:3, Informative)
Bah I can survive logic, it's the people that don't use logic that bother me. To take an example with my mother, she often refuses to recognize to forward motion of time. More often than not, she insists I "should have known" things that are obvious in hindsight but were impossible to predict in advance and even when I point out that I'm not clairvoyant she still keeps repeating arguments that I couldn't possibly have known at the time I made the decision.
Likewise, I have a friend who sees everything in extreme black and white. It's like if a pill against headache did not work for someone under some circumstance, then it's useless and doesn't work for anybody under any circumstances. And no matter if you got medical proof, statistical proof that lots of people use it and it helps, anecdotal evidence that we've used it and it does help or whatever else, it's like "I don't believe in it". There's no point in arguing with someone who doesn't even seriously consider the arguments and the possibility that their position may be wrong. The human mind's ability to dismiss arguments we don't want to hear is astonishing.
No amount of "logical purity" is as bad as arguing with plain irrationality.
Re:Running a guild for a couple years (Score:1, Informative)
When was the last time a guild gave out 100times the number ot DKP to officers as they did to members? Oh Never that's when.
Its standard for everyone who went to the full raid to get the same number of points. SOMETIMES for dying (if its your fault) you may get some points removed. Those are usually the super hardcore guilds though.
Heck the last guild I played in, we all raiding 3 or 4 times a week and didn't do any point system we just rolled and let shit fall where it may.
Re:How much leadership ability is required... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:How much leadership ability is required... (Score:2, Informative)
I now run a (much smaller, albeit) group of people at a company.
Running the hardcore raids taught me how to be hard on people, which has been invaluable in my job.
Before I started running raids on WoW I was hard-pressed to be hurtful to anyone, and while it still is difficult, I learned the necessity of it.
It also taught me (as a Warr/Prot/Tank and Priest/Disc/Healer) that others could be more knowledgable of their specific skills (ie. Feral/Druid/DPS) than I, and how to respect that.
As a quick example of the above, I am responsible for a couple of graphic desiners, and while I studied the principles at university, and have passing skill and familiarity with the process, I don't know as much about it (let alone more) than they do, even if they are resources I need to manage.
I also learned that you have to make 'hard decisions' and that standing by them, right or wrong, and taking the responsibility is more valuable than backing down/not making the decisions in a timely fashion.
But, on the same note, I think being the captain of a football team, or a coach, or organising a sucessful college frat party may give a lot of the same skills. I was just never captain of a sports team (although I was in a half a dozen when I was younger) and never in a frat (I didn't go to school/uni in the USA), so I learned somewhere else
Sure, none of these activities (WoW Included) taught me much of how to be a development manager, but it did teach me some generic management related skills I have managed to apply to many aspects of my job.
I wouldn't have even posted this, but for your italic emphasis in your post about how there was nothing of value...