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."
Yea, ask any Blizzard employee. (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pretty sure they've all had better careers because of WoW, and of course the majority of the WoW team HAS a career because of it, so its certainly made their careers better.
I would like to point out however, the rest of us have know that 'games boost your career' for years.
Why do you think people play golf? Its not about liking golf, its a awesome way to get someone drunk and talk about business while in a relaxed setting. You get far more accomplished in this setting than you do in a conference room or office. People let their guard down and feel they can trust someone more in that environment, makes deals far more likely to happen.
Real business happens on the golf course. WoW is just another golf course.
As a former WoW player... (Score:1, Interesting)
I was very motivated when I started my current job. New skillset to learn, techniques to master, more acronyms and experience to add to the resume. Plus, they were very up front about their policy of "promoting from within." I was overqualified for the job and figured that I would be able to move up quickly to a more suitable position. To me, the job was similar to WoW in a lot of regards; it was a tedious grind, but practice and effort would be rewarded, right?
[gripe]
Not so much. I found out that the company (despite being a major player in the bioscience world) was run with a mindset similar to that of a fast food joint. We are paid to show up, not for the results we produce. Promotions are based solely around the amount of time that you've been in your position, not around your skills or expertise. For example, a coworker of mine with an online bachelors degree in an unrelated field and no job experience outside of her work at this location just got promoted, while I, with an MS in biotech and years of experience before starting here was passed over because she started working there a couple months before I did. To them, the date on the calendar is the only metric of our performance that matters. They won't even give me a better reference for the extra work; corporate policy is that references are to confirm only the dates of employment and the position held; nothing more. And so the grind became pointless, and rather than honing my skills or going the extra mile, I'm now content with simple mediocrity. There's no motivation to excel, and even less motivation to improve things;(those that reinforce the status quo are much more likely to meet with frustration than those who rock the boat).
[/gripe]
Contrast that to WoW, where the skill level of individual players is more readily apparent, and recognition is given based more on skill than on time spent logged in (This of course assumes something more organized than a PUG - a measure that any decent business should easily surpass). So in my experience, the corporate world could stand to be a little more like WoW than they currently are.
[/rant]
Re:Out of balance at times. (Score:3, Interesting)
I play WoW for a number of reasons, one subtle one being that I'm uh, "chronologically privileged". I get puffed taking out the rubbish, but my Hunter can run all day and kick serious butt.
Anyone thinking there's no value to the organisation training provided by WoW has never tried to take down any of the Ice Crown Cathedral bosses in a 10-man raid. These things are intense, people, and if you screw up even a tiny bit you can wipe the raid. You'll hear about it from your guildies if you do.
Re:Incredibly useful human group dynamics experien (Score:5, Interesting)
I definitely agree. I learned a lot about social dynamics and the power of leadership through the various guilds and whatnot I have been involved with leading.
And World of Warcraft also now promotes working with essentially random groups of people. Recognize the weakest link, and ducking out before you've wasted too much time in a losing proposition.
However, that part about them being heavily concerned about gaming performance gauges concerns me... when people are gaming the measurements, you're not getting a true representation of the criteria that you really care about...
Perhaps though, this also means that people will be better able to recognize when someone is clearly overrated... Sure, your gearscore may be epic, but you're playing like a noob.
Re:Is this slashdot? (Score:4, Interesting)
Using the words "playing", "boost" and "career", what data would you suggest? It's a subjective view about subjective things. Saying "Using brighter colors can make art prettier." requires as much empirical evidence.
I happened to have gotten an awesome job because most of my interview consisted of me talking about my leadership role in a WoW guild (and I think the part where I said I didn't play anymore gave me some points). I thought it was strange at the time.
I now believe that it's very difficult to quantify a person's experience in social group management. The number of people who have participated in leadership of a virtual (mixed age) group greatly outnumbers those who have participated in leadership of real life adults.
YMMV
Re:Yea, ask any Blizzard employee. (Score:1, Interesting)
While I enjoy playing WoW myself, I do not see the game as playing any significant role in my success in reality, other than it helps keep the mind sharp by making me think. It definitely beats watching the TV, which is loaded with mindless content. Either way, I take articles like this at "face value". This article is merely a couple interesting opinions, much like our comments. One thing for sure is I will take World of Warcraft any day over a boring game of golf.
Re:Running a guild for a couple years (Score:1, Interesting)
Eve is a much better representative of games that can boost (or make use of) abilities.
If only because you actually win and lose stuff based on the decisions you make.
Market has been mentioned.
And there's the process of running elections as well (CSM)
As well as managing large groups of people, both as organisations and short term goals (fleets)
Issues of trust and secrecy.
Investments
...
It's a lot closer to real life abilities than other games, while at the same time not being boring à la second life.
Re:Incredibly useful human group dynamics experien (Score:5, Interesting)
However, that part about them being heavily concerned about gaming performance gauges concerns me... when people are gaming the measurements, you're not getting a true representation of the criteria that you really care about...
In many companies that IS important. I've worked a few places where it was far more important to appear successful than it is to actually be successful.
The most relevant example I can think of is way back in my phone support days. We had a ton of metrics - Average calls/day, Average calls/hr, first call resolution rate, % time spent on hold between calls, etc. That last one almost got me fired. I averaged about 70 calls/day with a 5-6 minute average call length and something like 70% first call resolution (this was before every call center had remote control capabilities, so it was support based purely on what the user was describing, and that was really high).
The call center average was something like 45 calls/day and a 10-12 minute per call average. While I was spending the same amount of time per call on hold in between calls finishing up filling out the tickets, the same amount of time per call multiplied by more calls = higher percentage of time on hold.
Some people in management didn't quite get the math and overall picture and wanted me fired. I wasn't meeting all of the metrics that were set and that's what mattered. Fortunately others managers did get it and fought to keep me employed while warning of me the numbers game and working with me to present the numbers that people wanted to see.
Re:Trains him to become a better leader? (Score:3, Interesting)
There are actually plenty of high end guilds that raid no more than 2 hours a day 2-3 days a week. In my time playing wow - I found that the mark of a good raiding guild is one that is prepared in game and mentally ready for the task at hand, not one that spends tons of time on a particular task. Now - 90% of the people who play WoW have no gumption to learn how to play and expect to be carried from boss to boss (or in real life - task to task) - much like real life. Good raiding guilds analyze combat logs to find out their weaknesses in a particular fight and work with players to improve those weaknesses.
There's a project management take-away from this - good competent people (including management) can get far more done in less time than people just soaking up paychecks, and good companies will work with their employees to make sure they have the skills needed to complete a task.
None of the raid bosses in WoW are all that hard if *everyone* knows what they are doing, but they are nightmarish if you have one single person who doesn't.