When Gaming Trains You For Work 105
ac514 writes "Parents should review their education before punishing their children. BBC wrote 'Video game skills and a good poker face online are becoming essential job qualifications in the financial markets, with recruitment drives assessing potential star traders in online gaming exams'. I knew some day these extra hours would pay off."
Hey... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Hey... (Score:5, Interesting)
Report 1; warninig pdf [homeoffice.gov.uk]
Schwartz (1988). He set out to compare customary teacher-based tutoring of reading and comprehension with practice on a set of computer games derived from analysis of the reading process. 24 primary school children were selected, who were of average intelligence and who were 18 months or more behind their peers in reading comprehension. The children were split into two groups and assigned to teacher-based tutoring or to a computer game training group where they received practice on four computer games. Training in both conditions focused on word decoding and phonics. The study found that almost all students improved their reading comprehension test scores after training, although the poorest readers made significantly greater gains in the computer game condition than in the teacher training condition
study 2 - warning pdf [futureofchildren.org]:
"Marble Madness" and effects on spatial skills: A study of 61 children, ages 10 to 11, compared the effects of two computer games on the development of spatial skills--the cluster of skills required for children to visualize and manipulate objects or images in their minds.1 Practice on Marble Madness was found to reliably improve the children's spatial performance, while practice on Conjecture, a computerized word game similar to the TV show Wheel of Fortune, did not. The children playing Marble Madness used a joystick to guide a marble along a three-dimensional grid, trying to keep the marble on the path and prevent it from falling off or being attacked by intruders. After playing the game, children were found to have improved their ability to anticipate targets and visualize spatial paths. ?"Concentration" and effects on iconic skill: A cross-cultural study carried out in Rome and Los Angeles examined the effects of playing a computer game on the development of iconic skills--the skills that enable people to read images such as pictures and diagrams.2Researchers found that after playing the game Concentration on a computer, undergraduate students offered more diagrams in their analysis of an animated simulation of electronic circuits, whereas those who played the game on a board offered more verbal descriptions. ?"Robot Battle," "Robotron," and effects on visual attention skills: A study compared the effects of computer game expertise on college students' visual attention skills, the skills required to keeping track of several different things at the same time--not unlike a pilot keeping track of a row of several engine dials simultaneously.3 Researchers measured participants' response time to two events at two locations on a computer screen, where one target icon appeared more often than another. Predictably, participants who were expert players of Robot Battle (scoring above 200,000) had faster response times than participants who were novice players (scoring below 20,000). But after five hours of playing the game Robotron, all participants responded significantly faster to the target at the low probability position on the screen, demonstrating a causal relationship between playing a computer game and improving strategies for keeping track of events at multiple locations.
So there's more than just getting a job - there's actually advancing mental development.
Re:Hey... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Hey... (Score:1)
Poker (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Poker (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Poker (Score:1)
Exactly. And isn't all the high volume tiny price difference trading done by programs anyway? I guess they need twitchy gamerz to sit and watch block trades automatically happen or something...
Re:Poker (Score:1)
bad use of words (Score:5, Informative)
The points they were probably trying to make come up later in the article:
Those three skills are probably the most important ones that would cross over. The last point is particularly often overlooked, since in poker (much like in the stock market) making the "right decision" doesn't always mean you win every time, because of the influence of random chance. Your opponent can play horribly and catch the one card left in the deck that gives him the win, but his strategy was still a losing one even though he "won" this particular time. Hence, unlike people without this background, poker players are already trained not to be results-oriented, but to be strategy-oriented (focusing on "given the information I had, did I make the right decision") instead.Poker Face? (Score:2, Insightful)
Do traders need a poker face? (Score:2, Interesting)
That being said, most business people need advanced interpersonal skills. That can also be improved with the right kind of computer games. When I taught high school (back when a 386 was a worthy computer), I ran the 'hackers' club. Our computers were networked within the lab and there were a few games that could be multiplayer. The rugged individualists eventually learned that the
Re:Poker Face? (Score:3, Insightful)
When you see someone with a 42:1 kill:death put three tank rounds in a row into a panzer *he can't even see* because there's a wall in the way at long range in one game, and then next server have your team of 9 snipers + me overwhelmed by tanks, you start to get a annoyed.
Re:Poker Face? (Score:2)
Spawn killers
Complete Noobs
Teenage chatters
Recruiters
Clan hoppers
Idlers
Laggers
Bleeders
Re:Poker Face? (Score:1)
Re:Poker Face? (Score:2)
Hmm (Score:4, Funny)
But seriously, most finance traders are utter sleazeballs and assholes so the internet and multiplayer games should be good training for them.
Maybe lawyers too?
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Funny)
A few years ago, where I used to work, I noticed a secretary using the copy machine on our floor. She was from legal & their machine was broken. She was making copies of a 4 inch stack of email printouts.
Her job was to print all of the emails her boss got, stamp them with a date, then make copies. One copy got filed, the other read by her lawyer boss. She'd then respond to emails per her boss's scribbles, file the annottated hardcopies, print the responses, time stamp & file them.
I
Re:Hmm (Score:2, Informative)
0. I'm sure they did backups of their data, making the "ultimate" offline copies for the archive is adding another level of redundancy to the backup.
1. dragging your laptop from archive to archive (not the zip kind but the fireproofed steel ones) finding references from a mail can be cumbersome, even a tablet pc loses out to a sheet of paper (or many). Maybe some of those archives are digitized but for really important cases they would still want to find
Re:Hmm (Score:1)
My speed reading techniques aren't working because of these reasons that are the cause of I can't understand what is written down.
Re:Hmm (Score:1)
Gaming at work, gaming at home (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Gaming at work, gaming at home (Score:1)
at home i have a neat GeForce FX 5700 card thingy where i can play the cool games with
at work it's just the integrated (not so) Extreme graphics from intel... and no sound driver installed
I'm still wondering... (Score:5, Funny)
Game programming (hobby) got me a job (Score:5, Informative)
I went into the interview with a CD-ROM of all of my past programming work, including a few of my partially completed game projects. When they asked me, "What qualifies you to be our programming guru?" I showed them my games, and they asked me when I could start! I think they understood that game programming is inherently quite complex, and that if I could make spaceships swarm and attack in real-time, I could probably handle the optimization of their relatively simple business applications. And they were right!
Anyway, that's my story
Very insightful :) (Score:1)
Have you been in a similar situation?
Re:Very insightful :) (Score:2)
Theoretically, an company eventually should be able to achieve a much greater level of profit by tapping the brainpower of its experienced, bored staff. It's risky.
So if someone is bored at work, what is the best way to find better work? Does anyone know any good sites to visit?
There are actually many places where games helpful (Score:4, Interesting)
The traders are just a tip of the iceberg, with the advent of the generation of people who expect instant response to things, the skills of analysing data and leaping to right conclusion most of the time is going to be a major requirement in all fields that deal with humans.
Based on the Traders I know... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Based on the Traders I know... (Score:2)
Re:Since... (Score:1)
Apparently I reallllllly need to get one of these Soviet Russian jobs!
Whatever happened to our "Future of Pure Leisure"? (Score:4, Insightful)
But it looks more like a Slave Plantation Future, one where even our leisure time has to be dedicated to preparation for work. Gee, I wonder what happened?
Re:Whatever happened to our "Future of Pure Leisur (Score:3, Interesting)
"In the Year 2525, if Man is still alive, arms and legs have nothin' to do
Boy, they sure got that one wrong.
Attention: (Score:2)
Re:Whatever happened to our "Future of Pure Leisur (Score:2)
Instead what happened is that machines took all the easy jobs, the people who control the machines get all the money, and most people are left working harder at the few jobs left that machines can't do.
Re:Whatever happened to our "Future of Pure Leisur (Score:1)
Because the number of true and unprovable statements is infinite, surely there are more jobs than machines, hard and easy, especially jobs that are too hard for anything with less than omnipotence.
In the future it seems that people will take the easy jobs, particularly the job of playing with all the new toys. We've got to look forward to having more fun. Hypothesis: people need to work hard, but people having more fun when the work gets
Re:Whatever happened to our "Future of Pure Leisur (Score:2)
Re:Whatever happened to our "Future of Pure Leisur (Score:1)
Whoa.... (Score:3, Funny)
Careful folks (Score:1)
Work? Try "life." (Score:5, Interesting)
What use is being proficient with a joystick? Well, when your main means of locomotion is a power wheelchair, being able to manoever sure helps. Being able to judge speed/distance relationships helps, too - both skills fine-tuned in video game parlours.
Life sometimes throws us a curveball, and there's no way to really predict exactly what skillset might be useful at every point in time. Video games are just another skill. Arguably more common than, say, brain surgery, but then, just how many brain surgeons does the world need?
Re:Work? Try "life." (Score:2)
I learned to drive stick from video games. Thank you, Cruisin USA. That's not even close to MS, but just wanted to back you up on the whole usefull skill thing.
Re:Work? Try "life." (Score:2)
Work? Try "life."-Backwards. (Score:1, Funny)
I can read upside down and backwards.
Of what life task will that help me.
Re:Work? Try "life."-Backwards. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Work? Try "life."-Backwards. (Score:1)
MS wiped out my right side. I now get plenty of chance to show off typing fast, left-handed-only.
Mind you, unless I get captured by terrorists and must signal to loved ones back home, during a taped "interview", I can think of few reasons w
Re:Work? Try "life." (Score:2)
There are a lot of brains on this planet. We might need quite a few, considering how people in my locale drive. Many of them might need fine-tuning just for the sake of it, as well.
Cool! (Score:2, Funny)
Oh yeah, ought to work.... (Score:4, Funny)
Seth: Damn! Interceptors up front! FORM UP! Have assault frigates attack the flanks, keep a missile destroyer near the heavy cruisers in case bombers fly by! Protect the mothership! FOR HIGAARA!
Co-worker: Once I find the idiot who hired you I'm going to strangle him...
Seth: Shut up or I'll TK you.
Somehow I doubt that will work...
Training (Score:1)
Don't you think... (Score:1)
They're not the only ones (Score:5, Informative)
America's Army (Score:1)
Yup [americasarmy.com]! And I have managed to get myself thrown in jail several times for killing sergeants and things like that, so at least I've learned that it's wrong to kill sergeants.
How many scandals does it take? (Score:3, Insightful)
Hire enough compulsive liars, and the people that are promoted will be the slickest players of the bunch. How long does it take those people to rise to the top? 10, 15 years? You can bet we'll have another wave of Enrons just about then.
Worked for me (Score:5, Funny)
Not listed - Essential Job Qualifications.... (Score:4, Interesting)
1. Being able to parrot in-house analysts information, using words like "paradigm" and "fundamentals" while keeping a straight face and hoping noone asks for definitions
2. Being able to locate a topless or gogo bar within ten miles of any client's office or home when making a housecall
3. Being able to polish off an eight-ball without taking off your $150 YSL tie
4. Being able to "max blast kudos to everyone"
5. Believing that Gordon Gecko was the hero of Wall Street
6. Unlike a used car salesman, who will sell his grandmother a lemon, you must be able to sell your grandmother a car that doesn't even exist, and manage to rip her off again when she comes back to complain.
7. Being able to profit on both turning your client's $10,000 into $100,000 and when you turn $100,000 into $10,000
8. And finally: Having a GED as your highest level of education, and still call yourself a professional with a title of "Executive Vice President" - as if you are a Wharton MBA.
No seriously, stock brokers are the lowest form of life in the galaxy. While there are a small handful of exceptions (Certified Financial Planners who are also training Economists or accoutants), most don't give two shits about their clients, their coworkers, their boss or their current firm. They fly around more than IT people and stealing their firm's intellectual property is both tolerated and expected (firms have routine court cases against each other for the practice of using stock brokers as mediums to move high value clients around the block).
If you can read the newspaper, use online stock analysis tools and place your own orders, you are much better off doing it yourself. Brokers don't have any specific understanding of any market or industry, they don't do their own valuations or formulas and they rely on the same advice that is mostly publicly available for free - and if you have an account with E*Trade or others, you can get the same quality tools that stockbrokers have for free. All they care about is writing tickets, and they don't care if you make or lose money, either way, they get paid.
Re:I think you're missing the parent's point. (Score:1, Informative)
That's the way it is *supposed* to work.. (Score:2)
Yes, there are some that do work that is really important to humanity. But they're certainly few and far between. (And no, in that perspective long term is not next quarter, sigh. Nownownownownow...)
Kjella
Can't stay in the game (Score:3, Interesting)
On the subject of online poker, TillerMan, once a top-ranked Warcraft 3 player, stopped playing Warcraft as a "pro" gamer and became a poker player instead, where he apparently now makes several times what he used to as a "cyber athlete".
Apparently gaming can teach you the skills you need for a very small portion of jobs, but there's little chance of it keeping you employed.
Online real-time RFQ responses (Score:4, Funny)
You could change options like price, delivery & support. The app had algorithms that scored your bid against the rest. The points for technical capabilty were determined from previous trials & fixed.
It was scheduled for 2 hours, with half hour extensions if there was a change by one of the top 3 in the last 5 minutes. The business would be split by the top 2 bidders -- we were trying for the #2 spot to maximize our revenue.
At the end (after half a day of this game!) we were surprised to find we were in the #1 spot. The company that we had expected to come out on top, that had been for most of 12 hours, didn't get any business. We found out later that the guy at the keyboard had had a heart attack and they dropped to #4.
I know slashot helped (Score:4, Insightful)
Market Economies (Score:2)
In addition to the cool economic side of it, the game is an amazing web based RPG that everyone should check out
all work and no play (Score:2)
Could this be the reason that most jobs suck? (Score:2)
After having gone through two bad business experiences with people that seem to have "flexible" ethics I'm positive that these are not long term skills I want. White lies are what lawyers call a "slippery slope" and the operative word is "lie", not "white". Covering up mistakes just ensures that they will be repeated. Fre
TV Commercial for VSmile (Score:1)
Maybe Micro$oft and other software manufacturers need to redo the interfaces for Office and other business applications so they look more like videogames, so tomorrow's workers will know how to use them. "Blast the saucer to save your file! Oh, too bad, you missed! File delet
Yeah, you just have to remember not to... (Score:3, Funny)
No bitch!
Hone your surgical skills (Score:2, Interesting)
When laparoscopy was first developed, the surgeon would peer directly through a rigid fiberoptic laparoscope to visualize structures within the body, both for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes. Nowadays, we just stick a video camera over the eye-hole on the laparoscope, and watch the pictures in real time on an attached monitor. The hardest part about learning laparoscopy is train
They need better software (Score:2)
TFA says: The company follows small fluctuations in the market, easily missed on a bank of trading screens filled with fast moving numbers. Here, traders use mouse clicks to buy or sell.
The faster their reaction the more money they can make, which is where the video games skills come in.
Instead of a user interface that requires them to react in response to a chan
Re:They need better software (Score:2)
If I expect to hold a position for 30 seconds, wouldn't I prefer that software give me a several second advantage in buying when I want and another several second advantage in selling when I want?
Or are you saying that they do high volume electronic daytrading but don't have control over the software they use?
You certainly can't be trying to
game design and process design (Score:2)
I'm still looking for the chest of gold at the end of maze though. :)
leisure time = leisure time (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, when i'm not at work, I DON'T WORK. While some people are so lame at work that they should get extra training, some others are doing everything they can after regular work hours to train more and be more competitive.
I officially declare that what i do in my spare time is for my own enjoyment (less the dish cleaning but enjoyment isn't easy when your kitchen is home to 132 rare insect s
Just a marketing ploy to attract day traders (Score:3, Informative)
What better marketing angle to exploit than 'people who are good at video games can make tons as traders?' You get a bunch of suckers in there who are told they're great and they blow through their cash. The only beneficiary is Geneva Trading. These kids aren't investment bankers or anything even close.
Re:Sad that the poker face isn't used only for pok (Score:2)
A poker face means you aren't saying anything. You aren't saying one way or another whether you have a good hand or a bad hand.
Not revealing information is not deception. If it were, then by your definition, the 5th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution would allow citizens to deceive everybody except "on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia."
Not speaking and not doing something *you* want is
Korean StarCraft Players (Score:1)
Games eh? (Score:1)
brain surgeon (Score:1)
This is great but.. (Score:1)