Video games teach us a great deal about how to do better in life. Most significantly, video games can help us learn how to cooperate and navigate situations in which other people are involved. And although we all acknowledge the value of living communities for certain groups of people, in the same way, professional communities are crucial for gamers, sportsmen, and so on. For years now, video games have helped us build community, indeed. They have taught us how to go through challenges that require people to interact with each other in a better way. And they will continue to do so.
Models like massive multiplayer online games (MMPOG) and multiplayer online battle games (MOBA) help people learn to play together in sync. This also teaches them how to strategically coordinate and cooperate to make their way through various situations. And the strategies that are taught in virtual reality, in this way, can also be implemented in life and business.
Here are a few examples of how online games can help us improve networking and relationship-building skills:
Lessons Learned from Poker Strategies
Poker is a game of immense strategy and skill. It teaches players how to navigate through uncertainty. Those who understand how to win at poker can testify that one must be adept at evaluating and mitigating risks and bouncing back from failure quickly. It also requires the player to evaluate the long-term consequences of each hand played rather than just the immediate wins.
Poker requires its players to focus on the game at hand. This kind of concentration can also be very useful when applied to other areas of life. Most significantly, playing poker requires a skillful bypass of psychological traps. If a player moves solely to avoid losses, as the game theory explains, they can lose out on potential wins. They must know how to quiet the risk aversion traps laid by the mind while striking a balance between averting actual losses.
All of these skills can be useful in business. Being successful in business requires understanding one’s mind and escaping the minefield of its many traps. It requires proceeding with confidence and conviction in a market full of uncertainty. And it requires determination for the long game. Most businesses don’t make their biggest profits for two to three years at least. That is why business owners need to proceed with determination.
Lessons Learned from Life Simulation Games
Life simulation games teach one a great deal about how to navigate the real world as a functional member of the economy. They teach their players how to cooperate and maximize resources. Life simulation games can also be an excellent learning ground for how to meet, interact with, and make allies out of new characters or members of society. They teach players how to build symbiotic, or mutually beneficial, relationships with one another.
Playing life-stimulation games can help individuals optimize their resources for maximum efficiency and what resources they need to have in place to start building both a family as well as a community.
Lessons Learned from Real-Time Strategy (RTS) Video Games
Real-time strategy (RTS) video games are all about building and maximizing resources efficiently and cooperatively. They also teach players how to respond to and thwart imminent threats in their environment.
This can be useful outside of the video game in both the player’s personal life as well as their business. Because, just like in a video game, the real world is also constantly full of threats that need to be met with immediately. The best way to do so is to build and draw upon one’s resources, such as equipment, assets, land, and allies.
Lessons Learned from Battle Royale Games (BRGs)
Battle Royale games require players to communicate with each other clearly and efficiently. This is important to navigate the battleground. In business, things are very similar. A team cannot get its business to survive if it cannot mitigate communication issues.
Furthermore, when playing such games, one should have a deep understanding of the weaknesses and strengths of the opposing team. Similarly, businesses should be well aware of their competition. Most businesses fail within the first five years – this is because of insufficient market research.
The dynamics and trends of every market change with every passing year. That is why staying abreast of market and industry trends is so important, both in terms of investment as well as business operations and development.
Lessons Learned from Sandbox Games
Sandbox games, such as Minecraft, help users learn how to use creativity to solve complex problems. This kind of creative problem-solving is tested at top-tier companies such as McKinsey to solve the problems of the biggest businesses around the world.
Understanding how to navigate complex challenges by implementing out-of-the-box solutions is a strength. And this is something that sandbox games can help cultivate.
All in all, video games that have a social aspect can drastically improve the business performance and life skills of those who play them.
