What do you think of when you hear the title ‘gamer’? For many, it raises images of gaming addiction and unhealthy habits. But this is not necessarily true. In reality, gamers are often actually well equipped to handle life’s challenges and achieve professional success.
This is because the games we play usually replicate the same trials we face during our careers. Games are designed to test us and force us to adapt to overcome things like logical puzzles and other players. Companies are even finding that employees who play video games at work boost their productivity and improve team culture. Video games are a great way to develop the skills you need for success and might just become the way we network in the future.
Transferable Skills
According to game designer and researcher Dr.Jane McGonigal: “the signature finding [in video game studies] is increased self-efficacy [through playing video games]”. Self-efficacy occurs when we believe that we can do something successfully and is a vital component of achieving success. The great thing about self-efficacy is that it spreads across contexts and brings you confidence in many areas of your life.
For example, if you play a video game where you become an expert at communicating with teammates, you are likely to carry those same communicative skills into other areas of your life and feel confident when speaking to bosses or working with new people. Essentially, the skills you hone in the virtual arena can transfer over to the rest of your life.
Teamwork
In most online games, you’re required to collaborate with your friends while working towards a specific goal. In Clever Play’s Operation Tango, two players must work together using verbal communication to stop an evil online network.
The game requires you to communicate clearly while performing complex tasks like codebreaking. Each player has a different display on their screen throughout and much of the challenge is in clearly communicating what each other sees so your teammate can make correct inputs on their end. The benefit here is clear: by working collaboratively in a video game like Operation Tango, you gain vital experience communicating under pressure and performing tasks as part of a team.
Check out some Operation Tango gameplay below!
Logical thinking
Puzzle games require you to identify patterns while solving a problem of some kind. For example, in Valve’s Portal, players are required to escape from a research facility that has been overrun by a …….