Researcher Claims World of Warcraft Builds Great Employees

[MikeWehner]

Researcher Claims World of Warcraft Builds Great Employees

Does raiding train you to be a better employee? John Seely Brown says it does.

When you're spending your evenings toiling away in an MMO, you probably don't consider it to be valuable job training. Researcher John Seely Brown sees it as exactly that, and what's more, he considers high-level World of Warcraft players to be better suited for the business world than graduates of Harvard. In a new Big Think video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F4Ae2Lb5VLw], Brown details his feelings on how the social and organizational aspects of the MMO world translate into real-world skills perfectly suited to business.

"I would rather hire a high-level World of Warcraft player than a MBA from Harvard," Seely explains. "To understand these massive multiplayer games like World of Warcraft, do not think about it as just game play, but look at the social life on the edge of the game."

He goes on to note how performance management is a huge part of high-end MMO play, and those same principles apply directly to business situations. "These guilds are truly meritocracy based. So even if you were the leader of this particular high-end raid, at the end you do an after action review, and in the after action review each person is open to total criticism by everybody else."

The full video dives deep into comparisons of dashboards - which are essentially management tools - in both World of Warcraft and in corporate structures, as well as the idea that learning new things is what drives MMO players, and why that passion is a valuable asset.

Seely makes a fine point and a reasoned argument for the value of MMOs as personal tools for growth, so the next time someone asks you why you spend your nights defeating digital demons, just tell them you're training for your next promotion.

Note: Unfortunately, the video has embedding disabled, so just hop over to the YouTube page [https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=F4Ae2Lb5VLw] to watch it in full.

Via: GamePolitics [http://gamepolitics.com/2013/01/03/world-warcraft-players-make-great-employees-claims-researcher#.UObvMYnjm_c]

Permalink

 

[Aeshi]

Hurr both R endless grind, bashing MMOs is still c0ol rite guyz?

There, I summed up every comment that's going to be posted on this thread, you can all go home now

 

[Vhite]

I can relate to this. At least two of my guildmaster were bosses in some smaller companies and my friends friend who leads one of the most successful high end guilds on the server works on airport where he does airplaine coordination or something like that.

So yep, these people do know something about leadership, discipline and coordination.

 

[Vhite]

Hurr both R endless grind, bashing MMOs is still c0ol rite guyz?

There, I summed up every comment that's going to be posted on this thread, you can all go home now

No they are just gonna ignore this thread hoping it will disappear as soon as possible.

 

[dragongit]

It verries. One of my guildmates is a well off manager for a internet company, while in the past one of my older guildmasters was a stripper. So who knows.

 

[FFP2]

Things like these make me proud to be a gamerNow if only people stop blaming us for crazy people losing their shit.

 

[Vhite]

It verries. One of my guildmates is a well off manager for a internet company, while in the past one of my older guildmasters was a stripper. So who knows.

Yes GMs always have some interesting jobs for some reason. In guild where I played most the GM was archelogoist. And not the university-teaching, book-writing type but the in-field-digging, Indiana-Johnes-aspiring type. Of course there had to be boss/manager guy who was his right hand and basicly a second GM.

 

[Sigmund Av Volsung]

This is old news; that video has been on BigThink's channel for some time.

Nonetheless, it is good as evidence to the "HURR DURR GAMERS ARE LAZY & UNPRODUCTIVE" crowd that we are the inverse.

Also, almost every video on BigThink is insightful(except for some of Penn Jillete's videos, but nothing that I personally think is tripe)

 

[viranimus]

Its true, but only out of coincidence.

The type of person who will follow directions provided without ever questioning them. Plus
The type of person who is pointlessly competitive over trivial unimportant nonsense? Plus
The type of person who can operate a mouse and keyboard? Plus
The type of person who can repeat rote actions tirelessly and accurately to script? Plus

Congratulations... Your many years in playing WOW has qualified you for lifetime employment availability in the always growing telecommunications "Call center" Industry. With only nominal additional instruction, you will be able to build on your already established skill set and translate it into selling land line phone service, Magazine subscriptions, Charitable donations. Or if you are the truly aggressive type, you will find yourself right at home in Debt collections or Skip tracing. Did you customize your GUI? Great, youll also qualify as Technical support representative. Pay your account with a credit card? Congratulations, you can work in accounts receivable. Do you help with directing raid groups? You might have what it takes to enter early management programs. Are you a raid leader who has built a successful raid guild from the ground up? Excellent, you will have the skills needed to be effective in quality assurance.

See World of Warcraft is now the premier gateway to your vocational future. It is like what the US army was two decades ago, but without the nifty veterans benefits and the potential of the whole dying thing.

________________

In all seriousness, Yeah, its true. WoW can teach you valuable job skills that would be desirable. For some of the most loathsome and undesirable work humanly possible, of which is still sort of moot considering the biggest bulk of the types of jobs it would potentially help with........ have long since been shipped to India, Philippines, Costa Rica or any other country with a work force capable of learning basic English and blurbish that executives think is ok to ship off in order to cut down on "needless" overhead.

 

[Krantos]

Better suited than Harvard Grads?

Wat?

I've met some dedicated MMO players in the past. I don't think I'd want them in my company. I have a hard time buying this one.

 

[Oskuro]

No mention of EvE Online? You know, the MMO where player groups are literally called Corporations.

I see how the organization of raids can help train people to work in large teams, which is a plus, but it should be pointed that this trains players to be an specific type of corporate worker, namely the "cog in the machine" type who performs inside a complex hierarchy.

Not too good for jobs requiring creativity or personal initiative/proactivity really, but, then again, those hiring for such profiles will most certainly disregard MMO players on principle.

@Krantos: A sad reality of the professional world, is that while colleges do train you in the skills you need for your job, they rarely prepare students for the corporate environment (teamwork, delegation, escalation, conflict resolution, workload management), which quite often results in people with shiny new degrees being ignored in favor of people with actual professional experience.

 

[Baresark]

Playing a specific roll in a group environment certainly does train you to work better on any team, not just a corporate environment. He is right. Now the whole hiring a high level raider vs an MBA from Harvard... well that's retarded. It looks like he doesn't actually know anything about the social environment of Harvard, which is a much better environment for learning team mechanics than a raid in WoW. At Harvard, a portion of your grade in a lot of your classes are based on participation of extra curricular's outside of those classes, that means parties too. If you aren't participating, you cannot be some of the best Harvard has to offer by their standards. Now does WoW raids give you the creative problem solving necessary to tackle an ever changing corporate environment? I haven't really done them, but I don't think they do. I work a help desk, and I don't mean a call center, I mean actual help desk that solves problems, doesn't go off of a script and repairs field equipment while still taking calls. WoW couldn't prepare you for that if it wanted to. Harvard on the other hand, could prepare you for the ever changing landscape of such an environment. Though I'm willing to bet not many Harvard graduates are attempting to get help desk positions. So, I guess I agree and disagree, all at the same time. What a conundrum.

 

[Kargathia]

Fun and all, but I've yet to participate in a job interview where I wasn't about 95% sure that the mere mention I actually did lead pretty high level raiding would instantly disqualify me.

You can chalk it up alongside educations you left during the 6th and final year - they've probably taught you a lot, but nobody gives a shit.

 

[Guffe]

Well this is good n' all but there's one thing not aken into account
The fact that the ones who are high level raider LIKE IT
if you don't like your job then it doesn't matter how much of a team player you ar ein a game or a sports team you wont work as hard
It might be similar and it might lay a base/ground/core for team functions but I doubt there's any kind of causality

 

[Pink Gregory]

I think I can sum this up as a mixed blessing. It's good that videogames are shown to be a positive influence towards teamwork and work skills; but 1- equating it to actual education and 2- implying that it's actually MORE beneficial than actual education is foolish hubris.

 

[cerebus23]

Playing a specific roll in a group environment certainly does train you to work better on any team, not just a corporate environment. He is right. Now the whole hiring a high level raider vs an MBA from Harvard... well that's retarded. It looks like he doesn't actually know anything about the social environment of Harvard, which is a much better environment for learning team mechanics than a raid in WoW. At Harvard, a portion of your grade in a lot of your classes are based on participation of extra curricular's outside of those classes, that means parties too. If you aren't participating, you cannot be some of the best Harvard has to offer by their standards. Now does WoW raids give you the creative problem solving necessary to tackle an ever changing corporate environment? I haven't really done them, but I don't think they do. I work a help desk, and I don't mean a call center, I mean actual help desk that solves problems, doesn't go off of a script and repairs field equipment while still taking calls. WoW couldn't prepare you for that if it wanted to. Harvard on the other hand, could prepare you for the ever changing landscape of such an environment. Though I'm willing to bet not many Harvard graduates are attempting to get help desk positions. So, I guess I agree and disagree, all at the same time. What a conundrum.

This basically, any type of grouping in a mmo will quickly indicate who are team players and who are not in a mmo. some situations can even show creativity in how players use their skills in certain situations, like to save a group ending wipe, high end raiding (in the 40 man days of wow) certainly required orginazation and teamwork of a decent to very high degree depending on the encounter, and managing personalities and etc while getting people grouped up and so on.

I think it would be more accurate to say that people that excel at high end raiding and guild managment have skills that would translate well to the business world. But then again strategy in general is seen as a very direct relationship to business the book of 5 rings and art of war are two books that are studied in business world.

 

[Neonit]

"....each person is open to total criticism by everybody else."

Bwaahahah, i laughed so hard when i read that.

That depends...

Do we accept insinuations of the promiscuity of your mother as a criticism?
Do we accept accusations of same-sex sexual preference criticism?

But aside from that, i can see how that would work out. The idea of roles, and the "everybody has to do their part" can be seen as useful lesson. It also often puts you in a stressful situation, teaching you to react to it.

And lets not forget leadership. MMO's is how i have learned to encourage peace in a group, all the times when i had to calm raging people sure did pay off in a long run.

Then again, any good place of learning will encourage growth of those skills, especially universities.
I assume Harvard is still considered above average? Then im sure they teach that as well.