World of Warcraft

One of my hobbies since growing up has been playing video games. If I look back and count the many hours sitting in front of my computer or tv playing my Wii, most people would believe the time could have been used for better uses ie. studying, or running. I would disagree with this common notion.

I believe my hours upon hours playing games like World of Warcraft, Super Mario, Legend of Zelda- Ocarina of Time gave me positive attributes and skills I would not have learned elsewhere. Attributes such as creative problem solving, collaborative teamwork, and working through epic frustration can be learned through gaming. As I watch Jane McGonigal's talk on the virtues of gaming, I was shocked to learn that gamers on average spend an equal amount of time in school as they do playing games. It is amazing gamers are actually "dual enrolled." They are enrolled in a traditional K-12 education and "enrolled" in a gaming school.

Games such as Legend of Zelda - Ocarina of Time emphasize gradual building up of specific cognitive skills that are needed to solve more difficult problems later on in the game. If I look back at my life and how I developed problem skills, I believe this skill first manifest when I was 7, the exact time I started playing original Legend of Zelda for the NES system. Coincidence? I think not. Since beating the Legend of Zelda I have had a love of games that require deep problem solving.

The ability to work collaboratively is also strengthen through playing multiplayer games that require team building and work by building upon each individuals' strengths and teams. MMROPGs like World of Warcraft emphasize this skill more than any other genre of gaming. In World of Warcraft users can customize their avatar to be any one of several different species, genres like Warrior, Shaman, Priest, or Paladin; and occupation like an engineer, potions master, and herbologist. In order to achieve higher levels, players must team up in clans and coordinate their strategies according to their strengths and weaknesses in order to defeat raids and instances. Team and collaborative skills like these are instantly usable in the RL (real world).
Perseverance is the one quality ever gamer needs if they will ever "beat" a video game. I can recall thousands of times when I suffer the same death in the level of Goldeneye when I must protect a unarmed computer programmer while hundreds of ex-KGB agents are coming in with machine guns. Yet I must keep trying. Why, I really have no clue other than sheer madness to beat a video game. It was these times of learning how to overcome deep frustration, got me through all-nighters doing quantum physics homework during my undergrad.


So in essence, I agree with James Paul Gee's Good Video Games, Good Learning. Video games can teach us skills that are extremely useful in real life. So, when it comes to the time where I must decide whether to support my future children's playing of video games, I say grab me a wii remote and let’s play some Mario Kart.