Some people might say that your MMORPG addiction does nothing but waste your time. Well, it turns out that those people don’t know as much as they think they know. That’s because MMORPGs are secretly teaching you these 4 real life skills.
Skill #1: How to Work in Groups
No matter how much experience your character has, you can’t get very far in an MMORPG without working with other people. Uncooperative behavior will leave you with little money and a low rank. You won’t even have enough magic to conjure a fire for your evening meal.
By forcing you to work in a group, MMORPGs teach you an important skill that companies look for when hiring employees. Since most schools require group work, the game can also give you a skill that could help you earn better grades. That assumes, of course, that you don’t spend all night fighting a dragon with your guild.
Skill #2: Understanding Financial Systems
Your business classes might provide some theory that helps you understand financial systems, but you can’t really comprehend real world economics until you’ve carefully watched a system grow and shrink.
You could spend your days watching stocks and commodity prices, but that would just bore you into stupidity. Playing an MMORPG makes it fun to watch financial systems evolve.
Many games have complex economies that can give you insights into how the real world works. An unregulated virtual stock market in Second Life even had a surge that ended with a massive crash. That crash cost a lot of people real money.
MMORPGs can also include bartering, bank runs, and value fluctuations. It’s amazing how much they mirror the successes and tragedies of real world economies.
Skill #3: Breaking Major Tasks Into Smaller Goals
You can’t go head-to-head with Deathwing or Garrosh without getting some experience first. That means breaking your primary task into a bunch of smaller objectives. It’s one of the first things that you learn when playing serious MMORPGs: if you don’t build toward a big goal, you will always fail.
That’s also an important lesson to learn in life. No, you can’t just go buy a car right now. You have to save a little each month to make it more affordable. Sorry, but you can’t just get an A+ by cramming at the end of the semester. You have to study, pass quizzes, take tests, and show up to class regularly.
Once you see how to break major tasks into smaller goals, life gets a lot easier.
Skill #4: Learning to Always Move Forward
You know what happens to players who gain so much experience that they stop putting in effort? Newcomers soon surpass them and take over the game. If you don’t use every Wi-Fi connection and satellite Internet near you to improve your character, then you’re not standing still: you’re moving backward.
Knowing how to create new goals once you have reached your old ones is an important part of winning games and succeeding in life. You won’t have a great job for long if you get so comfortable that you stop learning.
What skills have MMORPGs secretly taught you? How have they improved your life?