MMORPGs training "Generation G" for corner-office suites

If you were to ask most CEOs if they thought video games were capable of teaching real-world management skills, the answers would probably range from disgusted snorts to flat-out guffaws.

And they'd be wrong, at least when it comes to massively multiplayer online games. These titles aren't just virtual spaces to slash monsters and grab silver pieces, they're huge communities that represent different skill sets and personalities. Successful guilds in a virtual world like World of Warcraft need hands-on, effective managers, and motivated players willing to take on certain roles. This is required for tactical success on a specific mission, and strategic success, if the guild is to survive and prosper.

I was first exposed to this concept in several academic works -- Edward Castronova's Synthetic Worlds, and R.L. Taylor's Play Between Worlds -- and reading several online accounts written by by Trinity University's Aaron Delwiche and others describing classes in WoW and Everquest (see some examples here). There was affirmation today on Slashdot, in the comment thread of a post titled "Today's Gamers, Tomorrow's Leaders?". I thought Javakah summarized some of the management-related skill sets in MMORPGs quite well:

... 1. Learning how to pick team members. This includes avoiding the tons of idiots out their and fostering relationships with competent people. Additionally it forces you to figure out what skill sets are needed and available at a given time, and for you to know how different people work together.

2. Planning. Large raids take some work for getting people willing to work on a project (the raid), and do not come together instantly. You must plan out ahead of time when you are going to do things to allow people to work it into their schedule.

3. Evaluation of goals and performance. If your project (raid) fails, you must take a step back and figure out what went wrong and to come up with a strategy to avoid that problem.

4. Dealing with underperformers with tact. Yes, there are some people who just aren't quite holding up their ends of things. Sometimes they are just bad players who don't care, who should perhaps not be a part of your team anymore. Other times however, they desperately want to do better, but aren't sure. In such situations, as in life, you need to sit down with them in a non-confrontational way and talk about the problem, and work with them on how to improve. As in life, the individual and the team will improve.

5. Dealing with team morale. Things don't always go well, but you almost always have to see some good aspects of what the team is doing to let the team know that (while at the same time identifying ways to improve). When the team does a good job, you need to make sure they know that you know that they did a good job.

6. Dealing with life conflicts. People have (hopefully) lives outside of WoW, as they have lives outside of work. You have to understand that situations come up, and people can't always be where they have said they will be. At the same time, there has to be consequences for people who are complete flakes. ...

On the other hand, there were some well-argued responses to this thesis, such as this submission by dpbsmith:

Chess has been a popular metaphor for war, life, strategic thinking, etc. for centuries, but I don't recall many national leaders drawn from the ranks of the Laskers, Capablancas, and Fischers.

Football (both U. S. and Rugby) are often thought to be good training for leadership. Arthur Wellesley, first Duke of Wellington, famously did not "The Battle of Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton," but even if he had, I don't think there's much evidence for correlation between football prowess and skill at national leadership.

As with football, to the extent that video gaming is ubiquitous among today's youth, it is vacuously true that our future leaders will probably have played video games, with varying degrees of skill.

But in seeking our future leaders, one might just as well look to today's [ cell phone users | Harry Potter fans | bottled water drinkers ].

And finally, a poster named nine-timer said that the MMOG training might be applicable in some contexts, but not for thinking-outside-of-the-box skills:

... The idea that you'll learn to problem-solve from gaming might be a bit off. Besides the save/reload thing you mentioned, there's the fact that games usually have you solve problems using set methods. There is a set way to solve a puzzle, and there's a set way to kill the monster.

When you have to solve real problems, you start to figure out that there aren't clear solutions laid out for you. Usually, there isn't "a solution", but instead an infinite number of possible partial solutions, none of which solve the problem entirely, all of which introduce new problems, and none of which are all that certain to work. You just have to pick the one that you think is best, and hope that your judgement is good.

I'd agree that puzzles are good for keeping your brain active. I'd agree that games can help teach strategy. But as for problem solving skills, often enough you need someone who can "think outside the box" (I know it's a cliché, but it's true!). Games usually teach you specifically to think inside the box and follow the set rules, so I'm just not so sure it's good training for problem-solving.

The Slashdot thread was prompted by an article in an African newspaper that was co-authored by Katja Goebel, Mervyn Govender and Steve Drake, three MBA students at the University of Cape Town. The article describes "Generation G" and their game-honed management skills in some detail -- it's an interesting read for anyone who is interested in real-world applications of gaming or managing online communities.