At first glance, video games may appear to be little more than fun. A way to pass the time, to distract ourselves, to escape. And for all practical purposes they are, but the places we go to when we connect with the world through our consoles, computers, and telephones are filled with lessons that extend far beyond the screen. It is without dissent that pretty much every game presents the player with obstacles, setbacks, and insurmountable challenges. In order to make progress, we must learn to adapt, retry and rethink everything until we succeed. In this way, games become a quiet teacher of resilience.
Think for a moment about the experience of losing repeatedly in a strategy or competitive multiplayer game. At the moment it can become unwieldy and frustrating, but those losses are really just stepping stones towards our ultimate success. Losing forces the player to analyze what went wrong, adjust tactics, and come back and solve the challenge again. This process mimics the real-life themes we encounter in business or personal finance. Entrepreneurs are rejected before one idea gets adopted. Investors felt the sting of the wrong bet before they figured out how to invest.
The persistence and resilience built in videogame failures has a way of transferring into real everyday life situations. For a generation that was raised on games, persistence and strategy and other so-called abstract values that we teach in classrooms, they are more likely to see these as instincts in their decision-making from years of virtual battles.
Strategy as a Life Skill
If resilience is about dealing with setbacks, strategy is learning how to think ahead. All video games require strategic thinking, whether it’s action games, simulation games, role playing games and so on. In the role playing game context, players are often managing limited resources available to spend all the while thinking about short-term impacts on their character, and long term effects on character growth. In real-time strategy games, players often have to juggle competing demands, predict what competitors are potentially planning, and how to react to change. In all of these ways, the same form of thinking happens for all of us in our financial lives or professional lives, most of which is continuously happening out of sight in our minds.
Take for example the way a gamer carefully chooses upgrades in a complex game. Each choice represents an opportunity cost. A faster sword today may mean delayed access to stronger armor tomorrow. Similarly, when someone spends money on leisure rather than saving for a potential future investment, they are also taking account of tradeoffs.
Even in more leisurely pursuits, we see strategy at work. The player who is learning to recognize when it is best to act, when to take a risk, or when to let opportunity wait for the right timeframe is utilizing foresight. Slowing down and taking several steps into the future is an exercise of mental discipline, similar to career planning, managing a household budget, or developing a business idea.
To take a particular example, consider the rise of online casinos and their digital variants. Although merely engaging in popular games like free slots with no download might seem like frivolous fun, players even there are trying to manage expectations and resources. Certainly, outcomes are about luck, but defining how much time to expend, and when to stop, engages the same strategic consciousness that is true for other behaviors related to financial contexts as well. Every experience participating in games, either through skill or chance, is a reminder that all decisions have consequences.
Beyond the Screen
Resilience is about failing and then returning again, but with a new frame of reference; strategy is not about predicting every option, but about responding to many possible options. Both of these qualities are essential in a constantly changing world, a world that has morphed from unpredictable financial markets to fast-changing industries and individual companies.
It is no accident that many successful entrepreneurs and business leaders grew up playing video games. They were taught very early in life the lessons of managing their own resources, adapting, and sticking with it. These skills are more than level patches or virtual cumulative trophies. They are habits of mind that allow people to see possibilities where others see barriers.
Video games have been criticized since the dawn of time for being distractions, while in their design, there is also a quiet depth. They mirror back to us our need for patience, creativity, and planning. For every player who has learned how to endure just one more turn after defeat, or who is adept at pausing the game and analyzing their options, there is evidence to suggest that video games are doing more than entertaining us; they are preparing us. They sharpen our resilience and strategy, not in abstract lectures taking place in class, but through experiences that ask us to possess these skills in life, one level at a time.
