Mar 27
I realize that I finished writing my previous post no more than 9 hours ago, but though I want to give you a chance to read it I also want to comment on an article that I just read. My brother sent me a link to this article on how the gameplay of World of Warcraft serves as a good model for real-life business, essentially claiming that business leaders and project managers would be more effective if they adopted the techniques used by the thousands of WoW players.
The rest of this post won’t make as much sense without at least glancing through the article, so I recommend taking a minute to browse that link.
Alright, first off I should say that I don’t really buy into this concept at all. The article completely lost me with its very first argument:
The game, Sirllin writes, “lets players act very efficiently together, even more efficiently than they do at work, which calls into question why we aren’t using similar ideas in business.” The technique that he recommends is continuous collaboration through user interfaces and “multiple simultaneous chat channels.”
Is he serious? Work would be a lot more efficient if only people could continuously collaborate through user interfaces and voice chat? A lofty dream, my friend, but unfortunately we don’t yet have the technology. At the moment the workplace is dominated by the archaic use of email, instant messaging, text messaging, cell phones, land lines, and video conferencing. I pray that one day, one glorious day, we might be able to show up to work, slip on a $10 headset, double click on IronForge, and tear down these terrible walls of isolation.
Going beyond the ability to have a killer chat session the article makes an almost equally ludicrous claim that even the most average of Warcraft guild leaders is a better manager than most real world business leaders.
The resounding sentiment among project managers is that a job like that would be very difficult to complete and if given the choice they would turn the job down. As gamers we complete tasks like that all the time and we do it for fun.
We do work all the time… and for fun!! I almost don’t blame the author of the quote here because the argument seems reasonable on paper. But at some point the author must have actually thought about what he/she was advocating and either completely missed the point or simply chose to ignore it. Allow me to make my own argument, along similar lines.
President Bush should play Counter-Strike. Counter-Strike teaches many lessons that President Bush would find invaluable while fighting a war on terrorism.
For one thing, in CS you must always have the mindset of stopping the terrorists, whether it be preventing a bombing or resolving a hostage situation. It helps develop the constant anti-terrorist mental stamina that will be required in this long, hard war. Especially since it looks like the war on terrorism will be a five year marathon session of de_dust.
Further, Counter-Strike teaches teamwork and leadership. Imagine a counter-terrorist team consisting of members from six different continents. Members have varying degrees of proficiency at English. Each member has a different view of the world, different motivations for being on the team and, at times, conflicting goals. If he can deal with spawn campers, Bush can deal with France.
Finally, Counter-Strike requires advanced war-time strategy. Constantly changing scenarios require the team leader to improvise and adapt, developing efficient strategies to best defeat the enemy. Sometimes you rush left, sometimes you do a delayed rush left. Every once in a while you might even buy mass awps and not rush at all.
On paper you can highlight gameplay and business buzzwords like Teamwork and Communication. Alright, but I could use those same arguments in any number of ways; Warcraft is a great model for romantic relationships – you need constant communication.
“I know that through role playing, I have learned to focus on my own life by looking at the different paths I need to take to achieve my goals and then breaking down what I have to develop in order to achieve what I want. Instead of trying to leap from mountain top to mountain top, I look for the path and I see my steps as I should take them.”
Well, I know from reading that quote that its author needs to focus on his own life and stop looking at the different paths afforded him by his character class’s skill tree. Instead of trying to leap from mountain top to mountain top he should look for the path that takes him out of his parents’ house and into his own apartment.
“Teamwork is something that has to be developed in the game. … People have to appreciate and coordinate each other’s skills in order to be truly successful.”
Not true. In order to be truly successful you just need a nightelf to cloak your team in invisibility, a tauren to deal physical damage, a wizard to cast elemental attacks, and a 12-year-old boy to yell, “Alright, let’s do this! Leeeeeeeeeeroy Jenkins!”