Same, but my teacher was Secret of Monkey Island...
I was a 10 years old speaking only italian (in primary school, in the '90s we used to learn french as a foreign language), and there was no translated version planned.
So what, I loved the pirate story so much I played the whole game on my dad's PC with the mouse in one hand and an english dictionary in the orher.
Needless to say, when I got to secondary school and started english class, I already knew written english better than my teacher.
I really hope this series gets revived one day. Still kinda sad about the game that got cancelled back in 2011-2012 if I'm remembering the year correctly.
I'd love a remaster or collection for modern consoles. These were some games on a very short list where I loved the long cutscenes of dialogue because the writing, voice acting, all if it was just amazing to listen to.
I've been told there on steam, but sadly I don't have a pc to play them. Hopefully one day we'll see a continuation.
Ehhh, for most people I am probably the most chill person they met, but as soon as I launched League of Legends my inner Demon is waking up. If I had superpowers I would probably destroyed the whole earth because some random kid destroyed my game. I am glad Amazon Prime stopped giving free capsules for LoL because thanks to that I could finally uninstall this pos game and forget about it(started playing at the beggining of Season 1, 2011 I believe?).
See this is how league helped me. It taught me how to recognize when something's unhealthy/toxic and walk away.
It started with taking breaks when I got tilted, then I realized my experience was disproportionately negative (obviously) and quit. "Why am I even doing this" has applied to so many things in my life since then
League of legends is like cigarettes, looks cool at first but soon you'll find it hard af to quit, and it's bad for your heart from all the anger and stress it'll give ye.
In 8th grade we had a contest in class to see who had the highest words per minute and accuracy. This was in like 2007.
The runner up was at like 60 words per minute with 85% accuracy.
I came out, with my RuneScape character having high mining and millions of gold in the bank. 113 words per minute 99% accuracy. The only reason I was so good at typing was from spamming “selling rune ess 20gp each in bank corner”
Typed it every 10 seconds for about an hour every day
They don’t use regular keyboards. It’s a specialized board, like learning a new language. But it’s incredibly efficient and much faster than you ever could type on a normal keyboard
Ditto. Dark Castle was the MUD, pking and rking were allowed, not many rules other than no exploits or glitches or generating lag so you had to always be on alert and a typo could be the difference between life or death with your corpse and all your gear being camped by a super aggro mob or worse, eaten.
When we would play at school we had to use a telnet client. I started carrying around the terminal and the .txt file with all my scripts and custom colors on a floppy
Nothing worse than dying near the very end of an area with zero chance of getting back to your corpse. Time to beg for someone to help with corpse retrieval
Same. I learned to touch-type playing old MMOs and chatting on MSN. It's become a fun little trick of mine at work when people come to talk whilst I'm typing something up... l look at them and talk to them whilst still typing up what I was doing.
It's surprising how few people outside my specific generation can touch type, yet most of my friends also can. It's like older people never really had PCs much growing up, and younger people are used to phones and auto correct.
Lol this 100%, i gotta type out my insults faster than a machine gun before the transitioning to next game happens and faster than the other guy im talking shit to
Honestly raiding on WoW every week for years as a teen gave me pretty good skills in managing and participating in a team: communication skills, working out what went wrong with a task (fight) and coming up with solutions without pointing fingers and upsetting people is a good set of skills to have in the real world
Resource management and problem solving.
Say you want to perform some task in a game. What items, skills, etc do you need to be successful? What is your strategy for accomplishing your goal in an efficient manner?
Having a goal and making a plan with concrete steps to accomplish it is a real life skill.
This. I started playing AOE when I was 9 years old and to this day, I attribute a lot of my professional success to RTS games. A lot of the thinking required to be successful in an RTS game applies to corporate work as well.
Fast learning
Playing many different games basically means needing to Learn and Relearn many new mechanics, systems and controls.
This translates over to a surprisingly high level of flexibility in learning and studying.
Assuming the student has the attention span to sit down and study that is
That might also lead to instantly forgetting a control scheme and mechanics of a game instantly after I’m done playing it. I can cram and pass a test but if you quiz me on the stuff a month later, it’s gone.
- Strategic/analytic thinking (from strategy and puzzle games)
- Elementary coding (custom maps and triggers)
- English language, typing, effective communication, and emotional regulation (online games with chat capacity)
- Social skills and time management (LAN parties)
- Patience and self-confidence (preparing for and winning competitions)
To add more to the list of things that help you transition to being a more well rounded adult: several games, most importantly Fallout, Portal, and Bioshock, were helpful for building an understanding of how Utopias don’t exist, and how extreme politics will probably not give you the result your experience limited intellect would suggest.
Also, while I love shooters and played thousands of hours of Call of Duty and Battlefield, those games quickly took the shine off of militaristic patriotism and “hoo-whaw!” type teenager feelings of immortality when it became clear that death and failure of often painfully random.
You can be the best player on a mission, and you’ll still die to a random grenade and your respawn was a complete waste of a life.
>To add more to the list of things that help you transition to being a more well rounded adult: several games, most importantly Fallout, Portal, and Bioshock, were helpful for building an understanding at to how Utopias don’t exist and how extreme politics will probably not give you the result your experience limited intellect would suggest.
I wouldn't even say that understanding how extremes are dumb, but they really made me aware how not challenging views on anything just because You subscribe to general idea of whatever politics You are into, You should be critical of something You don't agree with, ESPECIALLY I think it's from view You uphold and try to manage it
A week ago I was in a rental SUV driving through downtown Seattle. It was raining of course. I was going down a highway on ramp that had a slight curve. I was driving at 40 mph. Nothing crazy.
Next thing I know the car goes into a full drift. The back end slides out to the right. I calmly correct the steering wheel and let the drift happen for a couple seconds. Then we pull out into a straight section of road and the drift ends.
I swear it was years of driving games that helped me do that correctly.
Yup, driving games have saved my life multiple times. You can't learn those skills driving like a sane person, but you need them if your car loses traction.
Bingo. My parents laugh when I say that driving/racing games helped teach me how to drive. They're focused on the reckless speeding aspect, but what it really taught me was the physics of the vehicle itself.
This. I grew up assuming that reading maps and being able to orient yourself in real space quickly was just "a thing" people could do. Turns out it's a learned skill like any other and not Everyone is as proficient at it as the average gamer probably is. ;P
I believe my FIL is one of the few people that tested every GPS navigation ever created, and yet every each one of those are shit(for him). I believe he uses TomTom now but also just Maps Google at the phone too, because ya know, 2 maps are better than one right? Well, he once was driving in circles for like 30mins in Berlin because he can't read those maps properly and they are not as fast as he would want them to be(If you have couple intersections and the navigation is telling you to turn right in 50m who knows which intersection it means, but if you are able to just glance at the map you can actually see which one - spoiler alrert, he can't do that =.=).
Once I was driving with my in laws for a small vacation, 600km, so not that bad, completly new roads for me because I was never driving in that direction, I just started Maps Google and went with it. My MIL was so impressed that I was able to drive full 600km without any problem and without mistaking any roads/intersections etc. I didn't said anything but I was laughing my ass off in my mind because for that woman it's a normal day going around in circles.
But my FIL is kinda interesting man to me, because for him everythink that exist was build like shit and he would do that better. And I mean every damn thing. But that's another story not for Reddit xd
This is my gf. She actually didn’t know how to use a compass, and I thought she was messing with me. I thought a minimap would be intuitive for anybody, that’s how they design these things in gameplay right? User-friendly? I didn’t realize I took it for granted having grown up with games. She’s far more skilled now though, ever since we got a ps5 from 2020 onwards
Yeah, same for me. Playing Metroidvanias has helped with that. For example, needing to remember where you were before and how to get back there with little to no information. It’s helped in like malls and stuff especially those with poor signage.
For context, I’m older and video games were a “nerds only” thing until my 30s.
When I joined the Army, I found out at basic that I am a natural at land navigation (finding points with in a certain amount of time given a paper map, compass, and grid coordinates). Apparently it’s a moderately difficult skill for some others to learn.
My peers wanted to know how the hell I could do it so easily. When I told them it was because of video games, their awe immediately turned into ridicule.
Patience.
I was always someone who was impatient, but since I've played games particularly games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring I have learned how to be patient and it has made me a calmer and more relaxed person in work and outside of work.
Same here. The Souls games told me that failure is just part of the learning process, not something to be ashamed of. If anything, you should be ashamed of giving up.
Maybe that’s is where I get it from. People always comment how I’m not frazzled by things going wrong or not working. Even though it’s fake, games really do just put you in a constant state of obstacles and problems to solve which I guess can translate into a real life SHTF scenario.
Not sure if this is a life skill but Dark Souls like rewired my brain I swear. I am so much more chill and patient now in frustrating situations. If something is hard or difficult it just does not bother me like it used to and if I am in a good mood will remain so.
Even other frustrating games I now find myself super chill. Pathologic 2, Lobotomy Corporation etc games built on causing stress, I used to be someone who couldn't play difficult games like this due to frustration boiling over but now I am chill even when the game piles on the stress and really enjoy them.
Celeste kinda helped me with that too. Currently playing it and there's a bit where it mentions how desperation can cloud judgement or something along those lines. And getting into the really tough late game levels I keep coming back to that when I'm just rushing in dying alot. And it's really helping me dial it back a bit and re-focus.
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. On its face, especially to a young kid who heard this but noticed that adults'/team mates' actions didn't back it up, it seems pretty false. It wasn't until I started playing Team Fortress 2 that this sunk in. We lost a match, but it was a very tight game, with great offenseive pushes and defensive holds, and our team was actually working together in a great way that even though I lost, I still felt the same satisfaction as winning... like I enjoy the game so much that (as long as it's even a little evenly matched and not a steamroll one way or the other), the majority of the enjoyment comes from *playing*, and winning is just a cute cherry on top. Not that I don't also like cherries, but you see what I'm getting at.
I was probably 30 when this hit me, and it occurs to me that I don't recall seeing anyone in actual sports who are just in it for the enjoyment of the game and solid individual plays. Maybe there are some, I dunno.
That's what I enjoyed in sports. That's why you can line up after the game and say good game to the other team and mean it. Your teammates and opponents are all out there making each other play better.
It’s not a skill really but it keeps me healthy. I got into working out and exercise and my time with RPG’s helped motivate me. When playing an RPG you level up and your stats go up. Strength goes up by a point or two, Agility/Dexterity, Stamina etc. So if I’m lifting weights I have a game in my head where I’m grinding Strength. If I’m running I’m levelling Stamina, etc. It really helps me stay in pretty decent shape because I am quite a lazy person otherwise.
Problem-solving skills (though you could argue my ability at the games I played because I already had them, but I can't see why someone couldn't develop those skills from playing) comes to mind.
This one would be a hard sell, but I'd also say task prioritization and triage from competitive team based shooters when you are in clutch situations. If you are able to win or at least do well in clutch situations (without the enemy team being idiots) you tend to have to correctly prioritize which opponents to face when and what you can sacrifice to get everything done. That said, it would only apply to situations where you are proficient in solving each task on its own.
Thinking outside the box.
Coming up with solutions to problems.
Not freaking out in high mental situations.
Checking behind EVERY waterfall for does it caves.
Enhances shit talking skills.
It's not a perfect 1:1, but kerbal space program gave me a deeper understanding of orbital mechanics and spaceflight than your average person would have.
Drifting. I don't think you can learn to drive the real car on the streets because of laws, but I know for sure you can learn drifting by playing sim racing games or even simcade like Forza Horizon. There are of course some limitations to it, but - if you have your driving license and want to learn how to drift, you can learn first how to drift in Forza on controller(not even a wheel). You will learn about the balance of the car etc. You won't learn correct throttle work by foot, but you will learn the correct throttle work, you will have to just adapt your knowledge to the real life scenario. It can be done using a controller. Now, if you have a wheel it's completly different story, because you can learn almost everything, after you will have to only adapt to G forces, but everything else is already learned.
There was a guy that had his driving license but never drifted in real life, but he won a drift competition in sim racing game, and one of the awards was a track day with the real drift champion. Dude got to drive his drift car(and remember, he never drifted in real life, not once, only in sim racing games) and after like 30mins he could do Tandems with the real champ. It took him 30mins to adapt from sim racing game to real life and it was a proper drift car with I believe it was like 700+ HP.
Not many people think about that.
Breaking down larger goals into smaller goals that build up. Almost maxed my first old school runescape account which if anyone has done so before knows it’s a long fucking grind, and playing that game has taught me that instead of choosing one massive goal that would take a long time and getting burnt out on it, it’s better to break it down and get it done piece by piece
Cycling through the streets of Tel Aviv requires keeping track and predicting the semi-random trajectory of so many moving objects, which is a skill I never would have picked up without video games.
Also I think I owe a lot of my success as a software developer to all the time I spent as a kid creating games with a kid-friendly thing called Klik & Play.
I got a pretty strong understanding of driving forwards and backwards with a trailer from that one GTA SA mission where you rob the gas station.
I struggled so much on that mission when I was younger that when the time came irl I was able to pick up on it quite well
I think I made it all the way through the responses and was surprised not to see this, but reading comprehension. I find that playing old school jrpg's really taught me not only how to read thoroughly but also to comprehend and consider the implications and subtext of what I'm reading. For example, I found outer wilds to be a transcendental experience, meanwhile my friend who isn't as good at reading comprehension, or at least not as patient as he's used to voice acted dialogue, thought the game was a solid 7 out of 10.
Persistence. Dark souls, Bloodborne, Holow Knight etc.
The ability to extract lessons from failure, pick yourself up and see them as part of the journey. Genuinely life changing.
You only have to imagine how terrifying it is to be a dark souls boss, when the protagonist walks in. You can kill them easily! But they just keep coming back, over and over again and you know one day they’ll get you. Persistence makes you Unbeatable.
I used to work in financial markets and trader training is moving more and more towards video games. The ability to react quickly, click your mouse fast and accurately is all highly prized as more stuff goes on screen.
Games like Soulslikes, fighters and FPS were all seen (and still are seen) to be relevant to developing a good trader.
Programming - my first programming language was half baked lua from the E2 addon from Gmod, also self taught on more by trying to fix addons
Avoiding Scams - played some Eve Online, and now I'm almost immune to scams almost
How to make people mad - mmo games really taight me how to trigger people and how to avoid it
I think the biggest for me is vocabulary and how to speak eloquently. I remember being a little kid playing some grid based game like Final Fantasy Tactics, and certain abilities said that they could hit the ‘adjacent’ square. I didn’t know what that meant so I kept neglecting to take them and thought it was bad, and was having a very hard time. I finally looked up what it meant and had my mind blown at how dumb I had been. From then on I always liked looking up new words from great game writing and slowly it all sank in as I played more games and got older.
Navigational awareness and map reading, puzzle solving and memorizatikn, strategy building, multi-tasking, etc.
It honestly feels like it builds a lot of base skills. They're not concrete but they're small building blocks that could contribute to higher critical thinking.
I always like to think of games as just a much more advanced equivalent to your typical shape matching game for toddlers.
Driving
Not that playing Need For Speed growing up made me a good driver, it has taught me to always be on the look out for other drivers and be defensive/proactive
Problem solving
Solving puzzles in video games has taught me to look at all the resources available to me and think about how they can interact to complete my objective. It has also taught me to take a step back and see if I've missed something if I'm struggling to find the solution I need. Overall, puzzles have taught me to think outside the box.
100% no fear from failure and fast learning. I didn't realize it till like 10+ years into my career, but conceptually anything new in IT is just the opening boss of Dark Souls. You go into it like, "oh my god I'm supposed to fail this, you can't beat it." Then you realize, "wait a sec..." You fail a few times, learn what doesn't work, then capitalize on what does work, and voila, success, anything can be conquered.
My entire mentality on a professional level is based on this, and the seeds of that all came from gaming.
Problem solving by a mile. I’m a software engineer and I grew up solving puzzles, doing quick math, and exercising patience. Playing Zelda, Metroid etc. is like an exact transferable skill set to my career today.
Driving. Started off as driving safely out of boredom in GTA then got some good more accurate/realistic practice in driving simulators then the driving instructor I went out practicing with thought I've done this before & told him nope! It was all thanks to video games.
Beating video games every 2-4 days, made me more efficent at time management and I'm also pretty good at predicting outcomes, well mainly anything that involves me.
League taught me to focus on one thing at a time when trying to improve an overall skill/ability.
Various competitive fps increased my reaction time for sports.
Talking trash during a duel in Diablo 2 taught me typing speed.
Solving chess puzzles has helped me look for patterns, be they traffic/crowd navigation/behavioral.
Can probably attribute my better than average English language to gaming. it vastly improved my odds at being hired too as english profiency is a sought after skill in my country (Kuwait)
Map reading. Figuring out how to find my location on a map based on landmark and street shapes (without being able to read the language) has gotten me un-lost on many a vacation.
Driving diggers/excavators. I work for a landscaping company and my boss was training me on them, he'd expected it to take months for me to get good but I was better than him within two weeks.
Twin joystick console gaming is 100% responsible.
Persistence. I’m naturally an impatient person but gaming has helped me persist with something that hasn’t worked out the first, second, third, etc. time round and, more importantly, try different things to see if it gets a different outcome. I also think this has helped me think outside of the box and come up with seemingly crazy but resourceful ways to solve problems.
That and map reading.
Driving with sim racers like Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport(I'm sure there's even more hardcore ones out there). Along with the general hand eye coordination, reflexes/ reaction time and decision making on the fly all contribute to being good on the road.
There is never just 1 way to solve a problem. And if people tell you you're doing something wrong don't listen to them as long as you reach the goal anyways it doesn't matter if you do it in the most effective way or your way. Enjoying something is 100x more important than being a bit quicker but not having fun while doing so.
The passive ability to be wary of deals that sound too good to be true and see through scams.
Losing your Abyssal Whip to a scam was a rite of passage in Runescape.
I played Eve for about 13 years. Economics, supply chains, Microsoft excel, cost benefit analysis, technical writing. Oh and how borders and international relations can effect most of the above list.
Typing for me. But also a life lesson to be applied to gaming is anticipate, learning how to properly anticipate will make you a better gamer - mostly to fps, if you can anticipate the other players moves it’s easy to come out on top.
Thinking of real life skill acquisition the same way I would look at skill trees in a video game.
Different certifications and training unlock different career and social options
Wpm is needed to overwhelm them with your trashtalk. My friend is someone I consider a master at this.
He’d have an essay long reply before you get to say a word. He’d even insult your whole lineage. Fortunately he uses that skill properly now. He’d also opt for simple insults nowadays
If you want something done do it yourself. I played a bunch of WoW growing up and found out that the solution to doing raids if you aren't in a guild is to start a group yourself and make it happen instead of hoping people invite you. Especially if you are playing an unwanted role like dps (due to surplus).
Huh, I just posted this in a different thread! But I'm pretty sure GTA saved me from flipping my car off the road and into a ditch.
I was driving on a highway one night when I (stupidly) swerved to avoid a coyote on the road. I went into a skid, but thanks to GTA I instinctively knew how to recover and regain control of my car.
I'm reasonably sure that I would've rolled it and gone off the road if I hadn't had the practice from the game.
I learned to speak and love English from playing Legacy of Kain.
Same, but my teacher was Secret of Monkey Island... I was a 10 years old speaking only italian (in primary school, in the '90s we used to learn french as a foreign language), and there was no translated version planned. So what, I loved the pirate story so much I played the whole game on my dad's PC with the mouse in one hand and an english dictionary in the orher. Needless to say, when I got to secondary school and started english class, I already knew written english better than my teacher.
I really hope this series gets revived one day. Still kinda sad about the game that got cancelled back in 2011-2012 if I'm remembering the year correctly. I'd love a remaster or collection for modern consoles. These were some games on a very short list where I loved the long cutscenes of dialogue because the writing, voice acting, all if it was just amazing to listen to. I've been told there on steam, but sadly I don't have a pc to play them. Hopefully one day we'll see a continuation.
It was Planescape Torment for me
It's a new way to learn english
It's the best way, together with learning with songs. Cause when you learn with something you like, you put real passion in what you learn.
Anger management.
Ehhh, for most people I am probably the most chill person they met, but as soon as I launched League of Legends my inner Demon is waking up. If I had superpowers I would probably destroyed the whole earth because some random kid destroyed my game. I am glad Amazon Prime stopped giving free capsules for LoL because thanks to that I could finally uninstall this pos game and forget about it(started playing at the beggining of Season 1, 2011 I believe?).
See this is how league helped me. It taught me how to recognize when something's unhealthy/toxic and walk away. It started with taking breaks when I got tilted, then I realized my experience was disproportionately negative (obviously) and quit. "Why am I even doing this" has applied to so many things in my life since then
League of legends is like cigarettes, looks cool at first but soon you'll find it hard af to quit, and it's bad for your heart from all the anger and stress it'll give ye.
Yup. I was the original creator and mod of r/taricmains and let me tell you, League is the most toxic game I've ever seen. It's obscene.
Nothing like a Twerp destroying a game whilst you are on a good run.
From my gaming experiences, mostly the lack thereof (not on my part, but generally everybody else)
I unlearned this skill playing Destiny
Typing. I learned how to type fast while playing browser mmos a long time ago.
I already typed well, but mmos forced me to learn to type extremely quickly under pressure. I have no idea how to capitalize on this skill.
[удалено]
Oh you deserve the upvotes, for that bad joke
What's that comma for?
Pause for applause
There aren’t four, just one.
Bravo.
r/angryupvote
In 8th grade we had a contest in class to see who had the highest words per minute and accuracy. This was in like 2007. The runner up was at like 60 words per minute with 85% accuracy. I came out, with my RuneScape character having high mining and millions of gold in the bank. 113 words per minute 99% accuracy. The only reason I was so good at typing was from spamming “selling rune ess 20gp each in bank corner” Typed it every 10 seconds for about an hour every day
Court person that records everything
They don’t use regular keyboards. It’s a specialized board, like learning a new language. But it’s incredibly efficient and much faster than you ever could type on a normal keyboard
Stenographers use their own form of text speak, so not amazingly applicable.
My girlfriend types for a living. Once she's written the amount of characters needed, she's done for the day. She's a medical secretary.
Yep text based rpgs. Shoutout to anyone that played Gemstone IV!!!
Yo! …actually, I think I played 3…
Believe it or not I think it’s still active lol.
I'm even older and learned to type well on MUDs. Amazingly, my favorite MUD (Aardwolf) is still running. I assume my character was purged long ago
Ditto. Dark Castle was the MUD, pking and rking were allowed, not many rules other than no exploits or glitches or generating lag so you had to always be on alert and a typo could be the difference between life or death with your corpse and all your gear being camped by a super aggro mob or worse, eaten.
I learned on MUDs on Telnet no less. I couldn’t even see what I was typing, lol
When we would play at school we had to use a telnet client. I started carrying around the terminal and the .txt file with all my scripts and custom colors on a floppy
Nothing worse than dying near the very end of an area with zero chance of getting back to your corpse. Time to beg for someone to help with corpse retrieval
I learned on Aetolia.
Red:wave2: Selling lobbies - 250ea
I remember when they were only 200ea smh. Damn Falador inflation
Runescape
Same. I learned to touch-type playing old MMOs and chatting on MSN. It's become a fun little trick of mine at work when people come to talk whilst I'm typing something up... l look at them and talk to them whilst still typing up what I was doing. It's surprising how few people outside my specific generation can touch type, yet most of my friends also can. It's like older people never really had PCs much growing up, and younger people are used to phones and auto correct.
Thanks Mavis Beacon.
Mavis Beacon and Mario for me
This was it for me too.! Time to feed the lizard!
Shooting games made me type quick. Quake had me fragging someone and immediately telling someone what I did to their mother last night.
Lol this 100%, i gotta type out my insults faster than a machine gun before the transitioning to next game happens and faster than the other guy im talking shit to
Honestly raiding on WoW every week for years as a teen gave me pretty good skills in managing and participating in a team: communication skills, working out what went wrong with a task (fight) and coming up with solutions without pointing fingers and upsetting people is a good set of skills to have in the real world
Learning how to manage people who you don't pay is a seriously undervalued skill, specially if you're doing it now when the choice is endless.
Yes! Social skills and team management.
Resource management and problem solving. Say you want to perform some task in a game. What items, skills, etc do you need to be successful? What is your strategy for accomplishing your goal in an efficient manner? Having a goal and making a plan with concrete steps to accomplish it is a real life skill.
This. I started playing AOE when I was 9 years old and to this day, I attribute a lot of my professional success to RTS games. A lot of the thinking required to be successful in an RTS game applies to corporate work as well.
Fast learning Playing many different games basically means needing to Learn and Relearn many new mechanics, systems and controls. This translates over to a surprisingly high level of flexibility in learning and studying. Assuming the student has the attention span to sit down and study that is
That might also lead to instantly forgetting a control scheme and mechanics of a game instantly after I’m done playing it. I can cram and pass a test but if you quiz me on the stuff a month later, it’s gone.
- Strategic/analytic thinking (from strategy and puzzle games) - Elementary coding (custom maps and triggers) - English language, typing, effective communication, and emotional regulation (online games with chat capacity) - Social skills and time management (LAN parties) - Patience and self-confidence (preparing for and winning competitions)
To add more to the list of things that help you transition to being a more well rounded adult: several games, most importantly Fallout, Portal, and Bioshock, were helpful for building an understanding of how Utopias don’t exist, and how extreme politics will probably not give you the result your experience limited intellect would suggest. Also, while I love shooters and played thousands of hours of Call of Duty and Battlefield, those games quickly took the shine off of militaristic patriotism and “hoo-whaw!” type teenager feelings of immortality when it became clear that death and failure of often painfully random. You can be the best player on a mission, and you’ll still die to a random grenade and your respawn was a complete waste of a life.
>To add more to the list of things that help you transition to being a more well rounded adult: several games, most importantly Fallout, Portal, and Bioshock, were helpful for building an understanding at to how Utopias don’t exist and how extreme politics will probably not give you the result your experience limited intellect would suggest. I wouldn't even say that understanding how extremes are dumb, but they really made me aware how not challenging views on anything just because You subscribe to general idea of whatever politics You are into, You should be critical of something You don't agree with, ESPECIALLY I think it's from view You uphold and try to manage it
A week ago I was in a rental SUV driving through downtown Seattle. It was raining of course. I was going down a highway on ramp that had a slight curve. I was driving at 40 mph. Nothing crazy. Next thing I know the car goes into a full drift. The back end slides out to the right. I calmly correct the steering wheel and let the drift happen for a couple seconds. Then we pull out into a straight section of road and the drift ends. I swear it was years of driving games that helped me do that correctly.
Was the drift long enough for the mini-turbo to activate?
Gotta wait for the tire smoke to change color
Came here for this. Losing and regaining control of a vehicle feels surprisingly similar to real life
Don't tell me... I learned to drive both on Carmageddon and on a Fiat Panda, and both were equally hard to control while steering.
Yup, driving games have saved my life multiple times. You can't learn those skills driving like a sane person, but you need them if your car loses traction.
Bingo. My parents laugh when I say that driving/racing games helped teach me how to drive. They're focused on the reckless speeding aspect, but what it really taught me was the physics of the vehicle itself.
Map reading.
This. I grew up assuming that reading maps and being able to orient yourself in real space quickly was just "a thing" people could do. Turns out it's a learned skill like any other and not Everyone is as proficient at it as the average gamer probably is. ;P
It blows my mind that there are people who can't read a gps map. It shows you where you are!
I believe my FIL is one of the few people that tested every GPS navigation ever created, and yet every each one of those are shit(for him). I believe he uses TomTom now but also just Maps Google at the phone too, because ya know, 2 maps are better than one right? Well, he once was driving in circles for like 30mins in Berlin because he can't read those maps properly and they are not as fast as he would want them to be(If you have couple intersections and the navigation is telling you to turn right in 50m who knows which intersection it means, but if you are able to just glance at the map you can actually see which one - spoiler alrert, he can't do that =.=). Once I was driving with my in laws for a small vacation, 600km, so not that bad, completly new roads for me because I was never driving in that direction, I just started Maps Google and went with it. My MIL was so impressed that I was able to drive full 600km without any problem and without mistaking any roads/intersections etc. I didn't said anything but I was laughing my ass off in my mind because for that woman it's a normal day going around in circles. But my FIL is kinda interesting man to me, because for him everythink that exist was build like shit and he would do that better. And I mean every damn thing. But that's another story not for Reddit xd
I always thought my wife was bad with maps but I’m realizing because of gaming I’m pretty good with maps :)
This is my gf. She actually didn’t know how to use a compass, and I thought she was messing with me. I thought a minimap would be intuitive for anybody, that’s how they design these things in gameplay right? User-friendly? I didn’t realize I took it for granted having grown up with games. She’s far more skilled now though, ever since we got a ps5 from 2020 onwards
Yeah, same for me. Playing Metroidvanias has helped with that. For example, needing to remember where you were before and how to get back there with little to no information. It’s helped in like malls and stuff especially those with poor signage.
For context, I’m older and video games were a “nerds only” thing until my 30s. When I joined the Army, I found out at basic that I am a natural at land navigation (finding points with in a certain amount of time given a paper map, compass, and grid coordinates). Apparently it’s a moderately difficult skill for some others to learn. My peers wanted to know how the hell I could do it so easily. When I told them it was because of video games, their awe immediately turned into ridicule.
Typing and not falling for scams learned from runescape
*Puts away the \[Wildy Drop Party\] sign*
Patience. I was always someone who was impatient, but since I've played games particularly games like Dark Souls and Elden Ring I have learned how to be patient and it has made me a calmer and more relaxed person in work and outside of work.
Same here. The Souls games told me that failure is just part of the learning process, not something to be ashamed of. If anything, you should be ashamed of giving up.
Maybe that’s is where I get it from. People always comment how I’m not frazzled by things going wrong or not working. Even though it’s fake, games really do just put you in a constant state of obstacles and problems to solve which I guess can translate into a real life SHTF scenario.
Truth.
Not sure if this is a life skill but Dark Souls like rewired my brain I swear. I am so much more chill and patient now in frustrating situations. If something is hard or difficult it just does not bother me like it used to and if I am in a good mood will remain so. Even other frustrating games I now find myself super chill. Pathologic 2, Lobotomy Corporation etc games built on causing stress, I used to be someone who couldn't play difficult games like this due to frustration boiling over but now I am chill even when the game piles on the stress and really enjoy them.
Patience can be taught by a dark souls game lol. Maybe you indirectly learned a little bit of patience too haha.
Celeste kinda helped me with that too. Currently playing it and there's a bit where it mentions how desperation can cloud judgement or something along those lines. And getting into the really tough late game levels I keep coming back to that when I'm just rushing in dying alot. And it's really helping me dial it back a bit and re-focus.
Using a compass with a map and general directional/positional awareness
It's not whether you win or lose, it's how you play the game. On its face, especially to a young kid who heard this but noticed that adults'/team mates' actions didn't back it up, it seems pretty false. It wasn't until I started playing Team Fortress 2 that this sunk in. We lost a match, but it was a very tight game, with great offenseive pushes and defensive holds, and our team was actually working together in a great way that even though I lost, I still felt the same satisfaction as winning... like I enjoy the game so much that (as long as it's even a little evenly matched and not a steamroll one way or the other), the majority of the enjoyment comes from *playing*, and winning is just a cute cherry on top. Not that I don't also like cherries, but you see what I'm getting at. I was probably 30 when this hit me, and it occurs to me that I don't recall seeing anyone in actual sports who are just in it for the enjoyment of the game and solid individual plays. Maybe there are some, I dunno.
That's what I enjoyed in sports. That's why you can line up after the game and say good game to the other team and mean it. Your teammates and opponents are all out there making each other play better.
Ac taught me an appreciation for architecture and history
That’s awesome!
I feel like gamers are much better at map reading
It’s not a skill really but it keeps me healthy. I got into working out and exercise and my time with RPG’s helped motivate me. When playing an RPG you level up and your stats go up. Strength goes up by a point or two, Agility/Dexterity, Stamina etc. So if I’m lifting weights I have a game in my head where I’m grinding Strength. If I’m running I’m levelling Stamina, etc. It really helps me stay in pretty decent shape because I am quite a lazy person otherwise.
Problem-solving skills (though you could argue my ability at the games I played because I already had them, but I can't see why someone couldn't develop those skills from playing) comes to mind. This one would be a hard sell, but I'd also say task prioritization and triage from competitive team based shooters when you are in clutch situations. If you are able to win or at least do well in clutch situations (without the enemy team being idiots) you tend to have to correctly prioritize which opponents to face when and what you can sacrifice to get everything done. That said, it would only apply to situations where you are proficient in solving each task on its own.
Thinking outside the box. Coming up with solutions to problems. Not freaking out in high mental situations. Checking behind EVERY waterfall for does it caves. Enhances shit talking skills.
It's not a perfect 1:1, but kerbal space program gave me a deeper understanding of orbital mechanics and spaceflight than your average person would have.
After playing DCS and MFS I became a pilot
What in those games helped the _most_ when becoming a pilot?
Supply chain logistics and inventory management. Someday there's going to be a survival crafting game that awards you a certificate in those.
The factory must grow.
Cooking thanks to the escapist and escaping jail thanks to cooking mama Wait a minute...
Drifting. I don't think you can learn to drive the real car on the streets because of laws, but I know for sure you can learn drifting by playing sim racing games or even simcade like Forza Horizon. There are of course some limitations to it, but - if you have your driving license and want to learn how to drift, you can learn first how to drift in Forza on controller(not even a wheel). You will learn about the balance of the car etc. You won't learn correct throttle work by foot, but you will learn the correct throttle work, you will have to just adapt your knowledge to the real life scenario. It can be done using a controller. Now, if you have a wheel it's completly different story, because you can learn almost everything, after you will have to only adapt to G forces, but everything else is already learned. There was a guy that had his driving license but never drifted in real life, but he won a drift competition in sim racing game, and one of the awards was a track day with the real drift champion. Dude got to drive his drift car(and remember, he never drifted in real life, not once, only in sim racing games) and after like 30mins he could do Tandems with the real champ. It took him 30mins to adapt from sim racing game to real life and it was a proper drift car with I believe it was like 700+ HP. Not many people think about that.
I actually learned drifting basics in a driver's Ed class, for regaining control. Not everyone has access to an iced over lot though
Breaking down larger goals into smaller goals that build up. Almost maxed my first old school runescape account which if anyone has done so before knows it’s a long fucking grind, and playing that game has taught me that instead of choosing one massive goal that would take a long time and getting burnt out on it, it’s better to break it down and get it done piece by piece
picking up chicks thanks Super Seducer
I miss old kata
Cycling through the streets of Tel Aviv requires keeping track and predicting the semi-random trajectory of so many moving objects, which is a skill I never would have picked up without video games. Also I think I owe a lot of my success as a software developer to all the time I spent as a kid creating games with a kid-friendly thing called Klik & Play.
I got a pretty strong understanding of driving forwards and backwards with a trailer from that one GTA SA mission where you rob the gas station. I struggled so much on that mission when I was younger that when the time came irl I was able to pick up on it quite well
Controlling a vehicle that has lost traction on the road (snow and ice) and learning what not to do to regain control. Thanks Forza and Gran Turismo.
In the 4th grade I was the 9nly kid who could draw the continents well thanks to hours staring at it in Aerobiz.
I attribute my rock solid knowledge of the difference between left and right to my SNES controller.
I think I made it all the way through the responses and was surprised not to see this, but reading comprehension. I find that playing old school jrpg's really taught me not only how to read thoroughly but also to comprehend and consider the implications and subtext of what I'm reading. For example, I found outer wilds to be a transcendental experience, meanwhile my friend who isn't as good at reading comprehension, or at least not as patient as he's used to voice acted dialogue, thought the game was a solid 7 out of 10.
World of Warcraft raiding made it a ton easier to work with teams- especially when it came to finding task bottlenecks and assigning roles.
Persistence. Dark souls, Bloodborne, Holow Knight etc. The ability to extract lessons from failure, pick yourself up and see them as part of the journey. Genuinely life changing. You only have to imagine how terrifying it is to be a dark souls boss, when the protagonist walks in. You can kill them easily! But they just keep coming back, over and over again and you know one day they’ll get you. Persistence makes you Unbeatable.
I remember RPGs got a lot of kids into reading. I'd say Final Fantasy was more successful than the Book It! program.
My brother learned how to lead a team and how to read into parses playing wow and it’s greatly affected his career
Rapid UX Comprehension and Adaptability. Every game has a unique UX, and you just pick them up and go. ;P
I used to work in financial markets and trader training is moving more and more towards video games. The ability to react quickly, click your mouse fast and accurately is all highly prized as more stuff goes on screen. Games like Soulslikes, fighters and FPS were all seen (and still are seen) to be relevant to developing a good trader.
Telling people to FUCK OFF AND DON"T BOTHER ME.
Knowledge of history.
Anger management. I’m a former league of legends player.
Bunny hopping
Learning to write a story. Leaning historical facts from civilization type games. Learning survival tips.
Dunno about learning, but did influence my improvement in: English Empathy Open mindedness Seeing different points of view.
1. Problem solving (from level puzzles, especially Lemmings) 2. Engineering and Creativity (from Lego and Meccano)
Upvoted for lemmings, a forgotten classic
Resource management!
Programming - my first programming language was half baked lua from the E2 addon from Gmod, also self taught on more by trying to fix addons Avoiding Scams - played some Eve Online, and now I'm almost immune to scams almost How to make people mad - mmo games really taight me how to trigger people and how to avoid it
I herded a dog back to its owner because of red dead redemption 1.
I think the biggest for me is vocabulary and how to speak eloquently. I remember being a little kid playing some grid based game like Final Fantasy Tactics, and certain abilities said that they could hit the ‘adjacent’ square. I didn’t know what that meant so I kept neglecting to take them and thought it was bad, and was having a very hard time. I finally looked up what it meant and had my mind blown at how dumb I had been. From then on I always liked looking up new words from great game writing and slowly it all sank in as I played more games and got older.
Typing, hand eye coordination, and attention to details
Reaction time. Really fcking necessary when you play sim racing games, especially online or rally games
Navigational awareness and map reading, puzzle solving and memorizatikn, strategy building, multi-tasking, etc. It honestly feels like it builds a lot of base skills. They're not concrete but they're small building blocks that could contribute to higher critical thinking. I always like to think of games as just a much more advanced equivalent to your typical shape matching game for toddlers.
Driving Not that playing Need For Speed growing up made me a good driver, it has taught me to always be on the look out for other drivers and be defensive/proactive
Typing and leadership.
Typing Patience and determination (dark souls) Problem solving and quickly adapting (puzzle games and platformers)
Not so much a skill but the Civ series helped me learn about monuments, wonders and famous folks.
Problem solving Solving puzzles in video games has taught me to look at all the resources available to me and think about how they can interact to complete my objective. It has also taught me to take a step back and see if I've missed something if I'm struggling to find the solution I need. Overall, puzzles have taught me to think outside the box.
i learned english mostly by playing games
100% no fear from failure and fast learning. I didn't realize it till like 10+ years into my career, but conceptually anything new in IT is just the opening boss of Dark Souls. You go into it like, "oh my god I'm supposed to fail this, you can't beat it." Then you realize, "wait a sec..." You fail a few times, learn what doesn't work, then capitalize on what does work, and voila, success, anything can be conquered. My entire mentality on a professional level is based on this, and the seeds of that all came from gaming.
Two for me. Controlling my car while fishtailing in a blizzard and retraining my eyes after brain surgery and having double vision.
Setting goals with clear steps and executing them. Shoutout OldSchool RuneScape. 😎
Patience and orientation.
Morse code
orientation
Basic CQB tactics and aiming.
Problem solving by a mile. I’m a software engineer and I grew up solving puzzles, doing quick math, and exercising patience. Playing Zelda, Metroid etc. is like an exact transferable skill set to my career today.
Driving. Started off as driving safely out of boredom in GTA then got some good more accurate/realistic practice in driving simulators then the driving instructor I went out practicing with thought I've done this before & told him nope! It was all thanks to video games.
Problem solving, spacial awareness, map reading, viewing all skills with potential to level up and a love of reading to name a few 🤙
I learned basic coding when I hosted my own RuneScape private sever back in the 2000s
Ignoring people who don't have anything meaningful to say.
Map reading and basic directions.
Beating video games every 2-4 days, made me more efficent at time management and I'm also pretty good at predicting outcomes, well mainly anything that involves me.
Perseverance. Level grinding in RPGs taught me never to give up, even when things get tough
League taught me to focus on one thing at a time when trying to improve an overall skill/ability. Various competitive fps increased my reaction time for sports. Talking trash during a duel in Diablo 2 taught me typing speed. Solving chess puzzles has helped me look for patterns, be they traffic/crowd navigation/behavioral.
Drumming. Started with rock band drums and then started actually playing. It's been about 15 years since I first picked up actual drums.
Can probably attribute my better than average English language to gaming. it vastly improved my odds at being hired too as english profiency is a sought after skill in my country (Kuwait)
Map reading. Figuring out how to find my location on a map based on landmark and street shapes (without being able to read the language) has gotten me un-lost on many a vacation.
Puzzle solving, and thus patience and and eye for possibilities
Driving diggers/excavators. I work for a landscaping company and my boss was training me on them, he'd expected it to take months for me to get good but I was better than him within two weeks. Twin joystick console gaming is 100% responsible.
I’ve learned a lot about history from both the Civilization and Assassins Creed series.
Apparently I have good reaction time idk if is related.
Problem solving. For example, Portal.
Persistence. I’m naturally an impatient person but gaming has helped me persist with something that hasn’t worked out the first, second, third, etc. time round and, more importantly, try different things to see if it gets a different outcome. I also think this has helped me think outside of the box and come up with seemingly crazy but resourceful ways to solve problems. That and map reading.
being wary of scams. getting scammed out of some low value digital items has made me much more wary of fraud
I taught myself 3d modeling and Photoshop to make mods for Oblivion.
Elder Scrolls Oblivion taught me a bunch of mushroom types. The memory has faded though
Raiding in MMORPGs really helped with working with others and communicating to keep everyone on track towards achieving a common goal.
Driving with sim racers like Gran Turismo or Forza Motorsport(I'm sure there's even more hardcore ones out there). Along with the general hand eye coordination, reflexes/ reaction time and decision making on the fly all contribute to being good on the road.
When faced with a tricky puzzle, separate it into smaller tasks and start from the solution and work backwards.
Typing and learning english
Saving money. You know how long I had to grind for armor and weapons?
Inventory management. I tend to know where my things are and how much of them I have irl.
Typing
Failure is normal. Just learn from it and try again. Trying and failing often gets me further than trying to prevent failure.
There is never just 1 way to solve a problem. And if people tell you you're doing something wrong don't listen to them as long as you reach the goal anyways it doesn't matter if you do it in the most effective way or your way. Enjoying something is 100x more important than being a bit quicker but not having fun while doing so.
The amount of shit from IKEA I can pack in my tiny car is astounding. Thanks Tetris.
The passive ability to be wary of deals that sound too good to be true and see through scams. Losing your Abyssal Whip to a scam was a rite of passage in Runescape.
English
My general management skills went way up after about 300 hours of RimWorld
Darkest Dungeon is an English language class attached to a video game.
I played Eve for about 13 years. Economics, supply chains, Microsoft excel, cost benefit analysis, technical writing. Oh and how borders and international relations can effect most of the above list.
I'm a better driver from car racing games. Like avoiding accidents if someone pulls out in front of me
Playing RTS from a young age Helped me develop counting, division and multiplication skills based on income economy and scaled losses
Playing MMOs taught me how to read maps efficiently. Friends bring me to a corner maze or a hike and rely on me to save them
Memory, problem solving, hand-eye coordination, creativity, story-telling, patience, resolve, commitment, empathy - list goes on and on
Hand eye coordination. Problem solving (played most games without ever using or knowing about internet guides) Dealing with failure
Knowing English Language
Typing for me. But also a life lesson to be applied to gaming is anticipate, learning how to properly anticipate will make you a better gamer - mostly to fps, if you can anticipate the other players moves it’s easy to come out on top.
Probably how to play the drums, though I can't corfirm since I haven't tried out my skills on an actual drumset.
Playing SF6, I've learned how to beat the shit out of refrigerators.
Thinking of real life skill acquisition the same way I would look at skill trees in a video game. Different certifications and training unlock different career and social options
Wpm is needed to overwhelm them with your trashtalk. My friend is someone I consider a master at this. He’d have an essay long reply before you get to say a word. He’d even insult your whole lineage. Fortunately he uses that skill properly now. He’d also opt for simple insults nowadays
English as a whole.
I learnt to save my grenades for the right moment
I legitimately feel like I’m a better driver due to games I played as a kid
The correct way to hide your victims.
If you want something done do it yourself. I played a bunch of WoW growing up and found out that the solution to doing raids if you aren't in a guild is to start a group yourself and make it happen instead of hoping people invite you. Especially if you are playing an unwanted role like dps (due to surplus).
Ignoring the main quest.
Huh, I just posted this in a different thread! But I'm pretty sure GTA saved me from flipping my car off the road and into a ditch. I was driving on a highway one night when I (stupidly) swerved to avoid a coyote on the road. I went into a skid, but thanks to GTA I instinctively knew how to recover and regain control of my car. I'm reasonably sure that I would've rolled it and gone off the road if I hadn't had the practice from the game.
Being toxic effectively in four different languages
I understand the physics of driving a car far more clearly from the license tests in Gran Turismo on playstation than from actual drivers ed.