That is a curious result indeed!  As trainers, we often see that our learners do not transfer the knowledge from our courses to their daily work.  It seems that the ingredients in games increase the chance that the transfer will occur.

Tsvet

I agree with the main challenge - enabling gamers to exercise their skills in reality. Usually, it is up to each individual to find a way to use their skills.  Problem-solving strategies are a good example of skills that can be transferred to real-life situations.  The skills to assess a situation, select a course of action, reflect on the results of the action, and refine the action can be used for most problems in the real world.

As you point out, reality is very complex and often it does not seem that we can succeed regardless of the strategies we try.  This is where the tendency to work hard and persevere (that some gamers develop) becomes very useful.  I sometimes wish that reality had a "Save" or "Undo" button, so that I can quickly return to a previous state of the situation and try a new approach. :)

Thanks for posting Vesa!  Having real world impact is a surprising effect of games.  Apart from the games that Jane mentioned, maths and language learning games have helped children improve their maths skills, while gamified language apps like "Duo Lingo" have helped people of all ages communicate with each other.

Tsvet

Not late at all!  Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Creating the smart educational games you mentioned is key.

Tsvet

Roro, i think that depends very much on the kind of the game.
For example, i am ex-gamer and i was good with strategy games where i was making all decision by myself. And I am not good in any kind of team plays, at any kind of it I have a bad player face :)

Jane is talking mostly about Warcraft game - that is strategy game. And i belive all these 4 superpowers she is talking about they are mostly for Warcraft players

Thank you for sharing your thoughts Roro.

As Larisa suggests, it could be that you have not found the games you are good at playing.  I struggled to be good at a game for over 10 years, but I was willing to work hard and improved.  The game is like three-dimensional chess in which you cannot see what your opponent is doing. :)

I agree that finding the appropriate educational games for kids is a major challenge.  You might want to look into games like the Math Blaster series.

Cheers,

Tsvet

Thanks for sharing your thoughts!  I am glad to hear that you found games useful in the past.  The three things you mentioned are important life skills.

Several good players of the game StarCraft shared that in their schools they were considered hyperactive and unable to concentrate.  Once they started playing StarCraft, they reported that their concentration improved. 

I have come across a similar violence statistic for the whole world overall.  Perhaps, the constant violence that is reported in the world reflects a media bias towards it.

Jane's ideas are certainly debatable.  Yet, games like A World Without Oil, Superstruct, and Evoke point to a real world positive impact.

Tsvet

I very much enjoyed Jane's talk. She tells an inspiring story!

What surprised me most? I guess it would have to be the sheer number of hours that are spent on games and how we could potentially tap into this expertise in the 'real world'. I firmly believe that we would all benefit from incorporating a more challenging, rewarding and fun workplace.

I viewed another video recently which really underlined the potential to solve world problems.

Check out this video; in particular at 7:10 into it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Qjuegtiyc

Brad

PS. that's a very small map of the 'world' at 7:34 of Jane's talk ;-)

Thanks for sharing your thoughts Tya!

The benefits of learning collaboration through games have attracted the attention of companies in the US.  Some of them ask their people to play games as part of increasing communication skills and collaboration on projects.

When players are working towards overcoming a game challenge, they often need to talk to each other ahead of time and organize their teams and strategies.  Then while in the game, they need to constantly communicate with each other and adapt to the situation before them.

I agree that it would be wonderful to see more positive attitudes in the real world.  So that as we are working together to solve the challenges facing the world, we will not be discouraged by failure.  We would pause, reflect, come up with a new strategy and try again until we succeed.

Tsvet

Thank you for sharing your thoughts Patrick!

I am glad you enjoyed the video (the video has a transcript too).

The artificial constructs in games make playing with them a bit easier than real life.  Playing by the same rules is very important.  One of the things that help people connect with each other in games (in person or online) is the willingness to play by the same rules and trust that others do so too.  This is one reason why many gaming companies have harsh penalties for those who come up with cheats to break the rules.

I agree that it is alarming we need to use games to solve world problems.  It seems that reality is presenting us with so many obstacles, different rules, apathy, discouragement, etc. that games have become more appealing.  I think that is one of Jane's points about why reality is broken. :)

Thanks for pointing out the important role that stories play in our lives.  Recent research I came across suggested that our need to have a coherent story about something that happened, can override and change our memory of what actually occurred.

Tsvet