Video Games Lead to Success in the Workplace?

In his article "How Playing Video Games Can Boost Your Career", Oliver Chang of Forbes.com makes some very interesting connections between success in the virtual realm and the tangible benefits it can have in the corporate workplace. He talks with Elliot Noss, the CEO of a major domain provider, who personally uses characteristics and strategy of online MMORPG's to better not only himself, but his workforce as well. 


"In World of Warcraft, each action, even a small task like hunting an animal, has a purpose and fits into a broader framework. Similarly, Noss has set up frameworks at Tucows that allow employees to understand how day-to-day tasks impact the company."


There has been no shortage of talk on the internet of how efforts like the Xbox's Achievement system have revolutionized the way people look at gaming. The idea of chasing the elusive high score in the Arcade has now been translated into players trying to not only attain high scores, but think and perform in novel ways to attain small goals eventually benefitting their overall ranking. The generation of gamers that have grown up with this sort of goal oriented game play have been recognized in industry as able to translate their skills to achieve real world business goals as well. 


"We're finding that the younger people coming into the teams who have had experience playing online games are the highest-level performers because they are constantly motivated to seek out the next challenge and grab on to performance metrics," says John Hagel III, co-chairman of a tech-oriented strategy center for Deloitte


Definitely some interesting ideas challenging the traditional way people look at video games. If you're interested in hearing about more innovative ways to think about gaming, or maybe a chance to put those skills you have learned from gaming to the test, be sure to check out DIG London 2010!

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Mark Mikulec Keynote Posted!

Mark began developing professional-quality sci-fi themed computer games in his spare time during the mid 90's, distributing them through the Internet.

During university, Mark founded his first company, Iron Fusion Inc. and developed a fully featured multi-media/game engine and an online project management system. Iron Fusion's products catered to various academic institutions across North America, including Niagara College and the University of California at Berkeley.  In 2003, Iron Fusion won the McMaster University Campus Incubator grand prize of $25,000 for best business startup.

After joining Digital Extremes in 2004, Mark was a major contributor to several games, including Pariah and Dark Sector. He left in 2008 to co-found Antic Entertainment to execute his vision of creating casual games for the hardcore player. Antic won first prize in the Venture London Business Competition earlier this year.  Junk: Battles, Antic’s first browser-based, "casual-core" title, went live in August 2009.
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