When thinking about gamers, South Park’s caricature often comes up.
While hilarious, it is hardly accurate as a representation. Newzoo estimates that Singapore has 2.8 million gamers in 2014, which is 51.8% of the total population!
With video games growing into the mainstream, it seems sooner rather than later that we’ll be learning and interacting with a generation of gamers. Ask any gamer about their favourite game, and they can easily launch into a verbal essay about it.
More than just knowing their game, gamers tend to remember almost every detail which is actually a really handy skill. Passion and dedication feature greatly in a gamer’s mindset and it is something that we can all learn from and hopefully apply in our daily lives.
1.Having Initiative to Learn Something New
Some gamers have an encyclopedic knowledge about a game, but they don’t get it just by playing the game. The gamer has invested time into researching, understanding and even finding the associated books in order to gain such knowledge.
The initiative taken to look for such knowledge is inspiring as games do not naturally tell you to look for information outside of itself. Furthermore, even if you get stuck in a game, a google search will give you the solution easily.
Even in the face of quick and easy answers, gamers still find the interest to expand on their game knowledge. This curiosity is a useful attitude can be applied to any endeavour you wish to master!
2. Willingness To Share
Any gamer knows that talking about games in a non-gaming crowd is taboo. Targeting the right people with the right messages is a great skill to have, especially now when everyone’s flooded by information.
A great way to know what the other side is looking for is to experience it. Gamers are consumers which also share their passion for games to other people, often matching the right game to the right person who would enjoy it. Apply this ability to your sales pitch or your presentation and you’re more than likely convince the right audience to become invested and passionate about your product. By thinking about and interacting with their games, gamers prove the value of understanding your own product through usage.
Likewise, by putting yourself in the position of your consumers, you’ll already experience the problems they will run into, and thus have the answers ready for them!
3. Learning From Others With An Open Mind
A gamer tries to game the system inside of every video game they play, finding short-cuts, researching about bugs and strategies which allow them to play the game at a faster rate. Faster gameplay means more content over time, making it more fun for the gamer.
Being stuck behind progression blocks in games is frustrating, much like how one can be frustrated by idea blocks in businesses or even mental blocks in understanding mathematical concepts.
Like how a gamer tries to find things online, the internet offers a variety of different perspectives on a single topic, and a search might help you understand something or find something useful to whatever you need help in. Having an open mind will allow you to understand things as they are given, rather than how you would want something to be.
To have an open mind is also to be flexible, which allows you to adapt whatever methods you are already using. Understanding something properly and fully, whether it be a method or a solution, allows you to replicate it consistently as your own logic will ensure that you’re doing the right thing.
4. Having A Competitive Spirit While Still Having Fun
A gamer always has fun while playing games. Whether it be Dark Souls or Bejeweled, if a gamer enjoys the game, they’ll bump the difficulty up to maximum. Likewise, what you want to do as a career should be enjoyable to you so you can sustain it, otherwise you’ll just be battling boredom and trying to compensate for the lack of satisfaction.
Your career should be fun so you can easily put it down whenever you need to; you’re not troubled by the job or having to “figure out” the difficulties of the job every day. Your career should also be a challenge so you don’t feel like you’re wasting your time and talents on doing something fun but extremely easy.
No amount of money will buy you enough satisfaction as the time spent on your job can never be refunded. Jack Ma has said: “I regret that I work so hard and spend so little time with my family”.
If the richest man in China has regrets about spending his time wrongly, then we should check how we spend our own time as well.
Changing The Perceptions Of Gaming And Gamers
Gamers often self-censor and hide their gaming side from others, but in reality the passion and attitudes which gamers have toward gaming are commendable. Contrary to what people say about video games, the success-oriented goal of games has guided gamers into forming a set of habits and attitudes which position them to win.
As video games are becoming part of our lives, they should not only serve as entertainment, but also serve as a learning experience that we can use in our lives. With the rise of storytelling games and much more complicated issues such as war and racism being engaged by such games, it is high time that the perceptions of gamers and gaming should change.