Real-life skills you learned from games?

[Failivrin]

Every game improves cognitive skills, like coordination, reflexes, memory and judgement--but what about something more advanced? Have video games ever taught you technical skills? What about social skills, creative skills, or athletic skills?
Here are two examples from my personal gaming experience. (You can adopt this format or use your own!)

Title: Top Gear Rally
Skill: How to brake and make high-speed turns on various road surfaces, including mud and snow.
Value: I use this knowledge of vehicle physics whenever I am driving aggressively, especially in bad weather.
Alternatives: I was too young to drive when I played this game, but even if I wasn’t, the experience would have been too dangerous.

Titles: Dark Mirror and Logan’s Shadow
Skill: Working knowledge of various firearms, including clip size, firing speed, recoil, range, and firing position.
Value: Improves my understanding of modern warfare. I do not own any firearms, but I've performed well at target practice for a beginner.
Alternatives: I could have learned the basics from rifle clubs or the military, which would consume lots of time, energy and money. The games were a good way to learn without commitment, and to work past the negative stigma about guns.

What about you? What skills have you learned from video games, how valuable were these skills in your life, and how did the games compare to other methods of learning?

 

[Poryg]

Interestingly enough, I haven't learned many practical things from computer games. If something though, it is to rely on myself.

 

[Tiamat-86]

wouldn't really call it a skill but video games have taught me far more about morality then anything in real life has

 

[Isabella Ava]

Mortal Kombat: how to deal with peple who you hate?

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[Poryg]

@Isabella Ava Don't worry, send me an address and I'll come visit you when you get in jail
Btw. I'm not entirely sure if it's me suddenly losing my will to eat breakfast, but I don't think this picture is PG13

 

[Failivrin]

wouldn't really call it a skill but video games have taught me far more about morality then anything in real life has

Agreed. I learned a lot of philosophy from games and anime without realizing it, especially Buddhist, Taoist and existentialist philosophy. The finale of Golden Sun 2, in which the heroes have to fight their own parents to save the world, could have been taken straight from an essay by Sartre. Being exposed to those ideas at a young age shaped me in a positive way, because I was actually raised by crazy religious fundamentalists who wouldn't let me watch Power Rangers because they thought it was satanic =p

 

[KayZaman]

I played many games......Here's what I learnt.

God of War 3 : Vengeance is not a solution.
Counter Strike : Learn tactics to attack enemies with team. Don't just rush.
DOOM : You are the horror to face the horror.
Raw Danger : Survival game where someday, we'll face something danger like floods or earthquake.

That's it. I played many game like GTA, Saint Row, all kinds of action games that asked me to become bada**. But not finish GM:EM yet.

@Failivrin Top Rally Gear? I think I played before.....but I played Initial D at arcade machine which gives me experience to drive in real life.....but please, follow the law of the road.

 

[bgillisp]

Test Drive: What a car can handle at certain speeds. To a lesser extent, Need for Speed, though I got my first car around that time as well.
Tetris: How to rearrange things when moving. Handy when trying to fit an entire dorm room into a little Hyundai Accent.

 

[MrZalgo]

I learned from Dark Souls how no matter how miserable or weak you are, with determination, you can still kill a god.

I also learned a lot of philosophies from the xeno franchise, Xenogears and Xenoblade in particular.

 

[kirbwarrior]

I've said many times I learned far more from video games than schooling;

I loved reading when I was younger. I mostly played rpgs then, which required tons of it and it helped me learn things like spelling and grammar, putting my far ahead in those classes. Looking back, I'm not sure how, considering how translations were done (such as FFT).
Perception and paying attention to multiple situations at once were definitely from video games, with a huge callout to Cookies and Cream, the solo multiplayer game. That actually helps out a ton in real life, considering the number of shootouts I've been in.
Staying cool under pressure and generally dealing well with stress. All sorts of difficulty, from important planning in trpgs to constant manipulation in action games to fake difficulties like Jekyll and Hyde to artificial difficulties like three heart challenges or solo runs. I've never thrown a controller in anger. This has also taught me that difficult situations will happen and you never know what to expect.
Memorization. It's a skill I struggled with when younger, but trying to remember the order of fetch quests and locations of givers to the movesets, stats, and effects of ivs in pokemon pushed my brain into areas to help me retain insane amounts of information.
I definitely learned from racing games how to drive. The only thing it didn't teach me was the law.
Studying characters and paying attention to detail to learn who they are helped me understand how to do it in real life.
Games in general taught me that to never assume anything is intuitive and how to learn how an unintuitive system works.
Pokemon and FFT taught me to never trust chance-based accuracy and how to look for ways to guarantee success.
Nothing comes from quitting. I'll never beat a game if I stop playing it. And the same applies in real life.
You can say quite a bit without saying a word (silent protagonists).
Difficulty has nothing to do with enjoyment or sense of accomplishment. Final Fantasy Mystic Quest and Ikaruga are both fun and both worth it.
It's obvious when you love what you make and when you are just trying to push something out. Seeing it as a consumer helped me as a maker.

Specific games;
Kirby Mirror Mastery taught me that cooperative is better than competitive. I'm not here to fight my friends and allies, I'm here to help them.
Pepsiman taught me that no matter how bad, ridiculous, or absurd an idea may sound, you won't know until you try it.
Assassin's Creed taught me how to look at my surroundings in a way that doesn't help in video games but does in real life; I've yet to find a building I can't climb.

There's probably more I can't think of right now.

 

[Failivrin]

@kirbwarrior I've never played Assassins Creed, but Tenchu Shadow Assassins taught me a lot about sneaking into places. Besides having tried these skills in real life, I later read about them in many books, things like camouflage and how to tell when the shadows are dark enough to conceal you, or when security isn't paying attention.
I would like to note that I mostly tried this for fun and challenge; I've never robbed anybody or actually damaged property! I once heard a TED talk in which the speaker emphasized that breaking laws and rules is an important aspect of play because it teaches you to follow your judgement and deal with the consequences of your choices, rather than making decisions based on fear and superstition.

 

[Windows i7]

Well, what I learned about vehicle physics from Gran Turismo helped me learn how to drive, and appreciate cars more. They really are incredible machines when you think about it.

 

[TheoAllen]

Does learning English from playing video games count?

 

[Failivrin]

Does learning English from playing video games count?

Absolutely! Many major studios work hard to ensure their writing is accessible to a wide audience, including those for whom English is a second language. I've recently thought of playing games in Japanese to boost my reading ability.

 

[kirbwarrior]

Twitch Plays pokemon taught me quite a bit about the human mind, and what a completely artificial environment is still quite capable of.
I have a completely new ability to understand how a song is made from playing Guitar Hero. I know that sounds weird, but I appreciate music far more since I mastered GH3.
There's a super old helicopter simulator (for windows 3? It was a decade ago from a garage sale). It was actually quite true to product. I was able to start flying a real helicopter with confidence far quicker than I thought I would because that game made it intuitive.

when security isn't paying attention.

For the longest time, I had always assumed security was incredibly strict and watchful at every moment. I've learned to step without being able to hear my own footsteps. Then one day I was able to just walk right by a security guard in broad daylight.

 

[Matseb2611]

Does learning English from playing video games count?

This applies for me too. I learned some English in my childhood thanks to video games, since my birth language is actually Russian.

Other things will be similar to stuff others said - better use of logic, morality, tactics, numerical skills, management, etc. What I like is that games give context to these things. They put you in a situation where you have to use these skills, which comes a lot more naturally.

 

[Vincent Chu]

Isabella Ava

I just hope you don't hate me. If you do hate me, please can you stop hating me?

I think I've learned a bit about history and mythology from video games. That may be helpful for writing although I'll still need to check the accuracy of that information before using it.

 

[GrandmaDeb]

Can I come at this from another perspective? I let my young students play games because they learn how to navigate the internet. Even older students are learning how to overcome frustration, keep their eye on the prize despite distraction, collaborate when appropriate, follow directions, problem solve creatively... all that stuff.
Spatial ability - used to be a 2-d measurement in standardized testing - but in our future-ready students, the ability to move in and manipulate and understand a 3-d representational world will be essential. (The data has been in for years that doctors who played video games as kids were better at laparoscopic procedures than those who didn't.) Who is going to run the robots, fly the drones, command the underwater mining pods, direct the factory robots? People who never used a computer?

 

[kaukusaki]

I learned I'm bad at a lot of things - driving, shooting, being a ninja are some examples. But I also learned I'm pretty good at some things such as tactical planning, fighting and certain criminal behaviors such as stealing hacking or picking locks lol
But in all seriousness I have developed a lot of skills from gaming and learned a lot from research be it weaponry or history among other things. I obviously have too much time on my hands ...

 

[Gaiaman77]

The composition of music to fit an emotion, feeling or setting! I remember messing with the audio settings on ff7 (I got it for PC first) to isolate different lines of the audio (particularly holding my thoughts in my heart) and was blown away at the layering and how it all combined together to move along the pacing of the piece. I think I can even pinpoint the moment where I noticed this and decided - this is what I want to do. I want to make this happen and make people feel different emotions through music. It was really special. And Ive been incorporating the same techniques ever since.