What I learned playing MMORPG’s
In a recent IBM Study, they show that management skills can be learned from playing online games like World of Warcraft.
I could not agree more. I had a dead phase after I closed my hedgefund, but before I found online marketing, where I played way too many MMORPG’s. I no longer play any of them (although I am itching to try the Lord of the Rings game), but that is much a reflection of having better things to do with my time than anything else.
Some skills that could be learned in such a game:
Leadership/management - If you can keep 60-80 online characters happy (and full of loot) then you can probably manage people who are being paid to do a job. In an online guild, people have lots of choices, none of them are there to earn a living. They are probably sacrificing something to be there. If you can motivate someone who has lots of other alternatives to do something for the greater good then motivating someone who will get fired if they dont listen to you seems relatively easy.
Use of Scarce resources - Part of how a guild works is that everyone improves equipment over time so that they can then take on more powerful creatures which then drops better equipment which allows the group to then take down even more powerful creatures wash, rinse, repeat. Being able to allocate these scarce resources in a way that everyone benefits without playing favorites is tricky. Often times your main tank will need better equipment than offtanks, your main healer might need a special wand or some such to keep that tank alive etc. Learning to allocate that piece of equipment that everyone wants, but only one can have in a thoughtful and fair manner is paramount. Trust me the number one reasons guilds collapse is over loot allocation.
The sum is greater than individual parts - sure maybe that personal assistant or IT guy cannot nuke or heal or bring in any extra revenues, but without the person who can do crowd control, the CEO would always been in the wrong meeting or miss out on important calls. The IT guy is the warlock who can allow your salesforce to go out and mine the red mountains for new customers, but still never miss the important product meetings…. Bad examples maybe, but you soon realize that 2 big dogs and a money guy is not everything you need to run a successful enterprise.
Market Cycles - In every game there is some scarce commodity item that is required to be consumed by high level players. Be it potions or armor plating or special magics. Those who specialize in a market will learn that Tuesday night is raid night and the components of these items can sell for 10-20x right before the raid starts and trade at normal value the next day. Buy low - sell high and make a tidy profit. The real world can be very similar to those who specialize enough to look for those differences.
Testing & Research - Until you figure out how to kill the Google dragon, you dont know how to do it. Cannot even begin to think of how many times it took to kill certain monsters that once you understood how to do it, it was a walk in the park. Unlike in MMORPGS - an ebook or forum is not the place to go to get the answers. Answers are only found by spending time and effort researching the problem.
I could probably draw 10 other stupid conclusions, but some of the best managers I know spent many hours honing those management skills playing “that stupid game” as my wife likes to call them. In the real world there is no substitute for experience. In the virtual world you can actually get that experience at a pace far accelerated.
July 4th, 2007 at 1:15 am
WHERE DID YOU GO! YOU CANNOT LEAVE US AGAIN.