Gaming and Education

Monday, July 26, 2010

Gaming and Education

Starcraft 2 comes out tomorrow, and it got me thinking about how much time I sunk into the original Starcraft when I was a kid. It was easily over a hundred hours, I can’t quantify it exactly, and I wonder if that time was productive or not in my education. Starcraft (like all other games I played growing up) is not edugaming, it’s a game first and foremost, but I feel like there was some benefit.

Starcraft (and other RTS) certainly made me smart about resource allocation. When to save some resources (liquid and illiquid assets?) for a rainy day and when to push all-in are important questions in Starcraft. You never want to leave yourself completely exposed defensively, but the more resources you can throw into an offense, the more likely you’ll reach the tipping point of overwhelming your opponent. These types of decisions certainly have real-world analogs, like expense budgeting, portfolio allocation, etc.

Putting the RTS genre aside for a second and speaking about gaming in general, to play a video games is to make many small decisions in a short window of time and instantly get feedback on those decisions. In that respect I think gaming helped my analytical skills in the long run, and it definitely helped my sense of exploration… I’m willing to make a decision without full knowledge, and then iterate quickly based on the result of that decision.

But, I think gaming harmed my ability to make long term decisions; its difficult for me to make decisions that I won’t get real feedback on for 4 years or so (like an investment decision in VC and the resulting cash multiple feedback from that decision). I suspect that long term decision making is difficult for everyone, but I wouldn’t be surprised if the instant feedback that gaming provides plays a part in my own difficulty with this issue.