Contrary to common misconceptions, video games can be a powerful tool for personal development. Today, I share my personal journey as a gamer, shedding light on the positive impact of games like Dota 2 on leadership, teamwork, and strategic planning skills.
I grew up in a pretty strict family with opposing views toward games. It was 2008, and most of my friends already had PCs and successfully used them to play games and cheat on homework. Social pressure made my family buy a PC as well. However, it didn’t change their views on virtual experience. All of that seemed alien to them, with unknown effects on children's brains, which could be both positive and negative. Unfortunately, reading research about the impact of PC wasn’t an option. Most of them were done in foreign languages, so the initial perception and personal preferences were the only way to go.
Let’s do a thought experiment where we imagine ourselves as an alien civilization. Now, I am Rush, and today, aliens from planet Earth have arrived and given us the technology of a PC. Without any instruction, they left the planet and let us figure out the usage ourselves. The best engineers on our planet made it run, connected it to an electric network, and figured out how to produce such machines on a scale.
Finally, our family also got one. The first thing I see is a huge box that may even seem dangerous. However, no cases of harm have been recorded yet, so I feel good about putting it in the living room. The perplexing interface of Windows makes me sick, but not my children. They took the machine, and in one day, after playing with buttons, they could quickly navigate through the data inside.
A couple of days later, I noticed them playing some game called… GTA 3? I have no idea what it means, but I wouldn’t say I like that they spend more and more time with this machine and less time with me. This machine is becoming their number 1 priority in life by shifting family, school, and friends on a second plan. Those are the things that made me who I am. Those things made people I admire successful, and they are missing out on them; I have to act now.
Time management was introduced into the family; now, children can play on their PC only after completing their homework and only 30 minutes a day. I had never seen my children so upset; they closed in their room and were angry with me for a week. Each family dinner starts with the phrase, “All our friends are playing computer games all day.” Even though I know this is not true, how powerfully they got hooked is surprising. Now, this machine is ruining our family and making our children lie to us.
One day, I decided to observe what was happening in this machine, which attracted my children so much. I started just coming and looking at what was happening on a screen. And the only thing I have seen is the killing of people. The thing convicted on a TV is widely available in this box. So my children stopped playing with their friends, ruined relationships with family members, and started spending less time studying to watch people dying in this box? That is absurd; the planet-wide regulations, which aim to balance the benefits and risks of video game use, are coming…
I never put myself in the shoes of my parents. However, they were those aliens. They experienced that in real life, and their reaction was natural and reasonable. Right now, there is hype about AI, and the first thing familiar people think about AI is that it will steal their jobs. Every new technology makes people scared, and then regulations come. Then people start seeing the long-term effects of technology, and it is getting welcomed in every corner. Now, without knowledge of this technology, you are becoming obsolete. This is precisely what you were afraid of, but it is not technology that made you obsolete; it is your denial of adjusting to it.
The goal of this article is to help people avoid mistakes every one of us is making - being in the present. Of course, being in the present is important for our well-being but when it comes to technology, we have to apply different mental models. We have to be in the future, thinking about the long-term effects and benefits of our technology use.
Questions you ask in the present:
- How is this technology impacting my relationships?
- How is this technology making me feel?
- How is this technology impacting my general productivity?
Questions you ask in the future:
- Will this technology stagnate or grow with time?
- How many connections will this technology allow me to make five years from now?
- Will it be beneficial to master this technology?
- What lessons do I learn while using this technology?
They are now coming back to games. The reaction from the present is pretty adverse. Games are negatively impacting my relationships with friends and family, as I often prioritize gaming over social interactions. They make me feel good, though, providing a sense of accomplishment and enjoyment. But at the same time, they make me feel anxious, isolated, and sometimes perplexed or even stupid, especially when I struggle to progress in a game. They also severely impact my productivity; instead of reading a book or learning a new topic, I spend the whole evening playing Call of Duty. It's a total waste of time.
Now let’s make a switch to future thinking and start with “Will it be beneficial to master this technology?”. First of all, I am not the only person who is playing it, so being a master will bring me some recognition from my peers. This can lead to more connections and finding new friends, as gaming communities often foster camaraderie and teamwork. Games like World of Warcraft are especially good for it because they have multiplayer and they force you to collaborate, which can enhance your social skills and broaden your network.
But let’s dive deeper and check the long-term effect of games like Dota 2. There are five players in a team, and you are playing against another team of 5. You can be in a team of friends or alone with strangers. With time, you realize this game cannot be won alone. You need teamwork, and that is where you recognize the importance of leadership. If you can make five random people from across the globe collaborate and sync their movement on a map to achieve a common goal, you don’t have to do the Harvard MBA; you already know everything you need. With time, you will start differentiating “good” players from “bad” ones. You will realize that teamwork is more important than personal skills. You will recognize the importance of trust in the team, clear communication, strategic planning, and constant improvement. Eventually, you will create a permanent team and participate in championships.
At this moment, you probably got everything from the game, and you must stop and apply all the skills you learned in the real world. For me, it took 2.5k hours. I wasn’t the perfect case study. I never was trying to lead and never had a persistent team, but the lesson I learned was priceless. And I can’t just pass this lesson to someone; some lessons need your time, and some lessons can be learned only after repeating something 2.5k times with different strategies.
Dota 2 can make you an exceptional leader in other games. Not all of them are about leadership, but they all have a learning potential; you must open your eyes and see it.