What Life Lessons Have We Learned From Video Games?

Since this blog is about “personal development for gamers” Simplecomplex asked me in an email:

Can you mention some lessons you’ve taken from games that you can directly apply to pwning life?

Why yes, yes I can.

I hope you guys do the same in the comments below!

Life Lessons Taken From Video Games

If at first you don’t succeed, try try again

Final Boss

Ninja Gaiden was one of my favorite games for the 8-bit NES. I spent about 20 years playing that game until I finally beat it. It took me so long to beat because I was never able to beat the end boss. Eventually I decided to watch a YouTube video of someone else beating him and I got the “missing link” that was keeping me from beating him. This also leads me to the next thing I’ve learned from playing video games.

If you don’t know how, there’s someone out there who does

Epic Horse Riding

Oblivion obviously wouldn’t be my first example of this. I think my first example would have been one of the King’s Quest games. The first time I attempted to beat Oblivion I ran into a problem of “leveling too fast.” Essentially the monsters got stronger than I did and I ended up constantly getting… pwned. I quit playing.

Last year I decided to play it again, but I did a little research before I started playing this time. Turns out that you can play the whole game “under leveled” so that’s what I did. I ended up beating the game when I was like at level 5. Worked perfectly. When you have a problem (in games or life), it’s about clearly defining it and looking for the website/book/person with the solution and then applying it. It’s easy to do in games, a little harder to do in life (but hopefully this website will make it easier as time goes by. )

Practice Makes Perfect

Lei Wulong & Eddy Gordo

When you mash up the two lessons from above you get something like “Practice Makes Perfect.” By taking the time to find good information on a subject, then diligently practicing what you’ve read you will make steady progress to “perfection.” When the Tekken series launched, I was a student of the game. I remember taking a three-ring-binder with an FAQ about Lei Wulong everywhere I went to study every juggle, counter, throw, reversal and hit percentage. Studying wasn’t enough though, I had to practice at home and when I had time, I had to practice what I practiced at home with real people in arcades or at my friend JOBNUMBER’s house (there was no XBL or PSN back then).

All my hard work paid off by being one of the dominant players at the local arcade I hung out at.

Life’s a Game and I Make the Rules

"Real Life"

Perhaps the most important thing I’ve gotten from gaming is my perspective on life. I understand that life is “serious business” but… There are more than enough people telling you that everyday. The news, parents, school, politicians, etc. Not enough people talk about life being a game (and having fun with it). You get to decided what’s important for you and how you’re going to “keep score.” Money in the bank is only one measure for keeping track of pwning life. It could be any number of things:

• Mastering a language
• Visiting a certain country
• Playing an instrument
• Juggling 5 balls
• Helping people
• Getting straight As

That’s why (I think) it’s important to define what pwning life means to you, then work on beating THAT game. The best part about this game is that it’s open source, all the expansion packs are free and there is no level cap.

What Life Lessons Have You Learned From Video Games?

I shared some of mine, but I’d like to hear from you guys. What have you learned from video games that you’ve applied to life? (Feel free to make jokes. There’s TONS of room for some jokes… .)

• Anything about women? (Leisure Suit Larry anyone?)
• What do to when zombies attack?
• What to do during after a nuclear apocalypse?

The Community Corner

I think I’ll take a little time at the bottom of every post each week to talk about new community happenings. Maybe it will evolve into it’s own separate post one day, but this will do for now.

New People Pwning Life
Here’s the list of people that have joined our ranks since last week. Take a couple minutes to subscribe to their blogs, read a post or two and leave a comment:

• Elliott Payne -- My brother did a post on pwning life. That was pretty cool.
• NaturalyDigital -- English isn’t his first language BUT he’s decided to take the plunge into the world of pwning life.
• Simplecomplex -- Just one simple blog post so far, but all great things started with a single step.

I also started up a page of people pwning life. Nothing fancy, but it’s a start.

Weekly/Monthly Missions

@Brokenvai thought it might be a good idea to have more things going on during the week to keep busy. These things would be 100% optional of course, but they could prove to be fun for the participants. Do weekly/monthly missions sound interesting? Why or why not? If they do sound interesting, what kind of missions could we come up with?

Let me know in the comments.

See you next week (or perhaps on your blogs later this week )