How (competitive) gaming helped me figure out what I’m good at
These days I spend maybe 1h/week leisurely playing games, if even that. That’s worryingly little! In my early teens I was spending about 30h/week on games. That was too much. Or was it?
Of course I don’t believe a whole lifetime should be spent playing games like it’s a full time job without a salary. But a year? I don’t see why not. Young teenagers can easily think of far worse things to do with their time.
When I was younger, sitting at the computer playing games, my mum would often poke her head in.
I didn’t have much insight for her.
I’m playing, mum… Busy. Can’t talk.
She knew what I was doing required a certain amount of skill, and she knew the online group of people I was playing with demanded my full attention (my tone would usually get the point across), but that was about it. There was no way for her to tell if my time was being wisely spent playing this game for several hours a day. It wasn’t until my passion for gaming transformed into a passion for making games that my mother realized I had been cultivating an assortment of widely applicable skills. (or so I would have everyone believe).
I’m 25 and ¼ now, so I’ve had a decade to process what my 14 year old mind went through when it delved into the world of DotA, the prequel to one of today’s most popular eSport games; DOTA2. This is my little story about how a year of intense gaming didn’t fry my brain, and actually left me better off.
Understanding the game
DotA is a marvellously complex game. A map is split into two. Each side is occupied by a team of 5 players. The objective is to destroy the opposing side’s “Ancient” structure by any means necessary, much like the “King” piece in Chess.
At its most basic, the game revolves around a range of mechanical abilities like timing, positioning and quick reaction. But that’s just scratching the surface. If you play this game at a higher level, you’ll find it requires a great deal of resource management, foresight, situational awareness, great communication skills and adaptivity. Most importantly, this game is won by teams, not individuals.
This is one heck of an intricate game, and if you hold a skilled chess player in high regard, you should think no less of a skilled DOTA2 player. Professional players deserve every cent they get.
’cause I’m tellin’ you, this game is hard
Understanding the appeal
It started out as an aspiration for complete mastery. The game was incredibly challenging, and although I didn’t exactly aspire to “go pro”, I was determined to play the best, beat the best, be the best TM. This required very serious commitment. If you want to make it big, it’s the same as being part of any other sports team. You make schedules, you show up as planned and you make a promise to yourself and your teammates to practice hard, because you owe it to everyone else who’s putting the effort in. For a while I was quite content with this very real investment of my time and energy. My skill level had me (barely) playing in closed leagues together with players who would eventually become the first to play the game as a profession. It was a blast.
But as fate would have it, this game was the gateway-drug to what would quickly become a much greater passion of mine: Game development. Fast forward through several years of hobbyist tinkering, game design school and unsolicited e-mails, I got a foot in the door and I’ve been working for WeWantToKnow as a community manager for almost a year now.
Understanding the value
Quick Sidebar: I want to point out that I don’t think my decision to work with games as a result of playing games was inevitable. Just as books can inspire you to become so many things other than a writer, the same holds true for games. However since gaming as a culture is in a bit of a vacuum — you’ll notice many newspapers talking about books and movies on their front pages, while games get shoved off to a “special interest” sub site — there is a sense of belonging that’s hard to let go of. My theory is that this will change as the verb “gaming” becomes as ubiquitous as “reading” and “watching movies”.
Back to DotA. As I gradually found myself spending more and more time learning about how to make games instead of just playing them, my attention was divided between playing and making. I had to redefine my ambitions. Game development now fueled my intrinsic motivation for mastery.
Playing DotA instead became a casual activity. Now I was spending my time writing fanciful game docs, organizing team meetings and managing websites. I reckon my parents would have preferred “I want to be a doctor” over “I want to be a game designer”, which to them was down there with “I want to be an actor”, but it was better than playing games all day for seemingly no reason.
Except I had every reason to play this game. Point in case: Right after my first day of elementary school, fresh 1st grader moi came back home and adamantly announced: “I’m never going to learn the alphabet, it’s too hard! Mum, dad, please tell me what I can grow up to be without being able to read or write.”
Clearly I overcame this challenge (look ma, words!), but I’ve battled that negative attitude throughout my entire life, and when it wins it’s a huge pain in my ass-for-brains.
DotA was this very difficult thing that I was truly good at. And I shouldn’t have to tell you that it feels damn good to properly master something in your early teens. To be in control of something. That’s a lifetime’s worth of value for you right there.
And if that’s not enough for you, try some 21st century skills on for size:
Where do we go from here?
Well I haven’t got a guinea pig toddler of my own yet, so the experiments have not yet commenced. But we’ve come to a point now when fully formed adults can reflect on their childhoods and share their stories about how games affected their path in life. I’d love to hear from these adults, especially the ones who ended up NOT working in the game industry, because I firmly believe that’s not a given.
As for parents of DOTA2 players who feel out of the loop, I’ve got some hot tips for ya that should be acted upon today:
- Figure out what in the world The International is. Valve’s “Free to Play: The Movie” makes for a good introduction.
- Attempt to watch said mystery-event together with the young’uns. (they even offer newcomer-friendly casting!)
- Force your spawn to tell you all about this strange phenomenon…
..because you owe it to yourself to understand why, by 21. July 2014, five “gamers” will have become millionaires because they’re unbelievably good at what they do, and by the gods they earned it.
Originally published at blog.erlend.sh.
