3 Things Entrepreneurs Should Know About Startups That I Discovered While Playing the New Zelda
Even if you don’t care about video games, you can still learn a lot by understanding their similarities with startups.
Video games have come a long way since I was a kid playing Mario alongside my older brother on our original Nintendo. Back then [cue mental image of a curmudgeonly old man waving his cane], video games didn’t require critical thinking skills. You just turned on Mario, ran toward the right side of the screen, and occasionally jumped over a few enemies until you rescued the princess.
Those were simpler times in the gaming world compared with modern games. And, no, you don’t have to play video games — or even care about video games — to appreciate why the distinction matters.
To explain what I mean, I should mention that I’ve spent the past few weeks playing the new Zelda:Tears of the Kingdom game. It’s what the video game industry calls an “open world” game because it allows players to go anywhere within the game’s expansive virtual environment and do whatever they want within the limits of the game’s sophisticated “physics” engine. Sure, you can follow a loose plotline to rescue the princess, but you can also completely ignore the plot…
