What I Learned Playing Video Games
- Quanny Nguyen
- Feb 8, 2019
- 9 min read
Updated: Feb 9, 2019
Non-gamers always complain that we gamers do nothing but harm to ourselves playing those brain-damaged video games. On hind-sight, video games seem pointless and a complete waste of time investment. But is it really for nothing but mindless entertainment?
I like video games. I've been playing video games since I was a toddler, literally at the age of 3. My very first Gameboy that grandpa gave me got me completely hooked. From that point forward, I live and breath video games. Over the years, I heard countless people strongly criticize my unhealthy hobby. It's bad for your eyes. Why don't you play chess, it's a non-retarded game? Playing games makes you dumb... While I do agree with some point, playing games does the complete opposite of making you dumb, if you know how.
First and foremost, if you are a parents, I'm sad to inform you that playing games doesn't increase their grade. But the good news is: it doesn't turn your kids into a 30 years old inactive obese zombie chunking on soda and snacks in their parents house without any sign of marrying or having a job. My studying wasn't impressive and yeah maybe if I focused more on school, it would have been higher. Regardless, I still ended up with a decent job with a quiet good salary, small group of friends and a pretty healthy life overall. It was my mindset that landed me my jobs and the appreciations of my co-workers. And that mindset doesn't just come out of nowhere, it is the result of playing countless video games.
I will go over some of the games that I played and what I learned from it. All of these are very important lessons (to me) that directly built up me as a human-being. Since I have played games consistently since 1997, this blog is like a peek into 50% of my life. Summarizing that much about yourself in any reasonable amount of words is hard. Plus in order for anything to make any sense, I have to also brief you shortly about the games. So it's gonna be a long one...
I. Do what you love
WWE is a sport/fighting game hybrid, but mostly fighting. You pick a character, you go up against other characters and you win by damaging the enemy. It is one of the simple games that I enjoyed. This game could be played with up to 4 people, and conveniently, I have 3 very close friends. They all play the game like me, pick a character, beat up other characters, nothing but simple life.
One day, my long time friend, Long, came along. He picked up the controller and did something I never thought of before: create his own character. It is not a strange concept within the context of this game, but I never thought anyone would enjoy spending, and I'm not exaggerating here, 6 HOURS creating the character.
Long did everything, the hairstyle, hair color, skin color, eyes color, eyes with lashes or not, mouth shape, ears, holes or no hole... and that's just the face section. Players also can customize the body (the overall body and each parts separately), tattoos, clothing, everything included. The possibilities are endless and he loves it.
I remember giving him so much crap for wasting time crafting rather than just picking an already created dude to fight other already created dude. The amount of time he spent creating, we could have played 10-30 games. But he ignored me and keep going anyway. After 12 hours of creating (he made 1 for each of us), he had the greatest smile of achievement without a sign of tiredness in his eyes. Who could have thought a not-fighting side task in a fighting game is what gave my friend so much joy. What crazy is that when I used the character that he created for me, I became incredibly invested when playing, a feeling that I didn't have.
Do what you love and it would give you the greatest sense of achievement, ignoring the social standards that were bestowed upon you. You might even inspire other people with your unique action.
P.S: Because of his passion of creating characters, I discovered that it is possible to also customize character's entrance into the ring. You can time firework, change camera angles, adjust the lighting, syncing video on the monitor with music... That's basically my first time being a "director". And it was an awesome feeling.
II. Sometimes, you need other people to point out your flaws
If my high school teachers and private tutor have one word to describe me as a student, that would probably be "careless". I would usually made just very minor mistakes that would cost me a point or two just because I didn't recheck my answers. I have second guessing of my ability as I did recheck as careful as I can. Am I careless or is there something going on here? (Hint: it's something going on).
I remembered the day that I played Ninja Gaiden. It's an action RPG game where you are a ninja dude who travel around the region killing off monsters, pretty straight forward concept. The hard part of the game isn't fighting monsters but rather finding the route which let you to items, clues or boss battles. My friend - Duy, who isn't as much as a gamer like me, was watching and he consistently pointed out spots and corners for hidden items and paths that I didn't noticed. Arguably, I was the more experienced one who also focus more in the game and he is just a guy that have never seen this game before. But the look of a not-too-focus individual work miracle.
From then on, I always ask other people to check my work before submitting, at university and at work. In return, I would help them check theirs. It works wonder! I was able to focus more on the macro side of things while making non-existent minor mistakes.
If you are frequently making minor mistakes, that is bad, but that is okay if you have a buddy who can cover your ass. It is not the ideal independent way as most would like, but having a way to neutralize your weak point is better than just having a weak point.
III. Seeing hidden potentials
One thing that I am proud of myself is the ability to judge other people. So far, my instinct has yet seen any major failure. My analysis isn't detailed like what Sherlock Holmes does, but generally, I have a good grasps of who I could and should mingle with. Am I naturally good or was it because of practice?
During my high school life, I switched from playing skill-based games to playing strategy games. Leaving the fighting games and smashing games behind. I spent most of my time in playing Yugioh and Avengers Alliance. Although widely different, the two games have a commonality: you have an ocean of choices but only a glass to contain it.
Yugioh is a card games where you create a deck of 40-60 cards to battle with other players. Imagine chess, but instead of chess pieces, you have cards that each has a unique play style, serve a specific purpose. But unlike chess, it isn't boring. By 2016. there is well over 7000 individual cards in Yugioh game. Not to mention, you get to play 3 copies of the same card in 1 deck, with some exceptions. I'm not a mathematician but pretty sure that's a lot of variables.
Avengers Alliance is a turn-based mobile game featuring the beloved Marvel characters like Iron Man, Captain America, Black Widow... It contains approximately 80 heroes with at least 3 variations each (making it easily over 400 heroes) in which you can collect them all, but only have the ability to use 2 in your team.
Needlessly to say, forming a team is mindbogglingly hard, you have to put everything into a self-made, non-proven equation: base stats, purpose, monopoliness, combos, counter, match up...
As hard as it is, the people somehow will unanimously agree upon what is the best strategy, the best team, the VIP champ. If you know me, you know I love to prove other people's wrong. I would spend so many time analyze the meta (most effective tactic available) just so I can incorporate something people deemed worthless into my strategy. I read a bunch and I tested things even more, but the members picked are always met with three criterias: unpopular, work well together and competitively viable.
In Avengers Alliance, I was able to reach the highest rank in the first contest using a unconventional hero: Hawkeye. Every subsequent contests, the team changed accordingly but the core value is always there: winning with unconventionalism. In Yugioh, I became the locally hosted champion of the Stardust tournament using a mechanic that no one has ever even considered.
Next time you see a weird individual, instead of writing them off as worthless, try to look at it in a different angle. They might have some specific niches that will surprise you greatly.
P.S: Well that story doesn't explain why I'm good at evaluating. And game characters aren't real human...
IV. Less temper, more compassion
A game that I played religiously in the recent years is League of Legends (LoL). I fell in love with this game because it's the first game (I have ever played) that combined the skill of a fighting game but still manage to require a tons of strategic thinking. LoL is the closest video game has ever come to representing real life, maybe more on this on later post.
LoL was my first experience with a team-centric game hence working with 4 randomly selected strangers to beat up 5 other random strangers is a challenging task. Working as a team, saying it, is easy, but extremely hard in reality. I was surprisingly good with the game, but only when I had a "good team". I only reached Silver (Bronze - Silver - Gold - Platinum - Diamond - Challenger) after my first 10 games, simply because my "team" wasn't good enough. Before telling you all the idiots things my teammate did, let's explain the game first.
LoL divided the area into 3 lanes (top, middle, and bottom), in which your team will be spreaded across. 2 out of 3 lanes will be occupied by 1 player, the last lane will have 2 players, and the last player just run around between lanes. Players can run to other lanes anytime they wishes but for the first 10 minutes, you are encouraged to stay in your lane. Each characters have 5 totally unique skills and the players who use the characters are also varying in terms of play style. Most of the time, your eyes will be glued on your character and your enemy directly in front of you, try to out smart and out maneuver each other. The only news we have from our teammate is via notification within the team or when the teammates kill or get killed by someone. When you get killed, you will reborn and continue playing but the enemy who kill you gain a huge bonus hence becoming increasing stronger.
Every time a negative notification popped up, it is devastating. How can my teammate be that stupid! I'm here bursting my ass off fighting this incredibly skilled dude just for you to die shamefully in the hand of satthuvotinh1998. Satthuvotinh1998 may become way too strong to deal with hence causing us the game. They clearly should have been more careful, used their brain, played better, they should......
Instead of helping them, I resort to insulting and blaming the defeat of the team to my teammate, just like 90% of the community did. I also received my fair share of insult and blame.
It is so easy to blame your teammate when the only thing you get is a notification. There is no detail report, no reasoning, no beginning, middle, just an end. I just blame my teammate and call it a day. "You're dumb", "Do you even play game?" "What kind of retard think that strategy would work? "Why aren't you listening to my clearly correct call?". And of course whenever I died, I'll get the same thing, with an extra pinch of mom insult. I proceeded to stuck in Silver for another 9 months showering and dishing out insults.
After a long period of just having this pure rage building inside me, I overloaded and decided to turn off all chats. I just want to play the game, with my maximum focus. I believed in my teammate, even when they fucked up. I shook off any harassment. I helped my team when I can, giving up my advantage to my direct opponent. I comforted them when they wanted to give up. I It works. I reached Platinum a month later and went on to reach Diamond in my following year.
Blaming your teammate is the easiest way, in real life or in a game. Having compassion and willingness to aid them through their challenges, are the actual game changing way that you should strive to accomplish.
V. Etc
Among those kinda niche lessons, here are a few other generic lessons that I have learned and implemented in my life on a daily basis:
- Practice makes perfect.
- Friends make everything better. But not too many of them.
- Always aim for perfection. Never settle with just "ok".
- Patience solves everything.
- Know who you are. And play with that strengths and weaknesses.
- Consistency is the key to greatness.
- Know fully what is the box and what's inside the box before thinking outside the box.
I'm not saying you can never learn these lessons unless you play video games. These are things that everyone can learn via anything ever. Some like to learn through books, others like watching movies, no one likes listening to the adults... Do whatever it is that is your preferred way. We all find a way to build ourselves eventually. And video game is as legit as any other ways.
Quanny Nguyen
Comments