Let The Games Begin

I’m not a gamer. Never have been. Yet, I recognize that many of my peers in this business play games on their lunch hour, and they even stay late to further compete against one another. It seems kind of crazy from where I’m sitting, but what do I know?
According to Wired, such activities can be highly beneficial.

Gaming tends to be regarded as a harmless diversion at best, a vile corruptor of youth at worst. But the usual critiques fail to recognize its potential for experiential learning. Unlike education acquired through textbooks, lectures, and classroom instruction, what takes place in massively multiplayer online games is what we call accidental learning. It’s learning to be – a natural byproduct of adjusting to a new culture – as opposed to learning about. Where traditional learning is based on the execution of carefully graded challenges, accidental learning relies on failure. Virtual environments are safe platforms for trial and error. The chance of failure is high, but the cost is low and the lessons learned are immediate.