There are psychotic people out there, and if they happen to watch scarface or play a shooting game and then carry out acts of violence in real life then this is their psychosis, not the violent media they have engaged in, that is responsible.

I think the worry is for people like yourself who are not capable of comprehending the difference between a game and reality, or in fact thinking for yourself in any constructive way and contributing positively to society. People used to blame television for everything, now they blame video games. The alternative is a totalitarian state where all forms of media are banned just in case people get ideas from it and develop as individuals rather than part of the communist masses. I couldn’t think of anything worse.

I was in a car with a group of guys who I had been gaming with for years (superhero games, mostly). It was dark, around 9 PM or so, and we were stopped for a red light, with one car in front of us. Suddenly, the passenger side door of that car opened and someone got out, stumbled into the lane to our right, and collapsed. All four of our doors flew open at once. One friend who had advanced first aid ran to the person who had collapsed. Another one grabbed a flashlight and stepped into the street to warn cars off. Another grabbed a blanket out of the trunk. The driver turned on the car’s flashers and then went to talk to the driver of the car. I called 911. It wasn’t until afterwards, when I was going over the events of the evening in my head that I realized that we hadn’t even had to exchange a word, other than reporting “I’m calling 911″ “I have a flashlight, I’ll warn off the cars” “Do you have a blanket? – In the trunk, here’s the keys”. We had been acting as a team for so many years that it just became automatic. In that moment in time, we *were* superheroes, not in the “out of touch with reality, I think I’m Batman” way, but in our purposes and instincts.

My friend has a son who he started runing in superhero games from a very early age. The son is a teenager now, but when he was much younger my friend would get reports back from teachers about how his son would break up fights and put a stop to bullying in school, informing the bullies that “Superman would put you in prison with the Joker” (he got his comic lore from games, not comics or telling them that “bullies don’t get to be superheros, they just go to jail” and starting up a “superhero team” that only kids who acted like Good Guys got to join. Apparently it made such a splash in the school that it continued for several years even after he went off to middle school.

My youngest brother was the only one in a family of extremist introverts to not only be extremely popular at school, but also to be an excellent actor. He attributes his ease in social situations to the fact that he started role playing at age 4 (when I discovered gaming in college and brought it home on the weekends).

I think one of the great benefits gaming could have in a business situation is the building of teamwork, and the creations of patterns of behavior. It also allows people to explore roles that they might otherwise be afraid to try because, as a previous poster mentioned, “the cost of their inexperience is trivial”. It would be fascinating to see if this could actually be implemented.

I would disagree that we want to work with people who have “documented experience”. I’ve worked in the software industry for over twenty years and managers and co-workers with “documented experience” are no more likely to be good to work with than newcomers. In fact, one of the best managers I’ve ever had was barely “middle range” in experience, and two of the all time worst managers I’ve had have been very “experienced”. One of them even bragged about how he was awarded “Manager of the Year” twice by the company he used to work for. I just had to shake my head. He was a crappy manager. Self centered, hyper-critical and prone to passive aggressive behavior and snide remarks undercutting the self confidence of others, especially the younger ones.

The leader of a game (called the game-master) is the one who decides whether a game is going to lead people toward positive behavior or negative. You can run a game where the only goals are to kill things, steal things, accumulate wealth and power, etc. You can also run a game where players have opportunities for helping people and making the world a better place. I know which one I’m going to be running my kids in.

There may be a role for some software gaming techniques in learning scenarios, but much of what people learn is about social interactions using real people, who have real emotions, who embarras, etc. Few areas beyond the shop floor are trival that they can be reduced to a computer simulation or where a video will suffice. Often when simulations can help, they already do – think flight training for real pilots or astronauts.