Best of Gaming Gurus

To recap all of my favorite blog posts, I compiled a list of the best posts from my blog into one consumable post. Each post falls under the topic of “Gaming” but encapsulates the benefits for gaming in each of the specified categories. Please feel free to click into each post and read a little more about the content.

1. Adapting to Failure With Gaming

This was my favorite post of all time. This one helped set the tone for the rest of blog posts forever. It covers the topic of Failure, something we all face. The article starts by setting the tone and giving you an easy-to-understand example. That example stacks on top of another example and explains how gamers can learn from their mistakes and adapt to prevent future ones from happening. This article includes an example that highlights the common issues someone faces when dealing with failure and how gaming can fix that. An overall great article.

2. Overcoming Gaming Addiction

This post is something that covers a real story of a real person who went onto TEDx to discuss his story about gaming addiction and showing how he improved his life. This post shows the negative of gaming if you do not consume entertainment with discretion.

3. WFH Promotes Better Organization?

Covering the topics of Working From Home and whether or not it can be successful. In these times of uncertainty, getting reassurance that gaming can assist people in working from home is nice to hear. This is exactly what the post highlights.

4. Hiring Gamers Soon

A basic, optimistic post that helps envision a future where gamers are hired based off the soft skills they gain from playing games. A very basic, but effective post that goes into detail how different games influence your professional resume and career.

5. A Look Into True Gaming Skills

The final post highlights a comparison post between my thoughts and someone else’s take. This was a genuine take comparing a post for their good and their bad takes and putting my two cents into the equation.

Bonus 6^th: Gaming Gurus Merch!

If you enjoyed all of those posts, why not check out my Merch store and support me there as well!

Alternate Universe: Hiring Off Game Experience

What if in the near future large companies start prioritizing hiring gamers? What would the world look like? What would the perks be? Are there any downsides? Let’s take a look. 

At this current point in time typically companies hire based off experience, soft skills, and how committed they are to stay within the company. Whenever someone goes to apply they list their list of qualifications, previous work history, and a brief letter explaining what they bring to the table. There is one solid thing we are missing among these items: how well someone can adapt to their situation and learn and how great of a strategic thinker they are. Gaming helps accomplish both of those things, if you play the correct games, so what would it look like if employers started to hire based off of what games someone played?

Initially, I would imagine that they would ask what games you have experience in or what games you like to play the most / what skills you’ve gained from it. For example, one could say: “I play Tetris and from playing so often I now know how to view a sequence of blocks and how to adapt them to succeed given a certain situation.” This would be an interesting take because not only could it help identify what games the person plays, but could also be a gauge for the creativity level. How can someone utilize their most played game and turn it into a positive statement? Although this hypothetical situation is not probable, feasible, or realistic, it’s still really cool to think about how much the world would change just by changing a simple process.

Does Gaming Help or Hurt Procrastination?

 

Procrastination, one of the most common epidemics of our time. Pushing off our responsibilities until the last minute has been a huge issue within the last few years. Many online sources state that video games is one of the biggest sources of procrastination, but is it really?

Video games can encourage procrastination because of a few different reasons. The most obvious reason is that video games are fun. Most people play games because they are entertaining and hard to quit whenever you start playing them. But alone does not encourage procrastination, but video games can be addicting as well. This means that people could be procrastinating because they would rather be playing games instead of doing productive work. In conjunction with the two prior points, video games stimulate the brain and release dopamine, encouraging more addictive behaviors, and because the brain tends to lean towards things that cause comfort instead of something that might cause stress. This could be why video games encourage more procrastination.

 

What are you procrastinating for?  Buy some Gaming Gurus Merch!!

 

Just because the prior paragraph may be true, just because something is addictive doesn’t mean that people HAVE to be addicted to it. There are many vices in this world: alcohol, gambling, smoking, etc. but that doesn’t mean that everyone who partakes in gambling or drinking is addicted. The same applies with video games, sure it could be addicting for one individual, but it may not be the same for others. Television has the same effect. Why do people tend to watch TV instead of doing their work. Easy. It’s because the brain tends to subconsciously drift towards actions that warrant positive rewards. So procrastination is not caused by video games, but without discretion is could be.

Gamers Unite! (To overcome introversion)

 After reading a Reddit Post about someone dealing with struggles related to introversion while playing video games and the steps they take to avoid human interaction entirely, I wanted to find somewhat of a success story. This would be to help those who have that same level of introversion and unlike how the original poster worded it "am I hopeless?" I hoped to find a story that sparked hope.

Upon looking up gamers overcoming introversion success stories, I came across a different kind of gamer who, facing a similar situation as the user on Reddit, overcame their extreme introversion. Diana, the poster of this article details their personal struggles, how they feel awkward when it comes to social situations and they have a hard time good small talk, or making much more than just small talk. 

The person on Reddit who posted their struggles, encountered a similar issue, except to a much worse extent. If there is any ready that relates to the Reddit post, please do not feel like you are hopeless, you can change! Take Diana for example, she and her friends never thought they would improve. They thought they were going to be introverted losers for the rest of their lives. But as a group small knit friends, and slowly expanding their friend group, they were able to overcome their fears and were able to become more sociable people. If me, Diana, or anyone else can do it, what are you waiting for..? Go out there and start getting more exposure!

Gaming Has Perks?

 One thing that surprises a lot of people is the amount of soft skills you can gain from playing games. For this post I have compared 2 different articles that explain the benefits of playing video games, except I believe one is much better than the other. One of the articles, coming from Game Quitters and the other coming from Understood.Org. Of these two articles one does a better job of going into more detail about the benefits of gaming than the other.

First, let's take a look at Understood's article. Understood's article is catered towards parents - outlining the upsides to gaming. The article consists of 6 short bullet points outlining a skill and why / how it is encouraged or taught. Some of the skills they reference are visual-spacial skills, flexible thinking, and understanding social life. There are a few more skills they reference, but they're not worth overviewing. Overall, I think this article does a good job of grabbing actually well-learned skills from gaming, but I feel they are only scratching the surface. They could be pursuing much more with this than they are.

The second article, the one from Game Quitters is catered towards a more broad audience, this could be for parents, gamers, or people purely interested in the topic. I really enjoy this article because they give a quick summary at the very beginning, a very short overview of all the points they are making. But as they progress down the list, they provide actual scientific experiments and studies conducted that prove their point. For example, they go into a lot of detail about more cognitive improvements. Or they also go into detail about faster decision making. Instead of just making comments out of pure emotion and personal experience, they are providing accurate information backed by research.

I believe that is one thing that makes an article or blog post go above and beyond expectations. Whenever a writer links to a source that has proven that they / their points are validated, it shows the amount of effort they put in. It also shows the difference between our two articles chosen, one focuses on personal experiences and the other utilizes actual research.

What Jobs Can I Get With Gaming?

 A common question among people who spend hours gaming is: I've spent all this time gaming, what can I do with this experience? If you are in this same boat and perform a Google search you might come across articles like this. In short, articles like this spew the same information such as articles from Career Karma and resources like The Balance Careers. The biggest problem with resources like this is that they aren't exactly helpful... What all three resources fail to mention is that each of the career paths they list are extremely competitive or they require a lot of skill in order to get into that position.

One of the most aspired jobs from a majority of gamers is to become a developer. Being a developer is extremely difficult though. Many people who aspire to become a developer have not even started to code, don't understand the level of knowledge and skills they need to have in order to succeed at the position, and have not done any research on the difficulty of the task.

Of all the resources I've found online regarding Best Jobs for Gamers, the best one I've found is from Indeed. They do an amazing job of giving both the most aspired jobs, such as game designer and developer, but also give more humble, more reasonable jobs like sales rep, marketing positions, and tech support specialist.

So to sum up all the points for any young gamers: Don't let difficult careers get in your way. Find your true passions, if you like gaming, find what you like about it. Do you like breaking the game? Do you like drawing character designs? Do you want to be your own game developer? If you would like to pursue any of those pathways, there are barriers to entry, so try to learn the skills necessary to succeed earlier rather than later.

Top 3 Timeless Video Games

 Since the creation of video games in the 70s we’ve seen great leaps in technology, graphics, and gameplay. There have been several games that have paved the way for a new standard of games – games that have shifted the baseline for games. Keep in mind, I’m not an old head. I will not remember the times of the Atari and other revolutionary consoles. Also keep in mind that this list is highly subjective.

1. Zelda Ocarina of Time

I think this game does not need much introduction into why it was so revolutionary for gaming. The original Zelda, being a 2D dungeon crawling, explorative game was loved by many. With the release of the N64, Nintendo had big shoes to fill to keep the positive trend with Zelda games, and they blew it out of the water.

This game not only upheld the Zelda-like gameplay but made an amazing transition into the 3D game world. This game is nothing short of a masterpiece for its time. Now, the gameplay feels clunky in comparison to today’s standards, but I think this game deserves the love it has, as it defined a baseline for 3D dungeon crawling / exploration games moving forward.

2. Cuphead

This game is definitely one of the most controversial on this list, it didn’t really create a genre-defining gameplay loop or didn’t reinvent the wheel, but it was extremely ambitious and one of a kind. The creative thing about Cuphead is the game is entirely animated as if it was in the 1920s – an old cartoon. It does this extremely well too – everything is beautiful, the soundtrack stays true to the theme, and they blew everything away.

I included it on this list because we are currently in the time of Indie game developers, of independent studios making games. Taking into consideration that indie games are becoming as popular, if not more than big studios. Cuphead’s art style, makes it a work of art and makes other Indie companies work a little harder moving forward.

3. Elden Ring

The final entry on this list is a very new game. Elden Ring. Generating hype since it’s short announcement in 2019, Elden Ring has been the biggest roar in the gaming community. Learning from their previous mistakes in games, From Software created this masterpiece that shifted a difficult linear-based story game into an open-world masterpiece. 

Recently with the release of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, every company is trying to steal the same gameplay loop for a quick cash grab. Even in a time where companies try to push out an open-world cash grab, From Software perfected this masterpiece. Taking it’s own twist on the genre, ensuring it is never dull, and setting a standard for open world moving forward.