Gamers equally adept at business
By Mike Antonucci
Knight Ridder News Service
SAN JOSE, Calif. — At the Charles Schwab company's call-center headquarters in Phoenix, human resources vice president Chip Luman has learned a secret about financial services technology and the employees who operate it:
Video-game players often display exceptional business skills.
"The people who play games are into technology, can handle more information, can synthesize more complex data, solve operational design problems, lead change and bring organizations through change," said Luman, 38.
Luman is among a host of professionals — in fields including business, medicine and education — who have noticed a surprising number of social benefits from the increasing time that Americans are spending with "Super Mario," "Rise of Nations" and "The Sims."
Moreover, almost all the games they cite are mainstream hits from an industry that often is vilified as brainless and exploitative. Some of the games that have the most positive potential are either famously controversial or rated Mature because of violent or provocative content.
There's a growing wave of research and firsthand reports about children, parents, workers, corporations and even medical patients experiencing notable benefits from computer or video games. There's also a push to change the mindset of people who dismiss video games as dangerous or worthless.
"I'm extremely interested in scientific validation of gaming for good," said Dr. James Rosser, director of the Advanced Medical Technology Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.
Rosser, also the director of minimally invasive surgery, is a gamer who oversaw research indicating that surgeons adept at video games were less likely to make mistakes during certain forms of operations and suturing. The study, which used games that included sniper shooting ("Silent Scope") and futuristic racing ("Star Wars Racer Revenge"), generated major publicity for games as possible teaching tools.
The potential teaching value is a key area of research for linguistics professor James Paul Gee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Gee has studied a wide range of games, including "Deus Ex," "The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind," the "Splinter Cell" series, "Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando" and "Fable." He concluded that numerous popular games, including many with a Mature rating, are designed with cutting-edge teaching principles that could be adapted for schoolwork or employee training.
The standard complaints about most video games are legion: Games make kids sedentary. They're violent and salacious. They're routinely sexist and often racist. They're shallow and addictive.
And all of these allegations have gotten considerable support from a loose coalition of politicians, educators, health officials, law enforcement officers and religious leaders.
The inventory of rebuttals, however, is expanding.
• There's a growing interest in the workout value of dance games that require strenuous activity to perform the fast-paced steps indicated on the screen. The hallmark games are from Konami's "Dance Dance Revolution" series, and a PlayStation2 and Xbox version of the arcade hit "Pump It Up" is scheduled for release in August.
One of a number of intriguing projects involves the West Virginia Public Insurance Agency, which is trying out DDR as a health and fitness tool in conjunction with schools, juvenile detention facilities and work-site wellness programs.
• Physicians are studying games as treatment aids. The Associated Press reported in December on research indicating that playing with a Game Boy machine before surgery could relax children more than tranquilizers.
• Luman, the vice president at Schwab, has held other human resources jobs, but also worked as a game company executive. He began to think more deeply about the connections between gaming and other work after reading "Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever," by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade.
