Tech Hero

» by michael penner, mj penner consulting – www.michaelpenner.com

How Video Games Are Changing Everything

Video games have undergone a serious evolution that have taken them from the lonely, reclusive introvert’s past time to a socially intense experience that now includes beautiful professional models turned gamers, and can make the best gamers a six figure income.

When South Korean professional video gamer Lim Yo-Hwan was featured in the May 2004 edition of the Wall Street Journal I realized just how different things had become. You see, in South Korea, video gaming is considered a serious spectator sport that rivals our Super Bowl or Baseball’s World Series. South Korea’s top gamers are super stars that make the money to match their status. We’re talking serious wealth. As hard as this might be to imagine, it is only becoming even bigger world wide. Just a few hours north of us, in the the tech heartland of Silicon Valley, the phenomenon is well under way. The money to be made playing this generation of video games, and the careers to be advanced, are real and tangible. This may be the biggest change our society has undergone since the Information Age began.

The social aspect of gaming has eclipsed the single-player game, and the number of adults playing video games continues to rise, their numbers beginning to rival those of the younger generation. One reason for this is the attraction by Baby Boomers to online Role Playing Games (RPG’s), arguably the most immersive social gaming experience online today. When Boomers start doing something as a group it’s like shoving a beach ball through a garden hose. They drastically alter the shape of things and have significant influence on politics, entertainment, and business. They are having a dramatic influence on the evolution of social gaming online, and the older they get the more involved they seem to become.

But truly the biggest surprise is the emerging demographic of women, some of them quite well known, that are ardent gamers. Women like Gemma Atkinson, Gina Carano, and Asia Carrera. Ms Carrera, by the way, has an IQ that exceeds 150. She hosts her own game server and throws LAN (Local Area Network) parties at her house. Who says you can’t have beauty and brains? So much for the geek stereotype.

Another impact games are having is on the way our kids learn. Ask any teacher and they will tell you that auditory processing has started taking a serious hit as growing brains are trained to have lightning fast reaction times based on intense, continuous, and prolonged visual stimulus. The U.S. Military is not oblivious to this trend. Some of our top drone pilots grew up playing video games, some which exceed the demands they face remotely piloting their aircraft over enemy territory.

It’s important to keep in mind that this is only the beginning. As games get more sophisticated, computer hardware and online offerings continue to accelerate to meet the demand, and the effects on our society  continue to expand. It will be very interesting indeed to see what happens next. Truly, the ending has not yet been written.