How to get your dream job? Play games!
Executing quickly and iteratively. Building connections. Working collaboratively. Openness to serendipity. These are key human qualities heralded as skills of the future. Where do they collect? In the ranks of the 2.5bn video game players around the world.
None of this should come as a surprise. A video game such as Civilization VI demands top-class resource management from players. World of Warcraft — leadership. Dark Souls — perseverance.
A cast of leading business managers and entrepreneurs acknowledge the importance of video games to their career.
Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, has attributed his strategic sense to playing games in childhood. Elon Musk: his early thirst for making money to being able to buy a better computer to play better video games. Says Mark Zuckerberg, “I definitely wouldn’t have gotten into programming if I hadn’t played games.”
What’s more, reports on the future of work highlight the importance of soft skills, technical skills and a comfortable collaboration between humans and machines.
In an age in which people naturally use technologies to augment themselves, an age that values diversity of talent and breadth of imagination, where better to find and sharpen skills than through media that people enjoy, challenges them and many look to for new opportunities and experiences.
Want to sharpen your management skills? Play XCOM: UFO Defense.
Acquire a talent for solving complex problems and some basic facts of history? Play Civilization.
Test your leadership skills? Play EVE Online.
This excites us — a lot. And that’s why we’ve founded Game Academy.
Game Academy is a new start-up tech venture.
We’re a data-driven online platform that offers game players opportunities to achieve their life goals by playing their favorite games.
Want to improve your productivity at work, mental resilience or progress a career in tech?
Game Academy provides game players with a suite of courses and useful content, all sourced from the games that they enjoy. Especially curated sequences of commercial games. Unique in-game challenges. Testing scenarios. Opportunities to learn new strategies, collect certificates for use in the real-world and match with new employment and education. Enrol here.
Academic research shows strong evidence for the skills that games develop in players. Decision-making powers across different games. Cognitive abilities through shooter games. Logic reasoning, problem sensitivity and organizational skills through strategy games.
What’s more, data that we have gathered reveals correlations between the games people play and the lives that they choose to follow. A significantly higher proportion of IT workers tend to play particular games like Defense Grid and SpaceChem for long periods of time. Games like Civilization and X-COM: UFO Defense are significantly more popular among managers.
Game Academy is an unique new games venture. We are starting with recruiting our first cohort of game players to join our courses — check them out here: http://gameacademy.co
“We” are three tech Founders who are very experienced for-profit and non-profit entrepreneurs. We love games, play games, make games, believe passionately in the power of hidden talent and want to address the gap between the achievement of games players in-game and needs of the marketplace for skills in the future.
What’s more, according to the industry analyst firm Metaari’s most recent Global Game-Based Learning Market report, the game-based learning industry will amount to over $17 billion by 2023.
Andrey — a data scientist and RPG-lover.
Irina — an Edtech founder and teacher.
David — media producer.
Game Academy is a portfolio company of ZincVC, a London-based business builder whose founders include entrepreneur Saul Klein and investors include LocalGlobe, Atomico and the London School of Economics.
There are 2.5bn video game players across the world. With Game Academy they’ll realise the full life potential of their game play.
Join Game Academy!
Be great to hear from you too. Mail us: gameacademyteam@gmail.com
