Who says you can’t learn something from a video game? If you are over 20 years old you shouldn’t be playing them… but you can learn some lessons about success in a virtual environment. Yes this is where most keyboard jockeys and losers hang out but lets learn something from the actual game itself.
Overview: Massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a large community where people essentially go online to play a game. The name of the game involves building an army to fight each other (Warcraft … StarCraft …) or you build up a single character (World of Warcraft etc…). There is a LOT of money in this business. However. There are many business and life lessons to be learned from the actual video game.
This is an out of the box post indeed.
We’ll focus on the former… Games where you build an army.
Lessons and Take Aways:
1) There Are No Rules. The only rule in life is that you can’t break the law and go to jail or you’re in trouble (thank you freedom of speech). With that said, if you have seen an online video game interface you will notice that many people start games where they put nonsense rules into the title 2v2 NO RUSH or 3v3 NO RUSH … etc. As you know if you tell someone what to do they are going to do the exact opposite… They are going to simply rush you (eg. attack quickly) and win the game. This is not even a prisoners dilemma… You are going to lose if you try to enforce rules that no one has to listen to.
The first lesson we have learned is that no one is going to listen to your fake rules in life/business if the activity is not illegal (Hello women who tell you to get married as if it is a good business decision)
2) Information is Everything: Watch the professionals. Always watch the experts. What do competitive “gamers” do? They search for information.
Why would you search for information? If you don’t have good information you don’t have a plan of attack. This is why you are seeing an increased obsession with privacy and data analytics in the media.
This directly applies to business. If you are running with the wrong map, ie: you are building up the wrong product or workforce… you are not working hard you are working yourself stupid.
3) Mobility: Again, even in a video game the same business concepts apply. If you are not mobile and you decide to barricade yourself into a corner you will lose. Every. Single. Time. “Adapt or Die”
You want a scary real life example of this? How about buying a house. Once you buy a house that you live in and use most or all of your money to buy it you are now locked into that single position for an impossibly long amount of time. In addition you are likely in debt.
4) Value Not Price: You know those people who enjoy getting free things? They are all broke. You should not care one single tiny bit about a price tag all you should care about is how much you are going to get from it. If you email this blog and ask us to give you $100 but we know with certainty that we will obtain $102 instantaneously… we will send money to that cash making machine over and over again until the party ends.
Does this relate to a video game? Yes it does. In video games, different units cost differing amounts of money (ie: resources). As a simple example (if you have played any video game before), if you know person X is only making units that will attack ground units… All you have to do is make a few air units. Problem solved.
5) Cash Flow is Everything: Do you want to become a millionaire so you can spend it all on fancy cars? You will always be broke. Do you want to become a millionaire so you can be free to do as you please? You will be rich. The difference is you know that the value of a large amount of cash is not the cash itself… It is the income produced by the cash.
Lets apply this to a video game. If a professional gaming competition does not end in the beginning periods they quickly build massive fortunes and constantly search and expand to generate more cash flow (ie: resources in a video game). They know that if cash flow dies they also die. You don’t want to be rich, you want to be free, this is why money is one of the 4 things that matter in life.
6) Multiple Streams of Cash Flow: The last lesson from a video game. You cannot rely solely on a single source of cash flow, you will be dead in no time. This relates to the point above. Once you have a single source of income up and running you need to seek out and find other sources of income to truly build wealth. This is reality.
Concluding Remarks: Now that you have learned every single lesson there is to learn from a video game… You have no right to play them anymore.
Poor people pay for entertainment and rich people want to be informed.
Go and apply this information to build your own empire.
