From Larping to Leadership

As the concern with Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games continues to rise, some researchers and professors have realized the positive potential of these games. Games like World of Warcraft immerse their players into a fabricated world where they must accept and complete various challenges in order to advance to the next level or gain some sort of title. The urge instilled in the players to obtain these higher levels continues to grow as game play increases.  Some researchers believe that this type of relationship in the gaming world can be brought to today’s workforce and academic settings.

In World of Warcraft many players are part of “guilds”. Players form these guilds and often times require permission for others join. Once in a guild you work together as a team in order to take on various challenges in the virtual world. Guilds are extremely competitive and are ranked on World of Warcraft’s official website.  Many researchers believe these guilds may help players build their leadership experience, resulting in a positive relationship between in-game leadership and real world leadership.

At first I found this very hard to believe. How capturing fairies and battling mystical creatures can correlate with projects in the professional world seems extremely far-fetched. But as I continued to do research of my own I realized how MMORPGs can in fact benefit group based projects and leadership qualities in the workforce. Research conducted by YeiBeech Jang and  SeoungHo Ryu show that joining a game community and playing in teams provides people with a third place to improve their leadership skills and engage in enriching holistic experiences.

Jang and Ryu sampled 300 gamers and asked them to respond to the following statements on a scale from 1-10:

1. I often take a leader role in peer groups

2. I often take a leader role in informal meetings

3. I tend to influence other people regardless of my social position.

The results show that those who play MMORPGs regularly rated themselves higher when asked these questions. In a fast paced society that is constantly changed by technology, today’s leaders are no longer those who take important information and distribute it from a superior position. Instead leaders are those who make rapid decisions and persuade team members, while listening to others’ opinions and modifying while intergrading them to pursue higher missions. This type of leadership is exactly what guilds are made of.

The strategic environments that make games like World of Warcraft so appealing also allow players to partake in these virtual leadership experiences. Weather they are leading their guild into battle or partaking on some mystical quest a leader always emerges out of the group in hopes of raising their guild’s ranking. In shot these games provide players with easier ways to experience what they might not be able to in the real world. Plenty of adolescents are discovering leadership roles through these games before their classrooms make them aware of it.

Pat Galagan talks about this leadership relationship and calls it the “gaming disposition”. He claims those who have this disposition are better able to thrive in the contemporary workplace I previously mentioned. Those who have this gaming disposition are more bottom-line oriented, and like to be evaluated because their goal is not to be rewarded but to improve. They also understand the power of diversity, since a key element in MMORPGs is teamwork, and those with the most diverse guilds are often the most powerful. People who posses the gaming disposition also thrive on change, which allows them to adapt to more workforce settings.

After I reviewed these two studies I began to realize that MMORPGs really can have a positive effect on one’s leadership skills. After all the idea of videogames advancing individuals in the workplace isn’t anything new. Pilots use flight simulators and soldiers use virtual reality training programs to prepare them for warfare. Games like Word of Warcraft aren’t simulated reality like the training games mentioned, but the do provide a more general idea of leadership amongst players that can be utilized in real life. Perhaps one day companies will use MMORPs instead of employee handbooks to train their future employees.  

-Kristen C.