According to a recent poll, two in three Americans believe video gaming should be recognized as a legitimate professional path.
More than half of those polled—2,004 people—agree that video games should also be taught in schools, and three out of five feel that video games should be a component of every student’s education.
53% said video games should be considered an academic extracurricular activity, like other sports.
The study by OnePoll was commissioned by Wargaming, an online video game developer with its headquarters located in Cyprus, which was created in Belarus in 1998. It concluded that 41% of respondents believe it should be taught in primary and/or middle schools (42%).
Most respondents (54 percent) agree that younger youngsters should begin their professional gaming careers in smaller leagues, like Little League baseball, at a younger age than the typical person begins gaming.
More than half of college students polled agreed that gaming education should be a part of academic curriculums. More than half of those polled claimed that they were presently attending college or university. Of those surveyed, 88 percent stated they would major in gaming if they had the opportunity.
College students were asked what they would focus on in their hypothetical gaming studies, and the majority (60 percent) responded with content creation-related communications and streaming, as well as gaming skills, visual and technical arts, and business management (49 percent).
As Wargaming Publishing Director Artur Plociennik said, “There’s a lot that can be learned from gaming, just as there is in math, social studies, and reading classes”. “Giving kids a place to develop real-life skills in video games is something that can give them a bright future that is as fun as it is lucrative.”
More than four out of five people (85%) play video games on a regular basis or at least once a month. More over half of those surveyed (42 percent) claimed they play at least once a day.
Six out of ten gamers (64 percent) have improved their critical thinking, creativity, hand-eye coordination, and communication abilities via gaming (44 percent).
Some 58 percent of those polled claimed that they’ve also picked up some more obscure yet useful abilities while playing their favorite games.
Being patient, being more attentive, and using statistics and probability are some of the skills that you will need to learn. The ability to improve one’s athletic talents, such as “dribbling, jumping, and shooting,” was cited by a small percentage of those polled.
Of those polled, 52% indicated that gaming helped them improve their day jobs, and 55% said they would leave their employment to pursue a career as a game developer or game designer.
Some of the most popular genres among working gamers who “get good” at their employment are RTS (15 percent), FPS (14 percent), and sandbox games (10 percent) (14 percent). “It goes without saying: the number of skills people have learned from gaming has proven invaluable,” continued Plociennik. “Hand-eye coordination, teamwork, critical thinking… these are just a few examples this survey has shown can help people improve their day-to-day jobs — even if they aren’t professional gamers.”