Do Video Games Teach You About Life?
Are there certain video games that you feel have taught you a lesson about life or helped you some way in your life?
All videogames teach people about life, in the same way movies and TV does - though stories. You may have never lost a loved one, but when a favored character dies in a game, you vicariously feel the grief through the avatar of your character, or through the eyes of the protagonist. In a way, this prepares you for the real thing. They teach you all those values that cartoons tried to when you were growing up, but that you thought were kinda lame - the value of loyalty, friendship, love - all that good stuff. And games like Role-playing Game's teach things like math, and strategy games generally make you think, and improve your ability to work thinngs out. So yeah, it seems legit enough to me.
Almost certainly do video games contain lessons for life and I would argue that, as an interactive medium, those lessons are learned more deeply.
I learned that you can't please everyone from Boiling Point, a niche adventure FPS-RPG. It had a loyalty mechanic for various opposed factions (I think 6 total, with factions having a polar opposite as well as tension with the others). Completing a mission for one dropped trust from another. In the end, any faction could help you finish the game.
Despite so many multiplayer games trying to teach teamwork, I think they achieve the opposite. Battlefield 2142 tried to reward players for picking a broad range of classes and giving them points for sticking with and helping your squad. Somehow that lesson wasn't conveyed, it became an expectation instead and good players could boss the others around.
Because of it's leadership mechanics, the lesson I learned instead was that sometimes I am the right one to take the mantle of command. I may have been an inexperienced squad leader or commander, but it's far better than there being none.
Currently Total War's lesson seems to be that peace is very, very hard to achieve. It also uses real place names and works as a geography and history lesson.
I think all forms of media have the ability to teach you about life. You just have to be receptive to the message. Multiplayer games can teach teamwork and leadership skills. Some games can help you learn more about finances. Heck, Starcraft helped me become an E-5 in the Navy. As an OS (Operations Specialist) I had to track contacts by radar, tracking my in-game army on a macro and micro level aided me immensely.