Skills we learn from Starcraft II that school can't teach

Here's an article on 5 important skills that Starcraft II teaches:

Games Teaching Kids What We Can't: Starcraft II

I think these skills are taught by most RTS's, but I think Starcraft II in particular has a lot of tools to help players research and learn more from their mistakes. What do y'all think? Should games like Starcraft II be used in schools? Apparently, the University of Florida already has a Starcraft class!

 

I think StarCraft 1/2 can help teach analytical thinking and how to address situations under pressure.

Another game I would recommend along these lines is another personal favorite that has fallen by the wayside: SimCity (2k or 4, 1 and 3, not so much).

I wish I would have played StarCraft more seriously then I had, but with my nitch of friends who liked playing money map long games.. unless we 1v1 the games almost always came to brute power.

I think I only played one money map game where that rule didn't apply. I brilliantly took out a Zerg player in a 3v3 who was on a fortified island and had the island surrounded by all the anti-air spore colonies surrounding his base. It was an I shaped island (think roman font I) where there was an island on either side with 3 huge money bases, a small bridge of land in the middle. I think my team was all Zerg, and the other team was the Zerg player, a Toss, and another Zerg.

We had fully upgraded tech and I kept sending Devourer's and kept hitting the supply limit. The Devourer would hit his spore defense and all die, along with the few Devourer's the other Z player was tossing against me. While he had spent almost all of his money surround his base with the spores. I would then morph more Multra/Devours and the entire 2:15 (that's 2 hours 15mins... yeahhh) had just been one large battle of Devours in the air between our islands. I think I manged to tech up faster then him, which is how I ended up pushing him back.

Going all Guardian against him would have left him open to attack the area above my base with his Devourer's, and since the battle between him and I was strictly air, I couldn't give up the one advantage I had over him (taking the battle to his base). So I slowly started building a few Guardians, and kept having them target just one particular spore colony. After I was finally able open that small hole, I increased the number of Guardians ever so slightly and slowly opened a larger hole, targeting the drones he was attempting to send to build new spore colonies.

This was a waste of time, he could have been using that time building Multralisk and more Devourer's to stop my anti-air. What he then did was waste his Larva on first morphing to drones, then to buildings.. which in 1.09 just took way more time he could have been using his to morph his larva into units that could counter me. So after I opened my hole in the line of spore colonies, I proceeded to Guardians rush his poorly placed Spires with very little Devourer coverage. This left my Guards open to open targeting from the devours, but my end goal was worth the sacrifice.

I took out the spires, he lost his air capabilities entirely. 12-14 Hives be damned, I proceeded to clear out the remainder of his air-to-air and open a new zipcode in the middle of his base (took out Hydra den before he could build any) with an all out Gaurd assault. I diverted a few Gaurds to the middle, enough to finally take the toss defense on land out, and the game was over.

That is the kind of critical thinking StarCraft can teach.

I really miss the original SC vs BW... in SC Zerg was my primary, but in BW it quickly changed to Toss.

 

I heard that some Military Academies used SC (and some other strategy games) for Officer training. Supposedly it's good for improving desicion making under pressure, strategy, and all that good stuff. I'll see if I can dig up a source for it.

 

a bit exagurated but i reckon SC2 can teach people about managing an econemy.

 

I've heard of this before, im pretty sure I heard somewhere that officers take a month long course at some military academies with starcraft involving developing strategies, and executing multiple fronted attacks such as pincer attacks etc...

 

Strategy games have long been known to help build essential life skills. They key is balance, which a lot of MMORPG seem to forget about which is why addiction is so rampant.

 

That's funny, that's the first time im seeing that and its TRUE! Plus they forgot to mention hand eye coordination, improved reflexes and improved multi tasking capabilities. It all helps but the only problem is sometimes it becomes an addiction.

 

Great Gaming Addiction Videos

Ryden, I know what you mean. The line between compelling and manipulative game play can be very fine. As sometime who's struggled with gaming addiction myself, I recommend these two short videos from an Australian gaming show. I know I'm a little off-topic, but this is the only representation of gaming addiction I've seen that's actually very thorough, helpful, and and balanced.

http://www.abc.net.au/tv/goodgame/stories/s2945112.htm
http://www.abc.net.au/tv/goodgame/stories/s2096107.htm

 

Indeed, improved eye coordination is the biggest thing I got out of games period, especially playing Doom 1/2 back in Elementary school (I'm old, get over it). I clearly remember once at the end of gym class in 7th grade, an 8th grader attempted to knock out a pile of change I had in my hand face up (My gym was right before lunch), simply to try and be a ****... I caught all of the change every time after 9 attempts of different people to knock it out of my hand.

Unfortunately, my rampant gaming has cost me my eyesight (blame GameBoy and Tetris), and since I longer stay in shape being out of school... I simply couldn't manage much of the awesome uberness anymore. Gaming can teach you a lot but there needs to be balance with exercise. Its been proven that learning and memorization are increased while exercising (Guess that would explain all those football guys being able to run routes and tons of plays with madmen like accuracy!). Maybe my old collage habit of jogging for 45mins straight on a treadmill while watching the Discovery channel wasn't all that bad after all.