What Practical Skills Have You Learned From Video Games? - General

Demon's Souls taught me that life's a bitch but you can overcome the toughest challenge through many, many, many failed attempts until you learned it all. Shooters like CoD sharpened my reflexes; I know a basic concept on defending myself, I just need to be fast.

I learned that if you hit people hard enough they give you money.

Geography and History, thanks paradox

The Total War games made me learn a ton about ancient civilizations, trading, and geography.

Not a "skill" per-say but Age of Empires 2 gave me a great rundown of many historical figures and battles.

I also learned from San Andreas that chances are if run over a white guy wearing a grey hoodie he's probably gonna drop a ton of cash.

I've learned to do a double-take every 5 seconds to avoid getting backstabbed.

how to be a lot quicker at mental math

Not counting the educational games I used to play as a little kid, and thinking about it honestly, quite possibly nothing? Boy, I feel lame. The closest thing would be Guitar Hero paving the way to me learning how to play guitar when I was younger, but I don't even really remember how to do that anymore. [editline]16th January 2017[/editline] I guess some games may have helped me develop creatively or influenced the way I think about art, I guess.

Runescape in particular made me really good with money. Maybe not investment, but proper management.

GTA has taught me that it's okay to run red stoplights

Arma 3 taught me how to convey directions as quick, clear, and concise as possible. Because teammates are idiots.

I've definitely become a little more analytical about everything because of video games in general

Games like Guitar Hero helped me build my internal metronome for playing real guitar, so I've never needed a metronome for anything in my 6 years(on and off, mostly off) of playing. When our band first played together, the drummer (professional dude, has been drumming for 25+ years) and the bassist (has played bass for 20 years at least) were both impressed with my ability to keep time and adjust to their timing instead of sticking with my own timing like most other guitarists they played with, despite my own actual lack of ability with guitar. Now I just need Rocksmith to teach me scales n shit and I'm golden. Those games also heavily developed my hand-eye coordination, so I had a massive advantage when I first started playing.

Fallout 4 has reinforced that sometimes doing things the slow way yields better results. Specifically how manually scrapping items has better yields than technically "auto scrapping" via using a whole item because it contains a component needed. When you "auto scrap", you lose out on the other components as the game treats it like it was just the ones needed.

Although not a practical skill, I have learned that bullets make a good alternative to currency when money is worthless. Too bad I live in Canada.

Shadow President taught me (outdated) geography and inspired me to learn more. I used to spend hours reading the world factbook in it, as a kid. It also taught me that even if you massacre every Chinaman, they can still hit you with nuclear bombs. Whoops, misread the title. Practical skills wise, Dwarf Fortress managed to teach me how to handle micromanagement.

Call of juarez series taught me the history and legends of wild west. Bully taught me some basic hand to hand combat (although i doubt i ever gonna use it)

Call of Duty taught me you don't have to be an actual soldier to get PTSD :^)

I learned how to drive a manual thanks to racing sims and my Dad's G25 racing wheel.

Patience, for when they get delayed.

Bloodborne is making me more patient and less quick to anger.

When I was still in highschool learning about the Cold War I never studied for the tests. I just played MGS3 and aced afterwards.

[QUOTE=flashn00b;51683271]Although not a practical skill, I have learned that bullets make a good alternative to currency when money is worthless. Too bad I live in Canada.[/QUOTE] Everyone knows that bottlecaps are a superior currency

[QUOTE=war_man333;51685774]Everyone knows that bottlecaps are a superior currency[/QUOTE] I thought they were only used as currency in FO3 and FO4 due to their vague resemblance to coins. Meanwhile, Metro has a currency backed by the value of human life

[QUOTE=flashn00b;51686729]I thought they were only used as currency in FO3 and FO4 due to their vague resemblance to coins. Meanwhile, Metro has a currency backed by the value of human life[/QUOTE] They were used because it's difficult to fake them in massive quantities unless you had access to a bottlecap press. This is talked about in FoNV in a Crimson Caravan mission. Both Caesar's Legion and the New California Republic have their own currency at that point though, just people trust bottlecaps more for some reason. The Metro 2033 currency system makes sense because A. it's a practical item that could save your life in a pinch, and B. technology to make new ammo of that quality was inaccessible.

How to get better at things

Arma 2 and DayZ inspired me to learn Cyrillic.

you can drink vodka when high on radiation to get healed

[QUOTE=zombini;51686809]They were used because it's difficult to fake them in massive quantities unless you had access to a bottlecap press. This is talked about in FoNV in a Crimson Caravan mission. Both Caesar's Legion and the New California Republic have their own currency at that point though, just people trust bottlecaps more for some reason. The Metro 2033 currency system makes sense because A. it's a practical item that could save your life in a pinch, and B. technology to make new ammo of that quality was inaccessible.[/QUOTE] The original Fallout also mentions that the caravans back bottlecaps with clean water, which is what gives them their value. Presumably, the reason Fallout 2 uses NCR dollars is because clean water is more readily available and bottlecaps would be less valuable. It's never explained whether this is also the case in the Capital Wasteland or the Commonwealth, though. It makes for a pretty good educational metaphor on economics and history when you measure it against the real world.