The Value of Reading
Lastly, and certainly most important to me, is the value that lies within the texts provided to us. In gaming, reading tends to be overlooked quite a bit. I particularly skim through tutorials and skip quest letters all the time, and then I pay for it by spending the next three hours searching for a flower that I could have found in five minutes had I read the texts that were provided for the quest. This seems like a fairly obvious life skill, but I’ll argue the latter for the moment because I’m also the sort of guy who jumps into putting together some new Ikea furniture without wholly reading the instructions and I end up with a gazebo instead of some dresser drawers. Perhaps this last life skill should have been titled, “Curbing My Own Ego,” but I believe it’s apt enough in regard to reading through any sort of instruction, particularly when it comes from someone first hand and you jump to say, “I’ve got it,” then before long return with shame of your failure equipped like a piece of +80 Disgrace chest armor asking for that same instruction.
Though we can chalk most, if not all, of these skills up to things that we can invest time into real life in order to master, I believe gaming has allowed me to absorb these skills and realizations in an organic manner, almost an osmosis of side-effects from being exposed to too much awesome for too many years, and I’m just figuring out the multitude of super powers I’ve inherited as a result. I particular don’t enjoy nor condone the term “educational game,” because redundancy without effect isn’t something I’m into.
Source: Ian Khadan at blacknerdproblems.com