Friday, November 26, 2010

How video games made me a better person.

Video games have made me a better person, and I can prove it. It's not just because now a headshot from 300 yrds with a scoped hand gun isn't a challenge (thanks Halo), or that fighting 5-10 thugs at a time is about as challenging as pressing x 23 times (actually it's exactly that difficult, thanks Batman Arkham Asylum).

Actually my experience comes from Star Trek Online. Yesterday, while playing a mission in game, I was confronted with an issue of whether to let some shady business man keep cheating, or to tell the station commander. It was a dilemma as it was a trader I could get some good deals off. I remember thinking that I wasn't going to jeopardize my career, to get a deal.' So I told the station commander.

As part of my job, I advised my company to use a particular data back up company, that used a third party as contractors to provide hardware in our region. The company I deal with had me move all my backups as they had told me that that relationship had gone sour and they were now contracting with a new hardware vendor.
I got a call today from the previous hardware people, claiming that the dealer was basically scum, not paying bills and were not reliable to work with 'wink wink' and that the too provided back up services, and as they were in the region they would be happy to take us on as clients.

My initial reaction was 'wtf mate (with mandatory attempt at Australian accent'). After thinking about it, I realized that of course there was payment issues, it was being withheld as ontracts hadn't been fufilled and that's why the switch... long story short (I know too late, shut up). I brushed the call off, but should I the tell backup people or not that these guys were slagging them? I literally flashed back to the game the previous night and thought 'It's all about honour.' So I called the company and yeah these guys had attempted this with 3-4 other former clients and lawyers were getting involved. In anycase I feel I did the right thing, and a company isn't going to gain by being douchecanoes.

So next time someone says video games are evil, remember there are lessons to be learned everywhere.

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