We could be heroes.(forecast of video games)(Editorial)

Most of us would not be surprised to learn that video games have had a significant impact on a whole generation of young people who grew up playing them, simply because of their enormous popularity. Recent studies show that in the US alone, some 90 million adults over age 17 have regularly played video games. And more than 90 percent of children under 17 have regular access to them.

Unfortunately, most assumptions about the effects of video gaming have been negative. Indeed, the medium has been blamed for everything from rotting the brains of our youth to turning them into psycho killers.

But now there's evidence that the positive effects of gaming may outweigh the possible harmful ones. In a new book titled Got Game: How the Garner Generation Is Reshaping Business Forever, authors John Beck and Mitchell Wade report that the experience of growing up surrounded by video games has endowed a new generation of employees with a competitive spirit and some unique cognitive abilities that, if harnessed, could transform the business world as we know it. They also contend that the spoils will go to managers, young or old, who are savvy enough to exploit these differences.

Perhaps the most intriguing finding from Beck and Wade's survey of more than 2500 people in the US is that gamers want to see themselves as heroes. That's understandable, for in a great many games, the story is all about heroism. For example, in the new game Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (see "Thriving on Chaos," pg. 14), the player assumes the role of Sam Fisher, the National Security Agency's elite secret agent, whose goal is to prevent the next world war. And in the enormously popular Halo 2 (see "The Halo Effect," January, pg. 16), the player becomes the cybernetically enhanced super-soldier ...