University of Florida Teaches Management Skills Through Starcraft

Coming this fall in the University of Florida, PhD candidate Nate Poling will be teaching an honors class (IDS 2935) for management skills using the hit video game Starcraft of all things. Somehow he sold the idea of letting students play and analyze weekly rounds of the real time strategy (RTS) game against each other and possibly other gamers around the world to his university superiors as useful management techniques. Prerequisites include "basic knowledge and experience playing Starcraft." There is no mention whether being able to make sense of the sci-fi plot is also a prerequisite.

At first glance it feels like this class is just a marketing ploy to funnel more money into the university with Blizzard Entertainment sponsorships and gamer students seeking to justify their hobby by enrolling there for that class. Another look into it shows how possibly ridiculous university education is nowadays. Imagine a student stating in his resume that his management skills stem from clicking on several autonomous graphic sprites on a computer screen and telling them to move there and kill a group of other autonomous graphic sprites of a different color. Would he really be expected to handle managing real people the same way?

But looking into RTS gamers, Strarcraft and other RTS games are pretty much quasi-management simulators. Players have to acquire resources like Vespene gas and crystals. Then they have to carefully plan what to do with the resources. Units and researched technology each have specific advantages and disadvantages. Depending on the competition, these armchair managers must find the balance in their resource spending while seeking the proper moment to attack and ensure victory. Change up the space marines to employees and the Vespene gas to raw materials and Starcraft becomes less a game and more a business simulator. And it probably would not be as fun.

But this the lesson of business management through Starcraft is best left in the dorm rooms and Blizzard Entertainment's own servers. Most gamers I know want to keep their gaming as a game. Once the game feels like a second job, the game is no longer fun and the lessons are quickly lost. The stigmata of games being just games is still present unless one applies for a game company. But even, game companies expect some real world experience that even the wisdom of the Protoss cannot teach when fending off Hydralisks. While teaching micromanagement through a popular fun video game is good in theory, it just currently has too many holes to make it practical.

Then again, all the micromanagement skills in the world are no match for an early game Zerg rush.

Sources:

http://www.honors.ufl.edu/courses/coursesfall10.html

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25626/