Are video games the future of the construction industry?

In younger generations, gaming has solidified itself as an integral part of the culture. With 46.7 million gamers in Great Britain, it's become a common pastime for those who seek friendship, challenge and develop their problem-solving abilities.

As our nation centres around the new hobby, the question we pose is "do these skills overlap in real life?" When it comes to the construction industry, the answer is a resounding yes. This can be attributed to the wide variety of skills that games can teach their average player.

One example that highlights this is Minecraft, a sandbox-style video game. This cult classic skyrocketed into popularity after its initial release in 2011. Its sizable user base remains fuelled by creativity, innovation and a strong sense of community. Minecraft's mechanics allow players to create almost anything they can imagine, using building blocks and simple equipment.

A Notable build, created by the community, takes inspiration from JR Tolkien's The Hobbit and remains titled "Minecraft Middle Earth''. This build has taken on the task of crafting worlds, cities and environments block by block. Built by young international teams assigned roles of builders, planners, creatives and supervisors. This becomes even more impressive once you discover the project has been ongoing for the course of 10 years and has been through many cycles of improvement.

According to several studies it has been noted that games of a similar genre may strengthen a range of cognitive skills such as spatial navigation, reasoning, memory and perception.

On to other games and you'll find similar crossovers. Fallout 4, a 2015 action role-playing game, sees its players take on the challenge of surviving in a post-nuclear world. This requires them to develop high levels of technical skill as they explore and engage in fights, crafting, building and a variety of difficult "puzzle-like" mechanics. You could argue the fact that the game has a thriving fanbase means the challenges teach resilience.

Long-term players loathe giving up and often find unique solutions to the tasks the game presents.
So where does this leave the construction industry in terms of new talent? It creates an untapped pool of candidates, who have the potential to form lifelong careers in the industry.

But tapping into this pool requires an industry shift, instead of a traditional approach, expanding the reach of searches and looking to educate through unconventional methods. Showing people that construction is much more than just a hard hat and pair of boots.

The future of gaming should include far more paths that have a clear relationship with the working industry.

What do you think?

1 Market Street, Whaley Bridge, SK23 7AA

Darragh Acton
darragh@construo.io
07856571225

Construo is an online construction platform created by ex-industry veterans. Construo is designed to make construction knowledge accessible to anyone and everyone for free. The platform shares news, resources, questions, answers and much more all in one easy-to-access place.

This release was published on openPR.