When people denigrate video games and their players, I like to tell stories about how video games help me as a professor. Yesterday, I added a new story: a student was trying to make a strategic decision about assignment submission, and I asked if he plays Assassin’s Creed Odyssey. He does, and I compared his situation to the choice between being at level 45 and spending all your adrenaline points on a 48 level boss fight or doling out the points in defeating a 44 level fortress. He was able to immediately grasp what I meant by the strategic choice of assignments. This conversation might not have gone as well had I not had access to the language of gaming.

NPG in Ground in RDR 1