IBM recently commissioned a study and has now published a report about the Online Gaming Community and how the leadership lessons can be applied to real life and business. I'm afraid I'd have to disagree. Below the post you'll find the link to the article which you can download in pdf format.
MMOG's do indeed have leaders. They form out of necessity, and are a type of leader to be sure. But come on, does anyone except someone commissioned for a large sum of money to produce a report actually believe that these skills will be valuable in real life? I think leaders in these games probably already have leadership skills and they simply manifest in the gaming environment. I'm certainly not looking for managers to join my teams who have online gaming on their resumes. Nor do I look for MBA's either (in fact that's a negative).
Online games lack real consequences. The trial and error approach to management may certainly work there but not in real life. What consequences are there for a rushed, stupid decision in an online game? You lose some points? You lose a game "life"? If you wanted a manager to apply those sorts of techniques in the real world of business then you'd better be prepared to lose a couple million. Maybe that guy who brought down the big British investment bank was a gamer. He certainly took some big risks and kept taking them to cover it up. What the hell, it's not real money; it's just figures on a computer screen.
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