When Ryoo Kyung-hyun posted on Twitter in 2019 that he was looking for internships in software engineering, he likely didn‘t expect that Tobi Lukte, the CEO of e-commerce company Shopify, would offer him one. And yet that’s exactly what happened. Lukte, who got his start as a computer programmer, responded to Kyung-hyun’s tweet within 24 hours. His reason for offering the opportunity? He’d seen Kyung-hyun's accomplishments in the real-time strategy game StarCraft.

Kyung-hyun, known in the esports world as SeleCT, was one of the game’s most successful players before he retired from competitive gaming. Nevertheless, Insider reports that during his time as a pro player, he won more than $80,000 playing the game, along with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War all before he hit 25 years old. 

In a Reddit post after the job offer, Lukte explained the reasoning for his hiring decision. “It's insanely hard to become a pro in Starcraft, significantly harder than it is to get a degree,” he wrote. “So I feel like this should be highly valuable on a CV. My offer to bring in ex-pro players is more general than my offer to select for an internship.” (This wasn’t the first time that Lukte had spoken about the importance of gaming when it comes to business; as reported by Insider, he posted on Reddit in 2016 that “everything I know about business comes from playing Starcraft and Poker”.)

Lukte’s instinct to hire on the accomplishments of video game players isn’t as outlandish as it sounds: we’re already living in the era of gamified employment. From 2002 to 2022, the US military used the first-person shooter America’s Army in their recruitment process. Meanwhile, companies like Meta, Microsoft and Nvidia are hoping to gamify our working days with mass-investment into virtual worlds and the metaverse. 

What’s more, you don’t need to be a professional gamer in order for gaming to make an impact when it comes to your CV. The Game Academy is an online careers programme that is designed to help people get jobs through the video games that they play, and it’s accessible to anyone. It was co-founded in 2019 by David Barrie, a former television producer, who, along with two friends, were thinking about the future of work and where there might be gaps when it came to employment. 

“We saw all sorts of skill shortages and the vacancies, as well as all of that anxiety about the lack of digital workers and digital savvy people and thought, ‘Where is this talent base going to come from?’” Barrie tells Dazed. “We did some research and it seemed like a no-brainer: if you’re searching for the super-talented workforce of tomorrow, just look in the ranks of gamers because those people are all there. They’re just hidden from view.” 

The challenge, Barrie says, was figuring out how to reach those people and draw links between the games people were playing and jobs. Part of that involved examining an open dataset provided by PC gaming platform Steam. “We looked at the profiles of 50,000 gamers then looked at what those gamers had gone on to do as a career through LinkedIn and other sources. Then we found correlations between the two.” 

All that information led to the creation of an algorithm that, today, connects gamers with potential employment opportunities. All you have to do is share your gaming profile, be that Steam, PSN or Xbox Live. The Game Academy then analyses your gaming behaviours, asks you to complete specific challenges in order to improve your skills, and then recommends jobs and educational opportunities that suit who you are. 

“If you’re searching for the super talented workforce of tomorrow just look in the ranks of gamers, because those people are all there” – David Barrie

“Gamers have the capacity to both make things and make things in their own language,” says Barrie. “They also communicate with circles of friends and other people very quickly. I think that’s appealing for employers, who need to provide their consumers or clients with new experiences quickly and in purposeful ways.” 

This is all backed up by further data. In 2022, the University of Surrey conducted a study into online games and the occupations of people who play them. Not only did they find interesting parallels between certain industries and types of games, but they saw how so-called “soft skills” learned in games, such as inventory management, effective communication, problem solving and organisation, “could assist gamers with training that leads to a particular career path”. 

“The challenge and excitement is to give people the tools with which to go, ‘I play this game. These are the skills that I use. Maybe I could do something with it in my life,’” Barrie says. “I think when you only see games as a means of escapism, you don't look at the potential that they can have in your career. But games breed those skills massively.” 

Of course, there is still a way to go before the notion that the video games you play could make you a more appealing candidate when job hunting becomes a mainstream consideration – as Barrie says, “It’s a slow, progressive thing.” But with one 2020 study suggesting that nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population play video games, such a shift feels inevitable. 

“I’ve had lots of conversations with advertising agencies and creative industries, and where, traditionally, they would want a Russell Group humanities graduate, the clients they’re working with don't want that type of person anymore,” says Barrie. “The clients want gamified language. The client is data-driven. The client wants a more agile mindset. In essence, they want gamers.” 

While we might not be quite at the point where putting your Call of Duty stats or accomplishments from Elden Ring on your CV are enough to secure you a job, the shift towards the gamification of employment is just another sign of our increasingly gamified world. It’s something to consider the next time you pick up the controller. 

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