This study from Canada is fascinating – research done by a fourth year economics student shows that being good at video games can have a negative effect on your income.
According to the Telegraph Journal in Canada, Ryan MacLeod of Mount Allison University did a study of gamers, which won him top prize at the Atlantic Canada Economics Conference. Says MacLeod, “my work confirms that, in general, the more income a person has the more time they spent playing video games. But that playing video games could also have a negative effect on a person’s income.”
In other words, you need to have a certain amount of cash to afford that shiny kit, but play it too much and you lose interest in the day job – a back handed compliment to the quality of games out there.
This sounds very high, but MacLeod found that every minute a game is played results in a 0.4% decrease in income. I am guessing this means potential earnings as your boss is highly unlikely to dock cash due to your game playing habit unless it becomes truly obsessive and you start pulling sickies!
However, the negative effect was only seen in men and not women. Is it that women gamers don’t get so engrossed and know where to draw the line?
At the same time, the Telegraph Journal does point out that there are other studies showing that games can make for excellent real life training. For example, World of Warcraft is even featuring in some management training programmes.
