Resources Technology Showcase 2019: Why gamers will be our future resource industry leaders

While gaming is big business these days — with pots of gold at the end of rich online tournaments for true savants of the world in games like Fortnite — the average player might also be set for a big pay day if they can persuade would-be employers of their transferable skills.

Once upon a time, common myth said all gamers were teenage boys sat in their bedrooms with empty pizza boxes decaying at their feet.

But as technology has changed, so too has the domain of the gamer, with the average age of players now about 33. The field is now also about 50 per cent female, thanks to the rise of smartphone platforms.

With driverless trucks, AI, drones, virtual reality and robotics already at work in the mining and tech industries — and looking to be further entrenched in coming years — it is not hard to see how skills honed in gaming could be a vital credential on any good jobseeker’s resume.

Skills shortages in the WA mining industry are already being predicted in areas described as “soft skills” and those of the “heart” and “head”. And the sharks are now circling among a pool of talent that already has such characteristics, according to UK tech start-up Game Academy.

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The firm is betting its future on the increasing need for “credentialisation” of gaming high-achievement and is pioneering a platform to help players get a job through analysis of their in-game performance and online courses designed to boost their weaker areas of expertise in the virtual worlds they enjoy.

Game Academy co-founder David Barrie said the mining and technology sectors were perfectly placed to take advantage of the skills gamers possessed.

“The average gamer is not a teenager who is toxic, is psychopathic, is sitting in a room, alone and unhappy,” he said. “There is an immense majority in the centre of society.

“Of course, games are entertainment, but very often in certain games there’s an immense call on problem-solving, communication skills, tactical strategy-making — literally making things” Mr Barrie said, adding players often showed immense perseverance and concentration.

“And also forming alliances and allegiances with friends — from the other side of the planet — to form teams to complete tasks.

“If you look at the skills of the future and what we’re told is going to be the future of automated work and remote work, and the skills which are going to be prized it doesn’t take you very long to start to see that certain groups of people who play particular games are harbour for that talent.”

In June, Deloitte released a report called “The path to prosperity: Why the future of work is human” which looked at predicted skills shortages. It concluded that by 2030 two-thirds of jobs would be strongly reliant on soft skills.

At the time, Deloitte chief executive Richard Deutsch said that despite fears that automation would mean a reduction in some workforces, people — and their unique interpersonal and creative skills — would be central to the future of work.

“How we structure this future, and prepare our workers, will say a lot about us as a society,” he said.

Lead author David Rumbens added the fact that today’s jobs were increasingly likely to require cognitive skills of the head rather than the manual skills of the hands wasn’t a surprise.

“Jobs increasingly need us to use our hearts — the interpersonal and creative roles, with uniquely human skills like creativity, customer service, care for others, and collaboration that are hardest of all to mechanise,” he said.

“Demand here is set to soar for decades, and this is actually a liberating trend. Much of the boring, repetitive work will be taken care of by technology, leaving the more challenging and interesting work for humans.

“This skills gap is significant, and it’s still growing. Far-and-away the bulk of those ‘missing skills’ will be those of the heart.”

“These are often the skills that video game players have — but they struggle to use them outside of games”, according to Mr Barrie.

Woodside’s intelligent assets program manager Russell Potapinski agrees there are many industries that could benefit from the skills of gamers.

If you look at the skills of the future and what we’re told is going to be the future of automated work and remote work, and the skills which are going to be prized it doesn’t take you very long to start to see that certain groups of people who play particular games are harbour for that talent.

He went one step further and said savvy firms were taking cues from games to make their systems more efficient, flexible, look better and more user intuitive.

According to Mr Potapinski, one of the things games did best was offer instructions as part of the experience and not in a long document meant to be read and understood in one go.

“Video game companies are successful (or not) on the quality of the experience they give the player. No video game has a written tutorial — all instruction is in the game,” he said.

“Engaging and challenging games need to intelligently present information to the user to allow them to make great decisions, without flooding them with a torrent of data that just confuses and reduces clarity of action.

“This is true of a game, or in the real world — what information and how a fighter jet presents information to pilots, or how complex control systems on a liquified natural gas facility present information to operations, maintenance and engineering staff.”

Most modern mining and resources firms are looking to increase the use of automation in their processes, building hi-tech remote operational control rooms to manage the big tech.

And when it comes to the joystick controls and touchpads being used in those control rooms, again industry was often turning to gamers to learn what works best.

“The gaming industry has refined its physical control systems to provide both intuitive and high fidelity control of the avatars in game,” Mr Potapinski said.

“And it is no coincidence that robotic controls use those same gaming pads.”

Deputy head of the Western Australian School of Mines Professor Chris Aldridge said firms were already starting to look for different skills in the graduates they hired and gaming skills were a bonus for jobseekers.

He said that in the past when industry leaders were asked to list basic requirements in graduates, they would go to the basic technical competency first.

“They would also place a high premium on the ability of these graduates to communicate, either writing good reports, or to verbally explain things,” he said.

“But in the last couple of years, the ability to code or deal with code is emerging as a third basic competency.

“At the moment if you look at the mining industry, and particularly at drone pilots, people working in remote operating centres, where of course game skills are highly sought after — the ability to multitask, deal with unexpected situations, creative thinking, the ability to stay cool and deal with emergency situations — that’s already there, the mines are already recruiting those people.

“And, of course, this is only the beginning, so if we look at the next 20 years, we’re looking at many more virtual worlds — and if you are operating in that world you need to be digitally efficient.”

Saying players were also often quick to learn and adapt, Professor Aldridge said almost all of his students dabbled in gaming.

“We may see games as a distraction, but certainly, apart from the obvious virtues of gaming skills at the moment, I think if we look ahead then (those skills are) going to become much, much more important than they are today.

”We can’t predict the future, but the trends are there I can see it coming.”

• Back to full coverage of all our keynote speakers
• More news from the Resources Technology Showcase 2019
• Everything to see and do at the free RTS2019 exhibition