• Top 10 Real Life Lessons We’ve Learned From Video Games

  

  Written by Zeromage 35 Comments
  Last Updated:: January 29, 2009

  Spending 50% of our day playing video games must be for a reason. Beyond the pure enjoyment we get from playing the greatest games of all time, there is the endless amount of lessons we’ve learned from the games. Who would have thought that you could learn real life lessons from an 8-bit game? It happened though when we played games as diverse as Super Mario Brothers to Master Blaster. Looking back, games like these changed us in more ways than just starting a video game website. They taught us lessons on how to live, and how to go about the world. In this list, we will go through these real life lessons that we’ve learned from video games. Whoever said you can only learn life lessons from school and books was wrong, these next ten reasons will prove it.

  10. Food can heal most serious injuries instantly.

  Playing games like Gauntlet and Castlevania teaches us that a big piece of roasted chicken can heal all of our wounds, and isn’t this the truth? When we’re down and out in the real world, we go for the more taste-able foods available. We go for ice cream and chocolates. But the heroes of Castlevania and Gauntlet went right for the main course of a Thanksgiving dinner. How they ate a massive chicken in quick enough time to fend off bony skeletons and bloodlust Vikings is beyond us. Hyperbole aside though, we understand why food can give you energy. You need your nutrients and even need your happiness by having your mind taken away from what your doing into satisfying your tongue and digestive system. Video Games taught us this lesson in spades.

  9. Much like you can’t go back on a screen, you can’t go back in life.

  In our favorite side scrollers, once you make a choice, you’re stuck with it. In the worst case like Ghosts n’ Goblins, if you miss the key element to beat the game, you pretty much can’t beat the game. What has this taught us? That you make your own destiny and can’t change the past when its over. If you let a bully beat you up like in Double Dragon, you can’t go back and take it to him like you really wanted to without getting hit once. If you miss a Mushroom or Star in Mario 1, you can’t go back to the block and re-hit them to have them come out. You better know what you’re doing in the present because you can’t turn back time unless you’re in the world of Chrono Trigger. Seize the moment. This is the most important lesson we have learned from video games.

  8. Just because you’re fighting someone with a friend on your side doesn’t mean that you won’t accidentally knock your friend out.

  In real life there is no option in for 2 Player A and 2 Player B. You only have 2 Player A. When you go to battle with a friend, just know that you could hit him by accident when trying to knock down the bastard who’s been making fun of you for the past month, and if you accidentally hit your friend, don’t be surprised if he gets pissed at you and starts throwing fists at you. Then you’re in the situation where you are fighting your friend while the person or people you we’re originally supposed to be fighting are beating on both your asses while your beating on yourselves. There’s no punches that just go invisibly through your friend into your foe in real life. Stick with 2 Play A mode when it comes to learning a real life lesson from a video game.

  7. Eat your vegetables and you’ll grow big and strong.

  Vegetables are often promoted for health reasons. The education that we we’re provided in middle school never motivated us to eat vegetables though. Seeing a walking piece of broccoli smiling talking to other vegetables hardly stood as a motivating factor for eating them. Play any of the Mario’s though and you would eat your vegetables like they were a full chocolate cake given to you for free. Everyone wanted to be Mario. Everyone wanted to be Mario saving the princess and maybe getting some action from her after she was saved. This could only happen if Mario appeared strong and big and Mario could only appear like this if he ate the mushroom that would oddly come out of cinder blocks. So this taught us a valuable lesson, eat vegetables and we will get big an huge and get as many women as we want.

  6. Always chase stars no matter where they lead you.

  Even if your dreams lead you into a ditch or to you losing your life, still follow them. Yet again we learn this valuable lesson from Mario when trying to become invisible. We see the much coveted golden star and chase after it even if it means falling in a ditch. It’s better to die trying than not try at all. Just think, if you can catch that star through all your effort and ignorance of the enormous pitfalls that may be in your way, you could be on your way to living an invincible life where your dreams have been fulfilled and are the crème of everyone else’s perception. Follow the star even if you have to start back at the beginning of the level, or in our case, life itself (presupposing eternal-reoccurrence of course).

  5. If you’re stuck in life and don’t know what to do, simply attempt to use every single item in your possession.

  As the title of this reason states, when you’re stuck in life, use everything in your possession, no matter how difficult the obstacle may seem. If none of them work, go back the way you came. You’ve clearly missed something. Collect as much items as you can that you missed trying to face the obstacle and go back to it. Again, use every single one at the obstacle. Who knows what will work? Maybe a mushroom you picked up will create a large bridge for you to cross over. Maybe the letter you found from your father was a metaphor finally understood when facing an seemingly insuperable foe. Whatever it is, any item may work in the most difficult situations.

  4. If you eat a flower you’ll just end up spitting fire.

  While flowers might have made Mario a superpower in the Mario series, it certainly wouldn’t be the same for a human being. Mario of course could spit fire and knock anyone out of his way except for hard shelled creatures. Us Mere non-plumper humans on the other hand suffer a different fate from eating random flowers. We tend to spit up something completely different; in our case the flower it’s self and some dry-heaving afterwards to make sure all the ostensible flower chemicals are out of our system. So while it may be misleading that because Mario spits fire when eating a flower, it is not if we can spit fire unless we consider puke to be fire. Either way, eat a flower, and something is coming out of your mouth.

  3. If you get banished from your house or town, do something great, like saving the world, just to spite those bastards

  In many of the classic RPGs the main characters would be banished from their home towns because of the magical powers that they had. The townsfolk, thinking that all magic was evil, would banish the young fellow from the town forever, or until they had saved the world from chaos. If you get kicked out of your house or town, go out into the world and become a millionaire like Warren Buffet, or a well-known philanthropist featured on the front cover of every news media front page. Who will be laughing last then? Will it be the simple townsfolk, or the glorious celebrity that will be remembered for thousands of years?

  2. With a little manual labor you’ll find gold coins in the most unlikely places.

  Many of the life lessons we learn on this list are from the Mario saga and for good reason. It’s one of the greatest games of all time and reeks of humanity at every level. One thing we learned from Mario was that if you put in the time and energy, you might just find yourself some gold. It’s much simpler for Mario though, who has the skull of a jackhammer. He can just smash his head into bricks and outcomes goodies all for his own taking. For us mere mortals though, the case is more difficult. We have to take actual jackhammers and radar detectors to find gold in hidden places, then we have to dig those places using every ounce of energy like an oilman looking to find oil. Whatever the case, Mario was a plumber by day (manual labor) and was able to find gold at every other brick. If we put in a little effort and sweat, we might just be able to find gold like Mario, maybe not hidden in free floating blocks though.

  1. If you are trying to get with a girl you like, just know that she is with a beast.

  How many of us in our high school years fell for that beautiful but attainable girl just to see that she was with some big ass dude with a 90’s fade haircut? For us nerdy video gamers, this oaf represented Bowser or Gannon. She didn’t really want to be with them but their brute strength captured them and keeps them under control. It’s your duty though as the benevolent and altruistic hero to save her from the oaf with an IQ of 75. Sure they might be big and might be strong, but you have the imagination and intellectual ability of Einstein. In the end, she knows what she wants; the smaller hooded hero with the golden heart.

35 Comments

1. #1 The Mountain says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 8:21 pm

   LOL. Great article.
2. #2 bob says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 9:31 pm

   i thouight this was “Top 10 Real Life Lessons We’ve Learned From Video Games”, not “Top 10 Real Life Lessons We’ve Learned From Super Mario Bro.s”
   idiot.
3. #3 slipknotix says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 10:31 pm

   . If you get banished from your house or town, do something great, like saving the world, just to spite those bastards

   Secret of mana
4. #4 TheMountain says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 10:43 pm

   You got it slipnotix!
5. #5 antarcticaow says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 11:05 pm

   aw, nothin like a boy with a 90’s fade…
6. #6 Gyb says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 9:21 am

   I think this is your best article so far, O-W!
7. #7 Osama says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 2:56 pm

   #1 is brilliant
8. #8 roberto says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 4:13 pm

   dear old-geezer.com

   great list. definitely one of your more enjoyable ones. one lesson i learned was you never take your games too seriously or u risk getting played.

   cheers
9. #9 Nate says:
   November 20th, 2009 at 3:01 am

   ¿Porque escribió en el español? No es necesario. Hableles en ingles por favor!
10. #10 Andreas says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 3:48 am

    “i thouight this was “Top 10 Real Life Lessons We’ve Learned From Video Games”, not “Top 10 Real Life Lessons We’ve Learned From Super Mario Bro.s”
    idiot.”

    In case you didn’t know, Gauntlet, Castlevania, Double Dragon, Ghosts n’ Goblins, Secret of Mana, and many more related to this list, are not Super Mario Games.

    idiot.
11. #11 Phil says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 3:58 am

    ^ Not only that but a couple of these made me think of Bayou Billy (i.e. #1 and #10) and Mega Man. Great games.
12. #12 Cap n' Kirk says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 5:24 pm

    Too much Double Dragon.
13. #13 Ape Shit says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 5:25 pm

    LMFAO!!! Great list.
14. #14 Meta Knight 293 says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 6:19 pm

    Nice list,it really helps!:)
15. #15 roberto says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:23 pm

    @Nate

    le escribio en el espanol para que es necessario por la google pueda mejor encontrar my tortilla
16. #16 volvosmasher says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 4:59 pm

    mario didnt teach us to eat our vegetables, it taught us to eat brightly colored mushrooms and everytime ive eaten red capped mushrooms i felt a lot bigger than i did when i was sober.
17. #17 Alfred says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:15 pm

    Goddammit! MUSHROOMS ARE FUNGI!!!!11 HOW DID YOU NOT KNOW THIS??? JERK
18. #18 bajuice says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:21 pm

    This was a pretty terrible, poorly written article. #4 wasn’t even enjoyable, let alone not funny.
19. #19 Burgerbob says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 11:21 pm

    You know, there are games made in modern times. It’s cool to be retro and all, but these blog entries all over the internet about stuff for the NES and SNES are getting tired real fast. I would think it more likely to learn lessons from games that have a foot in real life, even for humorous purposes, than ones about Italian plumbers killing turtles to save mushrooms.
20. #20 jas says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 2:01 am

    “bob on January 29th, 2009 9:31 pm

    i thouight this was “Top 10 Real Life Lessons We’ve Learned From Video Games”, not “Top 10 Real Life Lessons We’ve Learned From Super Mario Bro.s”
    idiot.
    ”

    he mentioned SEVERAL games, and there are screenshots from other games than mario bros.

    whos the idiot?

    btw, nice article
21. #21 Mario Bros says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:57 pm

    Dear OW. You guys are really ignorant. Do you actually call yourselves fanboys of Nintendo and youHAVENT FIGURED OUT THAT MARIO DOES NOT USE HIS HEAD TO SMASH BLOCKS BUT HIS HAND!!!

    Please read the following and see how idiots you guys are:

    “It’s much simpler for Mario though, who has the skull of a jackhammer. He can just smash his head into bricks and outcomes goodies all for his own taking”

    So in previous posts Cloud carrying a sword is not very real but a guy using his head to smash things is more plausible?

    You guys need to play more in order to call yourselves fanboys of Nintendo. Im dissapointed.
22. #22 mcgrimus says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 1:30 pm

    How about, when in a jam, just hyperspace out (Defender)? Maybe that’s too old school for you.
23. #23 Darius says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 11:39 pm

    Awesome!! Totally rocks and very true too.
24. #24 Grand hustle says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 11:15 am

    I thnk pipo dnt undastand ur sense of humour. If u hate ow, why visit the site. Go do smthng else. Ow, work on sum of ur work though, its immature. Ure knda funny, lyk funny grumpy old geezerz who do nthng bt drool over mario!! Sucker weenerz! Man, i love ow!!
25. #25 cheap wow gold says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 1:41 pm

    It’s helpful in a way, wow players should know this ^_^
26. #26 Mario Mario 101 says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 6:17 am

    Listen Bob,
    First of all, he could have wrote about just Mario, but he wanted to reference more games. So ease up!

    lol.. AWESOME article! I’m doing a speech on it! haha thanks SOOOO much!
27. #27 Yellow Bear - A Video Game! says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 12:06 am

    HAHA
    “With a little manual labor you’ll find gold coins in the most unlikely places.”

    Isn’t that the truth… I miss Mario.
28. #28 walmartcartpusher says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 8:09 am

    “8. Just because you’re fighting someone with a friend on your side doesn’t mean that you won’t accidentally knock your friend out.”

    Battle Toads Taught me that one…
29. #29 Gyb says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 5:18 am

    “If you see a red barrel or crate, just know it’s explosive.”

    “Know that sometimes things are impossible for you to not cheating, go with 30 lives.”
30. #30 Uhhhhhhhhh, pie says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 9:56 pm

    Maybe next time somebody is bullying me, I could find a flower nearby and puke on him. That would be fuuuuuuuuuuunnnnnn!!!!!!!!!
31. #31 George says:
    November 20th, 2009 at 7:13 pm

    The only few articles that are good here.