What is strategic thinking and where is it primarily used?

Strategic thinking is a form of thinking primarily used by the military but not solely by the military. One does not have to behave as a military leader to think strategically or have military agendas while thinking strategically.

What are games actually for?

I've noticed a tendency for many to think of games as solely for re-creation and ignore the ability of games to offer a form of excersize in enhancing and expanding one's cognitive capabilities. Poor comprehension of the English language along with stunted development of regionally developed languages (or just lack of understanding of what games involve,) have played a role in many seeing games as solely a form of social play without recognizing that games are able to provide exercises that increase the rate of activities that individuals can perform within given time frames as a group or by themselves.

I've expanded and refined most of my strategic capabilities while playing online multi-player games. It's much safer and less physically demanding than playing sports or making decisions as a military officer. Sports tend to offer team building skills (limited to number of players in such teams) yet very limited ability to excersize opportunities for strategic thinking beyond the range of moves that the rules of the games permit.  Military school would require certain cultural conditioning which may not always work well in consumer facing situations.

My experience with games expanding cognitive abilities of team mates and myself

Prior to playing online multi-layer games with a focus on strategic plays, I had difficulty grasping what strategy is, either because the instructors for the courses had low levels of strategic aptitude or were unable to articulate their knowledge of strategic thinking processes. My initial thoughts prior to playing such games was that I wasn't very capable of making strategic decisions.

It was only after playing multi-player games with a focus on strategic gameplay that I was able to grasp what strategy is and the thinking processes behind it.

Quite a few individuals I've met in such well designed games (that have social networking elements such as buddy lists, the ability to co-operate with each other as a team or against each other or multiple opposing teams) were in a similar situation to myself were they had unidentified aptitudes/cognitive abilities (strategy formation, decision making, ability to work with multiple team members) due to previously low opportunities to exercise such abilities.

After playing the games and achieving certain tasks set by the game designers (or myself as a team/group leader during either social or competitive events based on the members current capabilities and levels of fatigue,) the individuals had increased the extent to which they were are able to excersize such abilities and they themslves were able to recognize their own innate abilities. I've probably trained over a 100 such individuals indirectly while socializing and spending spare time on such social or competitive activities in online multiplayer games.

Games I've played which were instrumental in enhancing and refining my strategic thinking and relationship building skills:

• Ground Control 2 for over-arching strategy and team co-ordination:
  • Each member was able to directly control a maximum number of a 100 automated units.
  • Teams had 4 members which together had an upper limit of 400 units.
  • Ground Control 2 was more about crafting a strategy rather than building team co-ordination skills unless members chose to co-operate with each other and utlize their combined 100+ units while sharing an over-arching strategy and performing complementary tactical maneuvers to execute such over-arching strategies.
• Battle Field 2 for team and task co-ordination:
  • 4 man squad sized for achieving specific taks.
  • 16-32 man sized teams with multiple squads on each team that perform complementary tasks to each other with an end goal of winning the competitive event.
• Guild Wars for group member relationship building exercises and task co-ordination:
  • Sizes of groups can be as high as 100 or 1,000.
  • The largest size of teams performing tasks together is limited to 12 members split among 3 squads of 4 members.

Has playing well designed games benefited me outside the games?

Such actitivities enhanced my capability to understand strategic concepts, work better in teams/groups and also lead teams more effectively in professional/corporate environments.

Recent research material also clarified why teams and squads had a specific limit of the number of members in a squad, team or groups.

Some questions that linger

Can everyone perform in teams or in a group sized environments?

Can everyone lead a team or larger groups?

Should co-operations hold competitions that include online mult-player games?

Should certain games be included as course ware in schools that offer courses that require strategic thinking and large sized, team oriented course ware? 

Can games be designed to play a role in bridging cultural divides rather than enforcing cultural conditioning?

Note: Need to place references to supporting studies.