[nosianu]

If you seriously play the game you get good at... the game.

Even within the same game genre that barely translates. People good at Starcraft I struggled with Starcraft II, people great at Warcraft made little headway in Starcraft II (e.g. WCIII players like Grubby or Happy).

Given that, claiming that things even further removed than those other games, which closely resemble one another, requires quite a bit of proof. It does not look like the skills transfer well even between similar games.

> while also prevailing in face of adversity.

I don't think we agree on what "adversity" is. You are just playing a game, and your brain knows it. If someone has the same brain reaction to the game avatar being in virtual "danger" to his actual body being in mortal danger than I'd like to see that, and I think most people would think that is not normal or healthy.

You don't need to defend yourself, if you had fun playing than that's more than enough. I don't understand why you want to drive yourself to seeing more in it than that.

[AlexandrB]

> Even within the same game genre that barely translates. People good at Starcraft I struggled with Starcraft II, people great at Warcraft made little headway in Starcraft II (e.g. WCIII players like Grubby or Happy).

That might be true if you're comparing the top 0.1%, but someone who played a lot of Starcraft would be miles ahead of any newcomer in both Starcraft II and Warcraft III.

Your example is like saying that a world-class sprinter would struggle to be a world-class cyclist. Yes, that's true, but the aspects that do carry over - cardio and muscle development - would immediately put them in the top 5% of the field even if they never win the Tour de France.

[svnt]

Maybe a world-class sprinter would be in the top 5% of the entire population who has ever cycled (not “the field”). Sprinting and cycling are so different you may as well be comparing snooker and darts and saying that wrist control is the determining factor.

[bnralt]

> Even within the same game genre that barely translates. People good at Starcraft I struggled with Starcraft II, people great at Warcraft made little headway in Starcraft II (e.g. WCIII players like Grubby or Happy).

Even being good at Starcraft I in 1998 wouldn't make you good at Starcraft I in 2003. People uncover certain optimizations and strategies over times that are quickly adopted by everyone, to the extent that playing the same a good player in 1998 would get you dubbed a "noob" in 2003.

[confidantlake]

It didn't translate 100%, but even a pro player in Starcraft1 unsuccessfully transitioning to Starcraft2 still played at an insanely high level relative to the general population. It was the difference from maybe being a top 50 player before to a top 500 player after. I would say that this is evidence of a very high carryover.

WC3 => Sc2 is a much greater leap than sc1 -> sc2 but still there was decent carryover. Grubby was still a GM or high masters player, even if he was no longer elite.