Can Gaming Lead You to a Career?

Have you ever played a video game and thought, “I could SO do that in real-life.”, but never actually attempt it? It could be something that requires real skill, like scaling a building, jumping from one roof top to the next, or something little more realistic, like racing. Of course, even if you master something inside of a video game, it means absolutely nothing in the real world. Even as far as racing goes, a steering wheel is not the same as a gamepad.

In the opposite instance, if you happen to be involved in something like racing, or have fought in a war, then playing a game based around that same premise probably isn’t going to be too enticing. But what about the vice versa? It’s not too often, if ever, that someone gets so good at a video game that it leads them to a career, but for Lucas Ordoñez, a Spanish student, his passion for racing and racing video games worked out to his favor.

Lucas is a hardcore Gran Turismo fan. That stems from the fact that racing is in his blood, and when the opportunity came to enter an official competition that pitted 25,000 gamers against each other, he knew he had to give it a go. The grand prize? A chance to race real GTA car on an official circuit. The amazing thing? Lucas ended up winning one of the first races he partook in, which is incredible, because racing is not something you learn that quickly. It takes a lot of skill, and time to learn all of the tricks.

Simply playing Gran Turismo doesn’t make you an all-star racer, but it’s clear that the realism that the gameplay offers does pay off in the end, if your goal is to go out racing yourself. The game’s are tuned for realism, and even each individual car is looked at from all angles to make sure it matches the handling of the real-life version. So who knows? If you keep playing Gran Turismo, you might just get into a real race car some day. And if not, the game is still a blast anyway!

During the later months of 2008, Ordoñez continued to work on his MBA during the week, while in the times he wasn’t studying, he was getting fit in Madrid with a personal trainer, undergoing the gruelling physical training necessary to be a professional driver (and tolerate the large G-forces). On weekends, Ordoñez participated in a number of smaller European races to gain his international race drivers ‘C’ licence, which stipulates a mandatory amount of track time at national certified tracks.