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Gaming and Math

I went to Las Vegas for the weekend to attend SOE Live (Sony Online Entertainment). One of the coolest parts of the trip was getting to chat with some of the game developers. I got to ask the people that actually do the itemization, coding, programming, and really all the behind the scenes stuff that goes on to make a video game. I asked them if they use math in their job, and their immediate response was, "Every day!" They gave me some specifics that were actually things my Geometry and Algebra 2 students are learning or will learn this year. I was so excited to share our conversations with my students. It's awesome to be able to give them examples of people that have cool jobs that use math and that aren't rocket scientists or work for NASA. These are just normal people doing pretty common jobs when you think about all the video games there are out there. They use math every day. They have to! They use simple Algebra on a regular basis too. There was a guy I talked to who uses system of equations and simple solving for x to balance different characters, traits, and abilities. There was another guy who talked about how they use logarithmic functions for all their damage abilities.

God is a genius, and I love math : )

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