I ADMIT it, I love playing computer games. Since my parents bought me a Commodore 64 with a copy of a game called Radar Rat Race in the early 1980s, I’ve regularly sat hours playing games on my computer.

Whether it was Wizball in the 1980s, Civilisation in the 1990s, Half-Life in the 2000s, I reckon I must have played more than 1,500 games with many helping me to effortlessly learn skills that help me in life.

While still seen by most as wasteful and impractical in the real world, I’d argue that the games that children spend their youth playing could actually help deliver the skills to regenerate our city.

Let’s first go back to the origin of all games, back before the invention of the video game. In ancient Greece, the historian Herodotus wrote how the state of Lydia introduced dice games as a way to tackle a famine that lasted 18 years.

On one day, the people would eat, the following day they would play games as a way of ignoring hunger.

As anyone who has become absorbed by online gaming in titles such as World of Warcraft will attest, it’s not difficult to see why the ancient Lydians were more focused on a game rather than a burning hunger.

Now, the market for computer games was worth an estimated $56 billion last year, spanning consoles and, increasingly, mobile phones.

Game designer Jane McGonigal estimates that gamers globally spend three million hours a week playing online.

In all those games, gamers are quite happy to spend undertaking countless missions and often repeating a task over and over again until they achieve their goal.

In a lecture two years ago, Ms McGonigal noted that the average American schoolkid spends about 10,000 hours playing games by the time they reach 21 – as much time as that young adult has spent learning in school.

Coincidentally, 10,000 hours is also the length of time of deliberate practice needed to create a world-class expert in any subject, according to author Malcolm Gladwell in his book Outliers.

If that’s the case, argues Ms McGonigal, why can’t we tap the skills of these world-class experts and turn them to good use such as solving global problems such as climate change or obesity?

There are the common skills which games like to talk about such as developing hand-eye coordination and spacial awareness skills, but there are more general traits that can be a benefit to life in general. Don’t get me wrong, video games are first and foremost entertainment. But I learned more about the basics of business and profit margins from games such as Theme Park than I ever did from GCSE business studies.

I’ve often found that a great game can often inspire people to further research or investigation.

Becoming immersed in the world history game Civilisation indirectly led me to studying philosophy at university after years of being focused on sciences.

So-called brain training games also play on the research that suggest that certain features of games will make you smarter.

I’d make no claims that my experiences of Attack Of The Mutant Camels or Starcraft made me more intelligent than non-gamers, but there’s no doubt that the year’s learning how to play each new game can develop an attitude and aptitude towards problem-solving.

After all, learning how to complete a game can involve hours of failure yet gamers will repeatedly endure that pain in order to savour the victory at the end.

Developing that tenacious ability to keep coming back can be highly useful in many jobs, ranging from engineering through to sales and journalism.

The acceptance of games as part of mainstream culture is something which employers are now trying to tap in to. Which is what could benefit the city, and lead to new companies.

There are already small firms such as Astraware and Koko Digital which make money on the back of making small games both for entertainment and as marketing tools.

But then there’s the technique of gamification, that is taking some of the features which make games so addictive and incorporating them into the real-world.

So where 20 years ago people in the military prepared for combat situations in simulators based on the real situation, now those simulators build on teenagers’ experience of games such as Call of Duty.

There’s no doubt that there’s plenty of deprivation and problems in the city, which leads many to turn to games in the same way that the governors of Lydia used dice as a means of diverting attention away from famine.

But far from being wasters, the typical gamer is enthusiastic, optimistic and willing to commit large amounts of time and effort to an epic cause. We just have to channel it into making the city better.

David Elks is digital publisher of www.thisisstaffordshire.co.uk