If spiders are having a bake sale, it’s in your best interests to buy something

I learned from several RPGs that using a skill a lot will make you improve it until you're actually good or awesome at it.
(Some others have taught me that if I get a lot of experience on a particular skill I might use it to become insta-proficient in another entirely unrelated skill. I'm still trying to figure out how to apply that IRL)

I also learned sometimes to take notes on stuff when the scope of whatever I'm facing is too big to remember at once.

On a less serous note, I learned that Ghandi was a pacifist only because he hadn't discovered nuclear weapons just yet.

Funny you'd mention that. I learned from Curse of Monkey Island that they might not be the best friends, but they're certainly amusing without wanting to be.

It doesn't matter if we leave *everything* behind in search of a better future, mankind seems to always revolve around conflict. #Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri

I learned valuable lessons on medicine from Theme Hospital. Pharmaceuticals make everything better and if it's swollen you just have to pop it :D

I learned history from playing Age of Empire games when i was young lad. Managed to help me win couple quizzes where others failed. Only times in life i actually won something with knowledge.

I think quite a lot since I'm an aspiring game dev so I hope spending my entire life in games is going to help me somewhat on my career lmao

You can achieve things you considered impossible and improve a skill more than what you thought you would ever be capable of. Learnt this from Dark Souls 2. In this game you get crushed repeatedly and nevertheless run back to the enemy who did it without being phased.

Played the CD trial version of Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors and was interested in learning about the Aztecs. Looked them up in an encyclopedia and was amazed to learn about the civilization, its gods and the amazing and unfortunate meeting with the Spanish. Been hooked on the game and on history since then. My profile pic is a Cataphract, one of the coolest units in the game and in real life.

I actually learned reading and writing English by playing parser-based adventure games from Sierra On-Line (Police Quest, Space Quest etc.) waaay back in the day (as in the early 1990s). When we had English as a subject for the first time in fifth grade in elementary school, I was way ahead of the rest of the class.

I've learned not to give up if the first attempt (or six) fails. Keep trying different things until you succeed!

the game : Hard drivin' (more specifically the sit down arcade machine.)

12 year old me learned how to drive a manual transmission thanks to that games force feedback sitdown arcade machine. it was great. as soon as I got my 1st car with a stick shift it all came back to me. I have never burnt out a clutch plate due to that game :)

Bits of history in games like Age of Empires, typing/reading skills improved thanks to Sierra parser games, budget management in Sims games (before I realized I could use cheat codes XD), delayed gratification in many games (waiting to sell for highest profit, or waiting to get to the best place to sell, not selling everything because it's needed later on).

Puzzle games helped me get through math, which was the subject I struggled the most with.

Games absolutely do teach things! :) Even when it isn't obvious.Even life lessons or solid messages. Very dependent on the game of course.

"If you're facing enemies, you're going to the right path"

In almost every videogames, you can say you're going to the right path if you ecounter enemies. In real life, you can say you're going to the right path if people tell you "You'll never do it", "Why are you even trying?","You're not able to do that". In the first case, you will complete the level. In the second, you will achieve something that they could not.

Enviness is a bad thing!

playing c64 adventures really helped me learning the english language in an easy way. i was playing maniac mansion, zakmackraken and many others in english language (mostly because we only had the english "original" ;) with the help of a small english-german dictionary. that was when i was 10 / 11. so later i didnt really have to learn for most english vocabulary tests in school ... win win ;)

Building design and maintenance.  While it's certainly not a 1:1 translation lots of the fundamentals do carry over when answering questions like "why put drinking fountains by the bathroom all the time?" or "what's the purpose of having a flight of stairs that goes above the top floor?" or "why is there water coming out of that wall?" having spent a lot of time with design and management games gives me a good grounding in picturing things beyond what's right in front of me and considering them in a systemic rather than piecemeal context.

After playing lots of strategy games, I've learned that rushing forward may sometimes work, but to stop, think and plan ajead usually gives better results.