Soft skills remain fundamental for employability and sustainable human development in an increasingly technology-driven society. These interpersonal and cognitive competencies—such as communication, adaptability, and critical thinking—represent uniquely human capabilities that current Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems cannot replicate. However, assessing and developing these skills consistently remains a challenge due to the lack of standardized evaluation frameworks. This study explores the potential of commercial video games as engaging environments for soft skills enhancement and introduces an AI-based assessment methodology to quantify such improvement. Using player data collected from the Steam platform, we designed and validated an AI model based on Gradient Boosting Regressor (GBR) to estimate participants’ soft skill progression. The model achieved high predictive performance (R² ≈ 0.9; MAE/RMSE ≈ 1), demonstrating strong alignment between gameplay behavior and soft skill improvement. The results highlight that video game-based data analysis can provide a reliable, non-intrusive alternative to traditional testing methods, reducing test-related anxiety while maintaining assessment validity. This approach supports the integration of video games into educational and professional training frameworks as a scalable and data-driven tool for soft skills development.

Esports have had a tremendous evolution since the commencement of the amateur video game tournaments. With over 75 million players, Rocket League has emerged as one of the most popular video games. In this chapter, the authors will expose a hypothetical bibliography-based model of the impact of this video game on the players' soft skills development trying to connect the relation between Rocket League and the potential development of numerous soft skills such as coordination with others or goal setting, amongst others. Soft skills are gaining relevance in the academic and professional sector since they are becoming of high value for professional profile differentiation. Rocket League, amongst other video games, may resolve into the perfect and engaging soft skills-enhancing instrument to assemble the training needs of current students and professionals, as explained in the examples of educational applications of Rocket League.

The preconceived notion concerning negative effects of video games and students' academic performance is a widely known subject. However, some investigations explore the positive impact of video games on academic performance. With a sample of 247 university students, this chapter studies the perception of both gamers and non-gamers about soft skills and their current relevance in academic and professional fields. The possible relationships linking the intensity of the usage of video games, academic performance, and the perception concerning soft skills are investigated. The results expose a generalized positive perception respecting the relation between video games and the development of soft skills, specifically to the video game genre and its relevance and influence on academic performance, as well as gender differences, where women prevail in emotional and social managements, although this influence is not elevated.

Karen Samso, Ihmaculada Rodriguez, Anna Puig, Dolça Tellols, Flavio Escribano & Sergio Alloza