It has always been a debate, an argument about what this phenomenon
called ‘Video Games’ has been, are and will be doing to the world. It has
always been an issue about whether it is an activity that wastes time for youth
versus it actually contributing in any better way. I will explore some of the
issue in this nature by looking at 3 different game designers that had a talk
on TED; Jane Mcgonigal, Brenda Bathwaite and Gabe Zichermann. I also will be
discussing in more details about a few games regarding this issue. Lastly,
looking beyond all that I will also give my view on the real question, which is
‘Can digital games change the world?’.
So first of all I’ll start with the talk made by Jane Mcgonigal, “is a
world-renowned designer of alternate reality games — or, games that are
designed to improve real lives and solve real problems.” As quoted from her own
website. Her purpose of the talk is to let people be aware that games are and
had been a growing phenomenon which had a large number of kids participating in;
as she explained in detail, ‘10000 hours’ are being put into playing games on
average to some of these people’s life, a similar total of hours applies to
years of educations and also ‘to be a virtuoso’. This of course raises the
question of whether or not it is a good or a bad thing to spend time on this
thing we call ‘video games’, which she tackles differently. Jane Mcgonigal
steered the interest to what we can get out of this situation; an its here to
stay so might as well embrace it attitude. One of the key things that she
mentions are as follow; the people that spent their 22 hours a week dedicated
to playing World Of Warcraft (WOW) which is parallel to having a part time job
are ‘Happier working hard than we relaxing.’ Which I think is absolutely true;
she dubbed this the ‘Blissful Productivity’ which is something that people at
work need, or just in general life; a positive look at problem solving, working
with each other while all the while it is a fun experience to be doing or at
least to make it not feel like a hassle and simply make it easier and a more
pleasurable experience; this is also backed up by a story about the Kingdom of
Lydia which uses a dice game to survive 18 years of famine, in short it ‘let
people escape real world suffering.’ as again quoted from the talk. So
basically games had been designed not just for fun, but might also be for more
noble reasons some of which Jane Mcgonagal had already been taking part in,
such as creating alternate reality games that simulates the world condition in
grim scenarios like oil depletion and how the people that plays it can
contribute as a whole and work towards a solution for survival. In reality it
is still just a bunch of people spending their time on an hypothetical
situations, however in a bigger picture these are the people that will help
solve real life problems which also brings my point to another talk on TED by
Gabe Zichermann, “He
is the chair of the Gamification Summit and Workshops, and is co-author of the
book “Game-Based Marketing” (Wiley, 2010) where he makes a compelling case for
the use of games and game mechanics in everyday life, the web and business.” as
stated on The Gamification Blog.
Similar to Jane Mcgonigal, Gabe Zichermann touched
on the fact that games are not at all useless or a waste of time, in fact it is
proven that games do indeed increases one’s various skills, reflexes or
multitasking capabilities for example. Digressing slightly, he even mentioned
that juggling for 12 weeks apparently increases brain matter simply because the
act of learning makes one smarter, but this brings this discussion to 2 points;
first which is the fact that we should embrace gaming as a tool or form of
learning and bonding, secondly it is about using ‘gamification’ on work; how this
can be used to again solve problems and even making money. To elaborate on the
first point, he touched on 5 things that is a key to problem solving; which
are, “seek novelty, challenge yourself, think creatively, do things the hard
way and network.” Which he then relates to how a good game is actually made,
which again is parallel to the other talk which also emphasized how it can be
used for learning, this also relates back to solving real life problems with
games. Gabe Zichermann touched upon ‘gamification’, which is basically applying
games to learn or help people learn. It can also help to shape society and
cleverly enforce rules such as in his anecdote about the speed limit that was
made into lucky draws. One of my favorite quote from the talk had to be when he
discussed about how video games are said to cause children to have A.D.D and he
said, “‘is it that our children has A.D.D, or is
our world too freaking slow for our children to appreciate?” which sadly is
true and it is not wrong to say that gaming gives the different type of
education that children need, but it is definitely not a negative thing if it
actually made them think faster and be more creative.
Another talk that I saw was from Brenda
Brathwaite, an American game designer and developer which talk is the most
relevant to what I’m about to discuss on some games. Brenda Brathwaite brings
up the question of whether a game is simply just a ‘game’ or does it actually
symbolizes something deeper, an understanding perhaps between people? Or cultures?
Or emotions? She explained this in a few ways and one of them is about a
baseball games; how the Red Sox won and how many people were deeply affected by
it even when none of them are actually even participating in it. Another story
that she had was about her daughter who could care less or even misinterpret a
black history at first but then experienced an emotional ride of the Middle
Passage through the usage of a board game Brenda created, this in turn affected
Brenda herself and her husband and was definitely a powerful experience for all
of them. She also then talked about how games can also bring people together to
share different culture and experience.
This brings me to discuss about several
games that I think are great examples of those contributions mentioned above.
There are many games that have already been applied to the Army or for political
purposes; flight simulations, driving simulations, live action battle
simulations; they are all simulations, make believes, games. Even First Person Shooter
(FPS) games that had been in debates of brainwashing kids to be more violent
and serves to propagate and get people to work for the arm forces; whether this
is true or not, the truth is it still does contribute to people that plays them
in many ways such as team based communications skills, hand and eye
coordination and perseverance in completing a task, just to name a few, this
could all always be applied to something less violent of course. There also
games that serves as a therapy or even to improve health like Flower by That
Game Company which is a very relaxing game or Wii-Fit where players can spend a
few hours on and possibly lose a few pounds in the process. Games like Metal
Gear Solid series, Mount & Blade, Grand Theft Auto, Assassin’s Creed, Way
of the Samurai series are all a source of interactive information on culture,
historical happenings and even the future itself.
Puzzles based games like the Portal
series or Plant Versus Zombies (PvZ) especially, are games that always start as
a simple puzzle and slowly evolves into a ridiculously challenging yet addictive
form of game-play. The cleverly paced learning curve allow players to get into
the game while at the same time not being intimidated by it like how some retro
games are for example ‘Ghost & Ghouls’ which is ridiculously hard from the
start; Portal and PvZ let the players feel good and smart for solving each and
every puzzle or level, which is also humorously mentioned by ‘Wheatley’ a
character from Portal 2, saying that it is an ‘Itch’ that needs to be scratch
each time, he is referring of course to the addictively-satisfying puzzle based
game-play. They even have a slogan that says ‘Thinking In Portal’, this
established that we are able to learn something new and perceive the world
differently and solve all these problems presented in the game, which is if we
refer to what Gabe Zichermann mentioned about increasing brain matter as we
learn, playing these games definitely did that. Games like Demon Souls,
Darksouls, or classic old school games such as Mega Man, Mario, Sonic, Metroid
and many more features levels which requires patience, determination and most
importantly limited amount of life to complete.
There is a Television series in Japan
called ‘Gamecenter CX’ hosted by their Chief Shinya Arino; this a show where
Chief Arino will play through some of the hardest classic retro games that were
on Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) or Super Nintendo (SNES) and many other
retro consoles, the goal is to show the audience the ending of all these
different games under a certain time limit. Although it may sound like a silly
TV show where you just watch another person plays a game, it does not take long
for any viewer to realize that the difficulties presented by each of this games
requires so much perseverance and dedication to conquer. On one of the episode
Chief Arino had to endure and 8 hour repetitive battle against just one
terribly difficult level, which he then managed to overcome and finish, and
that gave him such a boost in his later episodes saying things like how after
all that ordeal, one could pretty much endure and overcome everything; even in
real life, in other words, he leveled up, pun intended. These types of games
require players to be very careful, not to go ‘Rambo’ and mindlessly running
and gunning across the level, it requires precision, timing, focus and most of
all, patience, these games forces players to learn from their mistakes and not
to repeat them again. So it is only natural that in time, people who are
constantly exposed to these conditions will develop a personality based on
those positive aspects.
Then there are also games like, Out Of
This World, Journey, ICO, Limbo, which makes one experience storytelling and
emotional ride like no other. These are the games which combines the aspects of
being in a trip of reading a novel but having the visual impact of watching a
movie while at the same time it engages the body and mind like in a game of
football or chess (bar being as competitive, as the nature of these games tends
to be more about working with others and not to work against). It even inspires
musically; personally some of the game soundtrack I came across exposed me to a
bunch of different music genres, such as the jazzy, swing tunes in L.A Noire,
songs from different radio channels in Grand Theft Auto series or even simple
8-bit legendary tunes like Mario or the witty pop rock tune in Portal. Like
mentioned by Brenda Brathwaite, “it is a Powerful experience”.
With that, it brings this discussion to
the real question of whether a game can be persuasive and change the world. In
my personal opinion, from what I gathered, games are already shaping the world.
Video game is a powerful tool that if used right definitely benefit the world
just like what Jane Mcgonigal is striving to achieve. It brings people of
different status, races and backgrounds together. What is really happening is
that some people are not yet seeing this impact or are still in denials; still
seeing video games as that troublesome cartridge that you have to blow before
inserting it on the console and creates 8-bit visuals with cheap and funny
sound effects. Video game is ultimately a history in a form of interactivity;
each era and culture is defined by its technologies and products; whether it’s
the games or the players.
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