10/16 Reading Response 4.0

Chapter 4 – Fun Failure and Better Odds of Success
Chapter 5 – Stronger Social Connectivity

In Chapter 4, McGonigal presents Fix #4: Better Hope of Success.
“Compared with games, reality is hopeless. Games eliminate our fear of failure and improve our chance for success.”

Apparently gamers find most of their satisfaction not from the complete victory of conquering a game, but by the numerous failures it takes to get there. I’m not sure I totally agree. The studies and experiments may reveal that our bodies and brains react in the same ways, but can it really be said that we relish the actual failure?

Like McGonigal says, the fact that the failure of a game has no bearing on our real lives would definitely make it less of a blow to our ego, but failure in a game is still failure and I personally find it just as unacceptable as I would a failure in real life. However, the fact that gamers are free to retry as many times as they want must be a factor. They also are usually able to feel deep down that they have gotten better. If it’s not evident in a progress bar or percentage (such as in Rock Band) then they will at least be able to see that they got farther. Perhaps they find joy in the realization that they have not actually failed, but merely been temporarily set back. They know instinctively that they will do better next time or possibly even achieve the complete success that they have been going for this whole time. I think it is these factors that accompany failure that really make it fun for gamers. They simply outweigh the negative feeling of defeat.

Fix #5: Stronger Social Connectivity.
“Compared with games, reality is disconnected. Games build stronger social bonds and lead to more active social networks. The more time we spend interacting within our social networks, the more likely we are to generate a subset of positive emotions known as prosocial emotions.”

It’s completely true that reality is disconnected. As life goes on, it becomes harder and harder to communicate and spend time with friends we’ve made over the years. They change classes, move away, and suddenly the people who have walked beside you all this time are somewhere else on the road.

Facebook put a change to that. It wasn’t completely successful on its own though, since people still had to put time and effort into reaching out to their acquaintances. Games were the final factor. They are interesting and allow for easy-going communication with just about anyone. The conversation might not even be relevant but it is still time that puts you both back on the same page, even for a moment. Having changed schools and moved any number of times, I can say that keeping in touch is hard. On a university student’s schedule, trying to match up your day to someone else’s in order to find time to meet up and kick back is damn near impossible. It is much easier to just meet up with friends in an online game. Facebook brought about the advent of games that could be played on a person’s own time. It no longer mattered if both people were in the room at the same time. But it is just as easy to play games with other online friends live in a game like Call of Duty, chatting and laughing through Bluetooth headsets. People I have met through online games like that have become very good friends, due to the endless nights spent working together trying to prove our superiority. Our friendship and trust in he other’s skills allows us to connect through other games too. Friends like that last, even if you hardly ever meet face to face.