Chapter 14 – Saving the Real World
Conclusion
McGonigal wraps up her book’s final chapter by actually providing some worthwhile examples of games to help the real world. Unlike in the past, some of her ideas are realistic enough to actually influence the real world in the future. Her games in this chapter put certain interested individuals into situations where their objective is to try and find solutions for future scenarios. One of the examples is based on a scenario where the world runs out of oil and it is the player’s responsibility to think up ways to improve living in this situation. It wasn’t extremely far reaching, and in the beginning, many people thought up really dark responses and imagined the worst outcomes. However, as time went on, optimism started to take over and players started coming up with really beneficial ideas of ways to adapt and manage living in situations without oil. One crucial difference between this and McGonigal’s other experiments, is that the game is not meant to make life more fun. These are games whose purpose is to engage people so that they are more willing to put effort into a serious task. It is what is called a Serious Game.
Over the course McGonigal’s book is mainly dominated by the Gamification theme and most of her ideas are based around making life into a game. As has been mentioned before though, though some of her ideas in this field are a little too unrealistic. Later on, McGonigal brings up more Serious Games as she speaks more about the future of our planet and here some of her ideas really shine through. In her experiments, it is clear that there have been many successes when it comes to using games for inciting collaboration, simulating future scenarios, and for situational prevention. Some people really seem eager to try and make a difference. There is something interesting to be said about this observation. Whenever McGonigal tries too hard to make life or games fun, it just doesn’t seem like it would be appealing. However, when her games contribute toward a real life result, she seems to get quite a good response. I’m reminded of an old educational game called “Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego.” This game was extremely popular despite the fact that it was educational. Other companies put forth numerous attempts at educational games as time went by, but none even came close to the popularity. It was almost like an accident.
As I see it, not all games are what one would call fun. In reality though, they don’t have to be to be engaging. The players and participants in McGonigal’s serious games worked hard at what they were doing, trying to make life better in a fictional situation that could very well have been real. What they were doing was engaging for them and from their point of view might even be described as fun. McGonigal’s main mistake may have been in trying to make the whole world fun. Fun is in the eye of the beholder and there is nothing out there that is fun for everyone.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Monday, November 14, 2011
11/14 Reading Response 8.0
Chapter 12 – Missions Impossible
Chapter 13 – Collaboration Superpowers
McGonigal’s 12th Chapter brings up a new genre of games called Social Participation Games. It’s an interesting idea to try and give gamers the sense of an epic win through a real world task. The two games introduced first, The Extraordinaries and Groundcrew really caught my interest. The Extraordinaries is a great example of a way that the gaming attitude can be used to provide real good in the world. The defibrillator example was a cool idea and has proven to be successful. The Groundcrew idea was also cool to think about but it has some major problems. It sounds all amazing in theory, but in reality it’s a privacy nightmare. The game’s first function is to show to the player every single person in the vicinity who has a wish to be fulfilled. The people with wishes can also see all the people around them who are available for tasking. It’s basically a radar for wishes. The idea is innocent enough but knowing that kind of information seems a bit dangerous. Sure everyone wants their wishes to come true and there are times when a helping hand is really appreciated. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be able to get a latte when they really need one? People are still broadcasting their whereabouts for the world to see as soon as they connect to the network. The scale can’t even be compared to McGonigal’s Chapter 8 ARG example: the Check-In game “Foursquare.” Still seems like a Mission Impossible or at least improbable.
Chapter 13 of Reality is Broken doesn’t bring any really controversial ideas to the table. It more emphasizes again that gaming encompasses many skills and gamers who put in large amounts of hours are on the fast track to mastering those skills. The focus of this chapter was on collaboration though and that is a clear pick. These days, every other game has some kind of collaborative function integrated with its online multiplayer. For example, Uncharted 3, which was released this month, has both a split-screen online function as well as a Cooperative Game mode all in addition to its already impressive online multiplayer. Uncharted has received honorable mention on simply its single player campaign in the past and now they have all these new systems to keep up with the trends of today. Modern Warfare 3, another of this month’s hot releases has brought back the popular Spec Ops mode where two players can work together to complete missions both online and in offline split-screen. Game developers have clearly realized that cooperative action is a hook for gamers and McGonigal’s idea to use collaboration more often in the real world actually seems like a smart decision.
Chapter 13 – Collaboration Superpowers
McGonigal’s 12th Chapter brings up a new genre of games called Social Participation Games. It’s an interesting idea to try and give gamers the sense of an epic win through a real world task. The two games introduced first, The Extraordinaries and Groundcrew really caught my interest. The Extraordinaries is a great example of a way that the gaming attitude can be used to provide real good in the world. The defibrillator example was a cool idea and has proven to be successful. The Groundcrew idea was also cool to think about but it has some major problems. It sounds all amazing in theory, but in reality it’s a privacy nightmare. The game’s first function is to show to the player every single person in the vicinity who has a wish to be fulfilled. The people with wishes can also see all the people around them who are available for tasking. It’s basically a radar for wishes. The idea is innocent enough but knowing that kind of information seems a bit dangerous. Sure everyone wants their wishes to come true and there are times when a helping hand is really appreciated. I mean, who wouldn’t want to be able to get a latte when they really need one? People are still broadcasting their whereabouts for the world to see as soon as they connect to the network. The scale can’t even be compared to McGonigal’s Chapter 8 ARG example: the Check-In game “Foursquare.” Still seems like a Mission Impossible or at least improbable.
Chapter 13 of Reality is Broken doesn’t bring any really controversial ideas to the table. It more emphasizes again that gaming encompasses many skills and gamers who put in large amounts of hours are on the fast track to mastering those skills. The focus of this chapter was on collaboration though and that is a clear pick. These days, every other game has some kind of collaborative function integrated with its online multiplayer. For example, Uncharted 3, which was released this month, has both a split-screen online function as well as a Cooperative Game mode all in addition to its already impressive online multiplayer. Uncharted has received honorable mention on simply its single player campaign in the past and now they have all these new systems to keep up with the trends of today. Modern Warfare 3, another of this month’s hot releases has brought back the popular Spec Ops mode where two players can work together to complete missions both online and in offline split-screen. Game developers have clearly realized that cooperative action is a hook for gamers and McGonigal’s idea to use collaboration more often in the real world actually seems like a smart decision.
Monday, November 7, 2011
11/7 Reading Response 7.0
Chapter 10 – Happiness Hacking
Chapter 11 – The Engagement Economy
There is a clear problem with some of the Happiness Hacks that are presented in Chapter 10. McGonigal wants to use games to change the world, but some of her methods are so abnormal, they might only be acceptable in North America. She seems to think that what works in one place will work everywhere else. But different cultures will most certainly frown on some of the more extreme games. The most obvious example is Tombstone Hold ’Em. Her idea to use cemetery games to make people consider the value of their lives has merit, but the logic behind it is flawed. In America alone, there are many people who will find the games to be disrespectful or distasteful. Outside of America there probably even more who will be appalled by the game’s frivolous nature. The majority opinion remains that cemeteries are places for mourning and composure, rather than sites for fun and games. That’s not to say that this exercise won’t provide a positive experience for people. But changing the world’s opinion isn’t going to happen overnight and until it does, a game like this might not affect more than small percentage of the population. Not exactly the world changing revolution that McGonigal envisions.
The story in Chapter 11 about the Guardian newspaper using regular civilians to help analyze data is a very interesting one. It is a good example of how people are more eager to put forth effort when the work is satisfying and has a clear reward. Referring to Wikipedia as a complex MMORPG is also an interesting take. The rewards for writing articles aren’t as clear as in other examples but the reward of knowing that other people are making use of your hard earned information is a satisfying one.
McGonigal also speculates that the greatest success will come when people will put in the maximum amount of effort without compensation of any kind. This is a very optimistic point of view since money makes the world go round and will always be necessary. However, who’s to say that we won’t one day find ourselves working hard just for the intrinsic rewards? It’s not impossible but it seems to be a prospect that is quite far off in the future. Gamers only make up a percentage of the population, but as long as they feel that they are having an actual impact on the present or the future, they will continue to work hard. Perhaps when everyone in the world shares the gamer mentality, some of these ideas will bear fruit.
Chapter 11 – The Engagement Economy
There is a clear problem with some of the Happiness Hacks that are presented in Chapter 10. McGonigal wants to use games to change the world, but some of her methods are so abnormal, they might only be acceptable in North America. She seems to think that what works in one place will work everywhere else. But different cultures will most certainly frown on some of the more extreme games. The most obvious example is Tombstone Hold ’Em. Her idea to use cemetery games to make people consider the value of their lives has merit, but the logic behind it is flawed. In America alone, there are many people who will find the games to be disrespectful or distasteful. Outside of America there probably even more who will be appalled by the game’s frivolous nature. The majority opinion remains that cemeteries are places for mourning and composure, rather than sites for fun and games. That’s not to say that this exercise won’t provide a positive experience for people. But changing the world’s opinion isn’t going to happen overnight and until it does, a game like this might not affect more than small percentage of the population. Not exactly the world changing revolution that McGonigal envisions.
The story in Chapter 11 about the Guardian newspaper using regular civilians to help analyze data is a very interesting one. It is a good example of how people are more eager to put forth effort when the work is satisfying and has a clear reward. Referring to Wikipedia as a complex MMORPG is also an interesting take. The rewards for writing articles aren’t as clear as in other examples but the reward of knowing that other people are making use of your hard earned information is a satisfying one.
McGonigal also speculates that the greatest success will come when people will put in the maximum amount of effort without compensation of any kind. This is a very optimistic point of view since money makes the world go round and will always be necessary. However, who’s to say that we won’t one day find ourselves working hard just for the intrinsic rewards? It’s not impossible but it seems to be a prospect that is quite far off in the future. Gamers only make up a percentage of the population, but as long as they feel that they are having an actual impact on the present or the future, they will continue to work hard. Perhaps when everyone in the world shares the gamer mentality, some of these ideas will bear fruit.
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