This blog is for the students and the instructors (Professor John C. Henderson and myself) to continue the conversations on the role of information technology in modern corporations at Boston University. Please feel free to join the conversation by commenting on our posts and discussions.
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Friday, October 1, 2010
Playing Video Games to Make the World a Better Place?
Take a look at this video from a recent TED talk. . Love to get your reactions.
While I understand what she is getting at, I think that it's incredibly irresponsible for us in the US to promote the kind of growth in hours of gaming that she is suggesting. Currently, according to her numbers we have 500 million heavy gamers worldwide and the US has 174 million of them - that's 35% of all the world's heavy gamers. It is no surprise to me that with those kinds of numbers the US has some of the worlds highest childhood obesity numbers and the quality of children's educations and their testing scores are deteriorating.
While she believes that gaming creates a world where people are equally matched and anything is possible, and this promotes their feeling of empowerment, it's not a realistic impression to give people and children. There are few real-life situations where children will always be "perfectly matched" with those around them, or where "nothing is impossilbe" or, for that matter, where "everyone is willing to work with you to achieve your goal". I think it's more relevant and valuable to teach children people skills to show them how to get other to WANT to work with them and how to manage those people through adversity because they will not always have the ideal situation to work in.
After watching that video, I agree with Rehana in saying that the amount of hours the speaker expects gamers to play videogames a year in order to boost productivity in the world is just absurd. However, I think it is possible to attain some valuable information through games, like the ones she helped create, from gamers. For example, if enough people play games that try to solve issues of world hunger, there are bound to be a few good ideas.
Yet, the main problem is basic: games exist in order to steer people away from the real world. People wouldn't want to play games that resemble everyday problems because they face those in the real world. The only games based on real world problems which may interest gamers are ones based on incredibly high level problems (world hunger, war, poverty, etc.) Unfortunately, these are the types of issues where the likelihood of gamers providing good real world solutions is the least likely, since they usually are far removed from such issues. Thus, the issues gamers might be able to solve are issues they don't want to deal with in games because they are too close to home, and the issues they may want to solve are issues that they are so far removed from that their solutions would most likely be unrealistic.
His talk was similar to this one, but his argument was that this decade has been that of social networks, and the next will be the decade of influence--we've built the social layer and now it's time to build the game layer. The premise is that there are seven different game dynamics that are the tools for building the layer.
He goes into detail about 4 of the 7, and it seems that ultimately the takeaway is that by using games we can influence people's bahaviors--for fun, but also for good. For example, he talks about the Progression Dynamic, and how when faced with a progression bar, people will do whatever they can to complete the task (for instance, the % complete bar for your LinkedIn profile). He linked this with an iPhone app that drives traffic to local business and supports the local economy. By engaging with the business, you move the progression bar and eventually earn a reward--good for you, good for the business, good for your city.
The ideas in this talk seem a bit more practical to me in terms of accomplishing change. It's not asking people to spend time playing games, but rather influencing their behavior using games they already play. If someone shops at a socially responsible, local store rather than the bigbox retailer as a result of a game on their iPhone, I consider that a win. Perhaps McGonigal's ideas are the big vision that we can all work to, but we get there with Priebatch's smaller steps.
While I understand what she is getting at, I think that it's incredibly irresponsible for us in the US to promote the kind of growth in hours of gaming that she is suggesting. Currently, according to her numbers we have 500 million heavy gamers worldwide and the US has 174 million of them - that's 35% of all the world's heavy gamers. It is no surprise to me that with those kinds of numbers the US has some of the worlds highest childhood obesity numbers and the quality of children's educations and their testing scores are deteriorating.
ReplyDeleteWhile she believes that gaming creates a world where people are equally matched and anything is possible, and this promotes their feeling of empowerment, it's not a realistic impression to give people and children. There are few real-life situations where children will always be "perfectly matched" with those around them, or where "nothing is impossilbe" or, for that matter, where "everyone is willing to work with you to achieve your goal". I think it's more relevant and valuable to teach children people skills to show them how to get other to WANT to work with them and how to manage those people through adversity because they will not always have the ideal situation to work in.
After watching that video, I agree with Rehana in saying that the amount of hours the speaker expects gamers to play videogames a year in order to boost productivity in the world is just absurd. However, I think it is possible to attain some valuable information through games, like the ones she helped create, from gamers. For example, if enough people play games that try to solve issues of world hunger, there are bound to be a few good ideas.
ReplyDeleteYet, the main problem is basic: games exist in order to steer people away from the real world. People wouldn't want to play games that resemble everyday problems because they face those in the real world. The only games based on real world problems which may interest gamers are ones based on incredibly high level problems (world hunger, war, poverty, etc.) Unfortunately, these are the types of issues where the likelihood of gamers providing good real world solutions is the least likely, since they usually are far removed from such issues. Thus, the issues gamers might be able to solve are issues they don't want to deal with in games because they are too close to home, and the issues they may want to solve are issues that they are so far removed from that their solutions would most likely be unrealistic.
I attended TEDxBoston last July and saw a presentations by Seth Priebatsch, Chief Ninja at SCVNGR, that also dealt with gaming.
ReplyDelete(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpGFugASAXw&feature=player_embedded)
His talk was similar to this one, but his argument was that this decade has been that of social networks, and the next will be the decade of influence--we've built the social layer and now it's time to build the game layer. The premise is that there are seven different game dynamics that are the tools for building the layer.
He goes into detail about 4 of the 7, and it seems that ultimately the takeaway is that by using games we can influence people's bahaviors--for fun, but also for good. For example, he talks about the Progression Dynamic, and how when faced with a progression bar, people will do whatever they can to complete the task (for instance, the % complete bar for your LinkedIn profile). He linked this with an iPhone app that drives traffic to local business and supports the local economy. By engaging with the business, you move the progression bar and eventually earn a reward--good for you, good for the business, good for your city.
The ideas in this talk seem a bit more practical to me in terms of accomplishing change. It's not asking people to spend time playing games, but rather influencing their behavior using games they already play. If someone shops at a socially responsible, local store rather than the bigbox retailer as a result of a game on their iPhone, I consider that a win. Perhaps McGonigal's ideas are the big vision that we can all work to, but we get there with Priebatch's smaller steps.