Week 5: Class Reflection

In class this week we watched Jane McGonigal's totally awesome TED Talk on using gaming culture and game design to solve real-world problems. I've embedded it above in case you missed it.

The big connection to our class is that McGonigal sees the thousands of hours that gamers spend playing as building virtuoso skill--the same way that academic experts build skills within their fields. And she's right, I think. I'm not a gamer... I'd much rather read an epic fantasy novel than play one out in World of Warcraft. But maybe just because WoW is more about action than character development, and that's not my priority. As far as I can tell from my plethora of gamer friends, there's a huge amount of knowledge and strategy that goes into the games they play. McGonigal is definitely right, they're working hard. And there's no reason why those skills shouldn't transfer to goals beyond completing a mission that's only beneficial within the game. As she said, one of the reasons gamers are willing to work hard in the game is because it's gratifying... and one of the reasons it's hard to get people involved in humanitarian and ecological causes is because results tend to be subtle and abstract, and there isn't a lot of direct gratification for participants. People don't want to put their leisure hours to hard work unless they get some sort of payoff for that work.

Assuming that the world-saving games McGonigal previews at the end of the talk are as much fun as games like WoW, they're probably some of the coolest tools ever invented in the name of global change. Especially if the people playing the games are aware of what they're accomplishing. If they're not, this is basically tricking people into doing something by disguising it as "fun." Like in Ender's Game (great book, gut-wrenching twist). Or like baking one of those chocolate cakes that's made with beets to trick a kid into eating vegetables. That latter example is pretty clever, but it doesn't address the actual problem... so the method probably won't solve either humanitarian apathy or a distaste for healthy food.

The better version, and the one I think McGonigal is advocating, is that this sort of gaming provides a totally revolutionary new interface for performing these humanitarian/environmental actions. A good version would take into account everything she mentioned--fulfilling the gamer's desire to be part of something grand and rewarding, and taking advantage of their prodigious skills--in a context where there is a clear understanding of the real world goal of the game as well as immediate, visible feedback and at least a simulation of their successful results. No matter how much of a traditionalist one is, that's a heck of a lot more instantly gratifying than signing a petition (unless it's the anti-SOPA/PIPA petition... that was awesome) and it takes advantage of time that's already being spent in a similar manner.