Gaming can make a better world

Well Adam, I really enjoyed listening to that presentation. She is a great speaker and if half of what she says comes true, we will be better off as a society. Very thought provoking.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go play my level 76 Mage on WOW.

borrrrrrinnnnnggg.

No thanks; I prefer to fill my life with old arcade games and attempt to live in the past when everything was soooo much simpler and way cooler. Rock On!

I love that site, check it out all the time.

my only question is, who the hell is TED?




























just joking  

Sorry to be a kill-joy, but that whole speech is just someone blowing smoke...

Gee,  a game designer suggesting we should increase our gaming time by 7x !!!  

Seems pretty self-serving to me...

But more importantly, I don't believe the basic premise of her core thesis,
that being that the positive aspect of gaming can be carried into real life.

There are no "Epic Wins" in the real world (or very very few anyways),
so anyone who caries that type naive optimism in the real world is delusional.

Also, I fail to see how the team playing in WoW caries into the real world.

The whole fascination about gaming is to ESCAPE the real world,
and not worry about the "hassles" of real life like education, family, financial challenges etc...

I could continue to rant , but I think you know where I stand on this one...



Steph

Quoted from Steph

But more importantly, I don't believe the basic premise of her core thesis,
that being that the positive aspect of gaming can be carried into real life.

There are no "Epic Wins" in the real world (or very very few anyways),
so anyone who caries that type naive optimism in the real world is delusional.

Also, I fail to see how the team playing in WoW caries into the real world.

Clearly, you haven't read "Ender's Game"....

I understand the concept behind this, how the positive attitudes faced in video games (such as the epic win) could maybe translate to real life confidence. However, the problem is that the reason why we're more competitive, more confident and more assertive in gaming is because there isn't the same "danger" as dealing with real life issues.  There isn't the same risk factor. If you lose at video games, you can always reload a game or restart it. When you're dealing with a multi-million dollar budget at a company (never mind trying to cure world hunger!), that's got a heck of a lot more at stake then your video game quest and a heck of a lot more pressure. Welcome to reality.

Pressure in the real world can be a good thing, as long as it is not 100% of the time. We need a bit in order to push ourselves and let me say, it feels good when you solve the issue.

Also should mention that "Ender's Game" is a great read! A book that is worth re-reading.

Quoted from McMean

Clearly, you haven't read "Ender's Game"....

Reading ?

Clearly that's not a life-skill if I can make the world a better place
by playing online games for 80hr /wk ...    

But I did see Avatar, does that count for anything ?    

Steph

Parts of it sound like she's read/watched Red Dwarf... and considering inventing a real Better Than Life game.

"There are no "Epic Wins" in the real world"

Well there are, but only if you cheat. (The rich get richer by any means necessary.)

"Positive Attitude" and "Confidence" and all of the "winning strategies" proposed by modern "Success strategies" are based on the willful suspension of disbelief (which applies in reverse to real life - i.e. in the light of reality we can prefer the implausible to the probable).  Think positive and you will attract positive. Beleive in the impossible and it will be possible. "The Secret." Believe in Jesus and he will save you.  It's all the same. There is some truth to it's ultimate effect (if you're lucky) but in a round about way it's all the same mind game.  The Zen Budhhists and British scoff at this, they just accept reality as it happens and are satisfied with whatever the outcome.  

Competition and challenge (even to the point of losing one's life) is seen as a positive human trait. The illusion of "life eternal" is required for it to work. We take advantage of it to get the thrill from dangerous activities like bungee jumping or car racing.  Armies take advantage of it by recruiting youths (i.e. those under 40 and some older fools who are willing to suspend their belief in death or who have decided to dedicate their lives to a greater cause (in fact our brain is specifically developed in order to suspend the acknowledgement of reality in order to foster competition to survive).  Without this "innocence" we would be defenseless against others willing to take advantage and vanquish us.

So there is no arguing that our subconsious "imagination" is a better place to live than "reality."  IF you treat reality the same way you do a game (i.e. take risks, enjoy the strategy, treat your competitors as enemies and your clients as vanquished serfs, and don't worry about the outcome) then you are more likely to succeed in your endeavour (and that applies to multi-million dollar company budgets as well).  Those companies that truly "beleive" they are the best, and take risks are the ones that both rise to the top of the heap (and, also, hit the ground hard in the end).

So as the gamer rises to the challenge with the unconscious notion of eternal life, so does the business champion (who suspends the threat of bankruptcy), and the defender (who suspends the threat of death and dismembership).

No guts, no glory.