Sunday, October 30, 2011

Games Detrimental?

So I'm at on this high, seeing games all around me, either being played, whether the participants would call it a game or not, or potentially played. I go to the coolest game store I've ever seen, End Game of Oakland, where they not only survive in an urban core, but thrive, going vertical and offering a strong venue for game players. Then I watch this TED talk by Barry Schwartz where he decries incentives as the proverbial "carrot" in a "carrot/stick" dichotomy tempting leaders and others in fiduciary roles away from the just, right, and good choices.

What does this have to do with games? Well, games can change the world, as Jane McGonigal has thoroughly argued in her book, Reality is Broken, and others cited on this blog have argued similarly. Games do this in primarily two ways, either they provide a simulation of the non-game world, where a problem to be solved resides, which can then be played to find solutions, or non-game life becomes game life to steer us toward better behavior, such as the Prius automobile and the gas mileage display on the windshield encouraging better driving to reduce petroleum based fuel consumption. The latter comes about with incentives. You aren't consuming less petroleum based fuel because doing so is the equivalent of spending money to put carbon dioxide in the air and heavy metals in the water, but because it is exciting to get that short-term confirmation that something you did had an impact on something tangible, in this case the digital display.

Are games detrimental? Is there certain places, and certain ways, games shouldn't be?

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