So my mind's running a million miles a minute after watching all those videos...especially the McGonigal one. Chris Anderson was fabulous too, but it was McGonigal that really connected to two things for me.
I've never been able to look at gaming in another light; my brother has done it for years (headset and all - I would've been interested to see what she had to say about Call of Duty in that Ted Talks as well),and I've always been that girl who feels that, when friends complain to me that they have to compete with a game for their boyfriends attention, she is lucky enough to not have to deal with that relationship issue in her own. So...I've been on the "too much gaming, not enough outdoor activity" bandwagon. I mean, seriously. 5.93 MILLION YEARS of WOW gaming time? What about the trees and the mountains, man?
So the idea that McGonigal presents kind of made me look at all of this in a new light. We've kind of lost the battle on this one; gamings not going anywhere (and has apparently been around for thousands of years, though I'd argue that sitting on your bum for hours on end is slightly different than dice or tag...), so why not embrace it in the way that she suggests? By using gaming to change the way we look at the world and it's "unsolvable" problems?
I think her notion of the Super Empowered Hopeful Individual is a really important one - and I think the reason I connected to her in that video was because of the word "empower." I did a big project on child marriage and girls' education in impoverished countries last year, and when I was researching solutions for what could be done about the situations in which these issues exist, the one word that kept cropping up was empowerment. Over and over and over again. If we can empower these girls to feel confident, if we can give them educational opportunities, we can empower them to change the way they look at problems in their cultures (such as child marriage), and it goes on. So empowerment, that hope that things can get better, is where it's at.
I agree with that. I believe it - but I believe it more so in countries where the event of child marriage is taking place, where education is a hard won right if you are born female. The issue then, falls over here. And when we watch videos like McGonigal's, we feel that empowerment. We get it and we want to help. The problem is...how do we sustain that? How do we sustain that motivation to change the world? I really believe it can be done. I'm just not sure how, quite yet, we can pull gamers out of situations like the ones Call of Duty or WOW offers, and put them into others games like the ones she used examples at the end of her talk. How do we achieve that lasting empowerment?
Hm. You bring up a very interesting point here. At the end of McGonigal's talk I wasn't fully convinced. As I've said in my blog and a couple of other comments, I think that this idea of creating a highly empowered individual based on the positive reinforcement of the gaming industry alone is a flawed one. I'm all for creating a confident individual, but I don't think this is necessarily the way. I think that positive reinforcement has a place, but I think that success in the face of failure can have more of an affect on confidence than positive reinforcement.
ReplyDeleteHowever, you point out that there are individuals in the world that have no confidence whatsoever. How can we boost their confidence when they have none to begin with? How can we give them the empowerment they need to even begin the journey towards happiness? In this light I can see how McGonigal's idea can have a great, positive effect on the world.
I think the questions you pose about how we may move forward will be essential to address if we are to glean any real, lasting benefits from McGonigal's ideas and strategy. I am not fully a believer that it is possible to initiate large scale cultural change through games, but I still have a couple ideas about how we can encourage the empowerment offered by McGonigal's form of gaming.
ReplyDeleteFirst, I think it is essential that we not try to pull gamers away from Call of Duty and similar games. I think we would be foolish to try to make gamers choose between McGonigal's brand of games and fantasy games developed by rich corporations who have spent decades developing products to ensnare users. Luckily, gamers do not have to choose. We just have to make sure that the new games are visible and appealing enough to attract gamers who may be looking for a new, different game to play alongside Call of Duty or a similar game.
The second approach which I consider vital to attracting people to McGonigal's games is to continuously insert elements that are rewarding and specific to the medium. I do not know what these elements would be, but they would have to be noticeable and shift over time so as not to become stagnant. In short, the games would have to have new and attractive additions not found in the medium of traditional fantasy games.
To be clear, I do not think that McGonigal's games necessarily offer these things at present. In fact, the advertising for the games has not been good enough to reach me before this week and I have not heard enough about the games to judge whether or not they utilize any particularly dynamic elements. With an approach that is not mutually exclusive and draws attention, however, there may be more potential in McGonigal's ideas than I currently believe is the case.
"I'm just not sure how, quite yet, we can pull gamers out of situations like the ones Call of Duty or WOW offers, and put them into others games like the ones she used examples at the end of her talk. "
ReplyDeleteThat's a strong point you make. I don't have a clue what the answer is. Yet Jane McGonigal gained some credence with me when she said (in a manner which was almost businesslike) that the new generation of gaming "virtuosos" (if you're on board with calling them that!) is a human resource in today's world. It's a shame not to try and make use of it, right? Right?