Just finished reading Janet McGonigal recently published ‘Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make U Better and How They Change the World’.
This book raises the possibility of the application of gaming to any/all facets of our lives. Where will it end? Is this a good direction?
I have observed family and friends of all ages engrossed (?obsessed) with game playing for as long as I can remember. Absorption in a strategy game removing all sense of time or responsiblity. complete focus on an alternate reality. I have no dought the potential power of games…
"Games developers know better than anyone else how to inspire extreme effort and reward hard work. They know how to facilitate cooperation and collaboration at previously unimaginable scales. And they are continuously innovating new ways to motivate players to stick with harder challenges, for longer, and in much bigger groups. These crucial twenty-first-century skills can help all of us find new ways to make a deep and lasting impact on the world around us.
Game design isn’t just a technological craft. It’s a twenty-first-century way or thinking and leading, and gameplay isn’t just a pastime. It’s a twenty-first-century way of working together to accomplish real change.
And
“If we take everything game developers have learned about optimising human experience and organizing collaborative communities and apply it to real life… I foresee games that reduce our stress at work and dramatically increase our career satisfaction. I foresee games that fix our educational systems. I foresee games that treat depression, obesity, anxiety, and attention deficit disorder. I foresee games that help the elderly feel engaged and socially connected. I foresee games that raise rates of democratic participation. I foresee games that tackle global-scale problems like climate change and poverty. In short, I foresee games that augment our most essential human capabilities … to be happy, resilient, creative, and empower us to change the world in meaningful ways - Such games are already coming into existence.”
"We need to build hybrid industries and unconventional partnerships, so that game researchers and game designers and game developers can work with engineers and architects and policy makers and executives of all kinds to harness the power of games.
Finally but most importantly, we all need to develop our core game competencies so we can take an active role in changing our lives and enabling the future."
Back in my truck loading days, I packed trucks better than anyone in the company. I’d like to attribute that to my countless hours spent playing tetris.
[quote]postholedigger wrote:
Back in my truck loading days, I packed trucks better than anyone in the company. I’d like to attribute that to my countless hours spent playing tetris.[/quote]
LOL! This reminds me of the episode of Seinfeld where George is trying to cross a busy road using skills acquired from playing year’s of Frogger.
