I'm a musician and a gamer. I also am making music for games.
My favorite RPG ever is Earthbound, and my favorite song in that game is the final battle theme.
My favorite musicians are Mr. Bungle. Followed closely by Naked City. Then Radiohead. Then Tom Waits.
I love tapioca and I hate creamed corn.
I like Taoism.
You can find my music if you google "Melodious Punk" because that's what I call myself when I'm making music.
You can catch me on PSN as snoogans775, I play Critter Crunch every now and then.
The gamer is passionate about their hobby. They can focus intense amounts of mathematical and logical data in order to defeat incredibly powerful enemies. Cooking Mama taught me how to make udon, and Ultima Online taught me how to treat people respectfully even under the harshest of temptation.
So, the question that may have occasionally scratched at the corner of the gamer's mind is "what am I really learning to do here?" You are using a lot of brainpower in order to find the blue key for the blue door so that the old wizard can give you 27 chrystals, and we gamers rarely have the luxury of a logical narrative to motivate us in performing these arcane tasks. The rules of maneuvering through the environment, and working with the NPCs and online players is a very complicated task which is training all gamers to do something very well. Modern sociology has nearly accepted the notion that all human culture is transmitted through our social lives, and only our survival needs seem to represent a greater importance to human beings. In this case, online gamers are some of the most socially active human beings on the planet within their virtual world, with much more opportunity to conquer complex tasks with other people than at our micro-managed jobs or decaying physical communities. It would be nice to imagine that all the time I've spent playing games has honed some useful part of my social ability, and that the virtual connections we live out through the internet are trasferrable to the real world.
Jane McGonigal is trying to answer these question, and she has a pretty sharp talk she recently gave at the TED conference
hmmm.... kind of like how Raven seems to have finally figured out how to defend their own map in Domination???
She makes some really interesting points. I do think that people that might not normally work together due to "real world" factors such as age, gender, appearance, nationality - when in a game and focused on a problem, they do often manage to work together quite well.
... while there is collaboration, positive feedback for a win, teamwork... and all those wonderful aspects - I don't know that she's actually played online or she might have mentioned the griefers and cheaters. Those are always around too.
Also, while gaming "can" be used as escapism from the real world and it's problems, it can also be very much a social part of the real world, not unlike going to a pub to play darts or pool with friends.
Interesting stuff that they are doing with games though.
I'm guessing you posted this before the front page did. Anyway, it's a cool talk with some great ideas and some flawed arguments. I'm at least feeling a little better that the front page commenters are starting to treat it a little more seriously instead of cracking achievement jokes.
I think one aspect that people are overlooking is that she's not looking to create a video game or an online game. She's just looking to create a game that happens to use the internet as a way to get players together and communicate. It's basically like a giant forum, and you're sure to get some people who don't play strictly by the rules. However, if even a minority of people play the game creatively so that some potential solutions come out of it, then the game will have served its purpose.
Destructoid is an open discussion community. You don't need to "audition" to post a comment - just speak your mind. We respect differing opinions on the site, so have at it. Be smart, funny, insightful, clueless, or cute -- but back it up with substance. Keep your cool, keep it fun. We only ask that you act respectfully and above all: don't be a troll and ruin it for everyone else. Don't bring down gamers or we'll, you know, gently shoot you in the face and stuff you into a flaming mailbox. Each comment is your opportuntity to make this community awesomer. Is that even a word?
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She makes some really interesting points. I do think that people that might not normally work together due to "real world" factors such as age, gender, appearance, nationality - when in a game and focused on a problem, they do often manage to work together quite well.
... while there is collaboration, positive feedback for a win, teamwork... and all those wonderful aspects - I don't know that she's actually played online or she might have mentioned the griefers and cheaters. Those are always around too.
Also, while gaming "can" be used as escapism from the real world and it's problems, it can also be very much a social part of the real world, not unlike going to a pub to play darts or pool with friends.
Interesting stuff that they are doing with games though.
I think one aspect that people are overlooking is that she's not looking to create a video game or an online game. She's just looking to create a game that happens to use the internet as a way to get players together and communicate. It's basically like a giant forum, and you're sure to get some people who don't play strictly by the rules. However, if even a minority of people play the game creatively so that some potential solutions come out of it, then the game will have served its purpose.