Gamers know their way around lots of PC, console and online games. They expect there to be traps, dead ends, and prison cells. These dungeons usually are disguised by bait that lures the gamer into its lair. It's not discovered that they've traveled into a trap until they are inside and guarded from escaping. The way to get out of these dungeons is by cheating. Anyone who plays by the rules of the confinement remains imprisoned. The challenge is to find the loopholes in the propaganda, possible escapes and ways to effectively game the system.
A dungeon in a game resembles lots of what happens in the "real world": think classrooms, cubicles, committee meetings, social obligations and traffic jams. The rules being played by are confining, stifling, uncreative and overly conformist. They invite breaking the norms. They provoke non-conformist behavior. They ask for cheating.
Non-gamers may jump the conclusion that gaming breeds anti-social monsters. Jumping to this conclusion over-generalizes one facet of gaming and ignores the rest. Games involve far more than escaping out of dungeons. Most of the levels and challenges offer authentic challenges and multiple ways to win. Games offer a tangible progress, a sense of accomplishment and greater confidence for facing future challenges. Game designers know to not make the gamers feel permanently trapped, defeated or powerless to escape. The designers also go one better than offering cheap trills, contrived victories and shallow gains. The narrative, suspense, and significance of outcomes must run deep enough to gain acceptance of the gamers.
Gamers also form communities of cooperation. They compare experiences on getting out of dungeons and advancing to the next level. They share cheats, clues and strategies. This altruistic behavior does not dilute their competing against the game itself. They are teaming up against a common enemy. Each pulls off a personal victory with a little help from their friends. Competing and cooperating work well together, just like cheating and gaining competencies.
Gamers have the sense to defy senseless requirements, to escape limiting traps, and to creative valuable victories together. When these become social norms among us, the world will become a better place as a result.
Kia ora Tom.
ReplyDelete"Burglars know their way around lots of avenues, homes and corporate buildings. They expect there to be traps, dead ends, and (eventually) prison cells. These venues usually are cloaked in valuables that lure the burglar into the lair. It's not discovered that they've travelled into a trap until they are inside and guarded from escaping. The way to get out of these situations is by cheating. Anyone who plays by the rules of the confinement remains imprisoned. The challenge is to find the loopholes in the dogma, possible escapes and ways to effectively challenge the system."
Of couse, I have cheated. I changed a few (just a few) of the words in your first paragraph. Not that it wasn't well written. It was well written. But the words I changed were synonyms or analogous terms that would not necessarily alter the intent - the message that's being conveyed.
You will have already worked out the point I'm bringing here. There is a subtle difference between the gamer and the burglar. The difference is becoming subtler with the new technologies that are now online, giving access to the gamer. A well developed imagination might be inclined to cause the gamer to forget the digital facad and believe that it is, in fact, reality.
At that point, cheating takes on a new meaning. Is it the gamer? Or is it the burglar?
Catchya later
from Middle-earth
Thanks Ken. While you're blurring the distinction between cheater and burglar, you bring to mind thieves with the hubris to think their serving noble causes. The latest version are the Somalian pirates who are capturing cargo laden ships in international waters while thinking of themselves as their patriotic "Coast Guard". Robin Hood felt justified in his "robbing from the rich to give to the poor". So that 'forgetting the digital facade" has been going on before facades were ever digitized and reality was so easy to lose sensitivity to online.
ReplyDeleteHappy trails!