Games People Play
It’s interesting to listen to what people talk about: girls talking about fashion, boys talking about sports and video games. The specific details are usually a complete mystery to anybody outside of that particular loop, and necessarily so. People have a vested interest in developing such loops- it gives them an in-group to be a part of, with its own cultural rites, attitudes, and values. It makes them feel like they belong to something greater than themselves.
Some observers are quick to label such groups a waste of time, often neglecting to admit that they’re doing the labelling in groups of their own. We are all parts of such groups, whether we realize it or not. No man is an island.
It might seem silly from the outside, but from within, it can mean everything. An exaggerated analogy: Life would be absurd if perceived externally, but somehow makes intuitive sense from within.
I won’t try to explain why video games and football teams matter to boys- let’s just assume for now that it must, considering the amount of time and energy put into it. [1]
Philosophical head-scratching aside, reality remains as it is: lots of time and money is spent on seemingly trivial pursuits.
Can we make people care about nobler things, at scale?
I’m curious to know if the process can be gamed and hacked- to get ordinary people as interested and passionate about ‘noble’ causes that enrich our species.
Think about it- it’s spectacular how much work an adolescent boy puts into being successful at video games these days- it takes planning, practice, perseverance, calculation, teamwork- all of the skills that we need to survive and excel in the real world. Unfortunately, not many gamers get around to seeing life as the ultimate video game.
If you find the idea of life as a game to be a bit trivial, you need to remember that many gamers put more effort into gaming than living. I’m curious to know if non-gamers have any similar parallels in their own lives- women in particular. I suppose… identity management? Identity performance? Makeup, etc?
Games evolve quicker than school does.
Maybe the reason why games, fashion and football engage more people than school, politics or philosophy is that the former are more highly evolved than the latter. School is literally primitive and obsolete when it comes to holding a teenage boy’s attention, compared with video games.
Video games, operating in a free market, undergo far more trial and error, variation and selection. A mediocre game does not survive- it gets outdone by better ones. (A mediocre education system, on the other hand, stagnates. There’s no competition.) As a result, video games have been evolving at a tremendous rate. Far more people dedicate their time and energy to excelling at World Of Warcraft rather than academic study.
Gamers don’t have as many spokespeople and lobbyists to speak on their behalf, so they’re marginalized- we presume that this apparently undesirable allocation of resources is to be blamed on the incompetence of gamers- faulty value systems, maybe.
I believe that video game designers have a lot to teach us about the world. They have, through trial-and-error, developed an intuitive understanding of human nature that most of us don’t have. I would love to see the guys from Blizzard redesign our education systems, for instance, putting the student’s experience at the heart of it.
Notes:
[1] Assumption: If you voluntarily spend time and energy on something, it must matter to you. I suppose it might not always be the case.
This post reminds me of a TED talk about using gaming to solve real world problems. http://www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html
Enjoy.
Nice, thanks for sharing!
Interesting thought, limited application. Best not to generalise too much, though: I would sooner slit my wrists than consult a doctor, lawyer or engineer who trained on a video game console.
P.S How exactly do you define something as voluntary? you’re an NSF, I expected better from you!
I don’t mean to suggest that training should be done in the form of video games- I mean that when we engineer a system of learning, we should learn from the systems that are good at keeping people engaged.
Things like working in competitive teams to achieve objectives where the winning teams get REAL rewards that really matter- so suppose you’re in school or something, and if you and your team successfully solve a certain problem together, you get a couple of days off, or a pass that gives you the freedom to skip lectures, for instance. Stuff like that.
And hahaha!
damn! I tried to implement that in my JC last time when I was in council. People who scored A will have the freedom to skip lectures, cause seriously, some lecturers are just professional hypnotists. But sadly, my school is too rigid to accept that, although we almost succeeded in pushing our proposal through.
It’s an awesome idea, isn’t it? It’s something to work for!
I think it all comes down to the student’s motivation. If he can see beyond the short-term carrot-and-stick stuff like skipping lectures and what not, good for him. How are these even REAL rewards that really matter, at any rate?
People give 101% and beyond for things that they’re passionate about. You of all people ought to know that best. Engaging them with some artificial system of short-term rewards is damaging in the long run and breeds the wrong mindset in impressionable minds; for a country already starved as it is of creativity, the last thing we want to churn out are myopic squares who can’t see beyond the next recess break.
Teach them reflection and introspection, and to know themselves. Not enough of our country’s future do this, or even know how to do this. We’re pushed into being doctors and lawyers et al ‘because my parents said so.’ They don’t know any better. Teach them that there is a wider world out there beyond the fishbowls they inhabit in their cloistered lives, and it is theirs for the taking if they so wish. Only then will they be truly engaged and fully in control of their education.
If a man does not know what port he is steering to, then no wind is favourable – Seneca the Younger
I agree that it is fundamentally about motivation!
If you think about it, in a way, people who are motivated to get things done are really just people who’ve aligned their internal systems to be in sync with external ones. They’ve “mastered the game”, in a sense.
I mean, when I talk about video games, it’s reall about motivation. What is it that motivates kids to stay up all night killing dragons instead of paying attention in class, and doing their homework? And for the rare special few that go on to change the world- I’m thinking people like Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman and other trailblazers- they do what they do because they’re able to visualize how the little things are baby steps towards fulfilling their greater vision.
There are a bunch of principles that some have generalized out of it- I think I’ll talk about them in a separate post (or series of posts) altogether!
Things like “get out of lecture” are just intermediate ideas- the way I see it, we already have myopic squares, so if we’re going to be dealing with myopic squares, we might as well work with the flow rather than against it. But really, the idea is just to start thinking about incentives differently, because right now the main incentives we’re working with are things like parental pressure and fear, and those things don’t really work very much any more.
I agree about your final idea of self-knowledge, introspection- for me I define that is realizing your vision for yourself and the world, and then working towards achieving it. Passion is the ultimate key. I’m only offering intermediate steps because we live in a very pragmatic, results-oriented society. (Some kind of compromise lah!)
My favourite quote on the subject is- “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.” -Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
It will be great if education is as addictive and enticing as gaming. But sadly, even gaming itself has no guaranteed success in holding people’s attention. In fact, I would even say that among all the guys out there, only about 50% plays computer games. Furthermore, not everyone is attracted to the same type of games.
It is hard to merge entertainment(girls talking about fashion and boys talking abt sports) and work (such as education, self improvement, workout…etc). At times, work and entertainment can even be exchangeable. Some people work out to relax, while some treat it as a chore to keep fit, and for an unfortunate bunch, a torture they had to go through to pass their ippt.
It would be great if your future occupation is your favourite past- times. But I hardly doubt it. Even professional dota players had to find new forms of entertainment.
You’re completely right. The idea isn’t that gaming will somehow be a substitute of some sorts for education- but perhaps that we should at least think about how we can make things more engaging then they are now.
Hi Visa!
Don’t know if you remember me. Louis from VS. Anyway, I just happened to chance past this post and I loved it. Its basically my main obsession in life now, applying game mechanics to reality.
I agree as well that its not about making life a game, but learning from the systems and mechanics of games such that we can fully harness our potential. Yes, motivation from within is what drives people greatly. But even the most passionate person may lose drive along the way. External motivation then serves to keep you on track. Like how carrot-stick+discipline won’t work alone, passion itself isn’t always enough.
I believe fault lies in the very term “VIDEO GAMES” which makes people think of purely entertainment and non-serious leisure. We can perhaps frame our minds to think of it as interactive media, which I think may better serve this idea of gamifying education that you’ve posted, as this is what I’ve been framing my mind towards.
One basic application I’ve though of is a self-evaluative assessment application whcih incorporates into a school database setting. Think FB games that kids are so addicted to these days and switch the challenge to say a quickfire mathematical challenge, built with a results tabulation and performance tracking feature, that integrates with a school’s database. Accessible by students, each individual can track how they are performing as well as what their weaknesses are. Additionally, this “Game” feeds on the data collected on you and pitches problems that are at your “difficulty level”, allowing you to progressively “train” your “math skill level” and get better at it.
I’m not debating whether or not this is making our students homogeneous in thinking. I’m just thinking of a method to make the process of learning much more efficient and engaging.
In response to some skeptical views, many highly educated doctors and high-precision workers have trained on virtual simulations as a form of practise and trial. While they may not be “Video games” per se, it shares many similarities to the interactivity and level of engagement as some games. So I’m just exploring how much the more similarities can we stretch to make it better. I’m NOT saying that a doctor’s training should be fully based on some RPG with epic storyline and awesome UI and controls that make the doctor a proficient one. That would be lunacy.
Hey Louis! Great to hear from you!
And yeah, the idea isn’t that the doctor goes to “video game medical school” where you play video games to learn, but that going to medical school should be AT LEAST as engaging, fulfilling, challenging and motivating as playing World of Warcraft, if not more.
Passion has to be cultivated daily, and gamification is largely about the means in which this is done. n_n
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