Play Life and Live Games

[Littaly]

I read the text content of The Escapist way too seldom. There's often a lot of interesting stuff there ^^ Like this:

You had no interest in staying in touch with your second-best friend from third grade, or your distant cousin Jones, or that guy you met at the networking mixer last Thursday. What was lacking was not the means and method of communication, but the motivation to do so. What social networking did was frame it all as a game. Now it was not just about getting and staying in touch. It was about having other people see how much and how often you get and stay in touch, and how many other people think it's important to get and stay in touch with you. You may not care if you talk to your mother in law. But if you get points for talking to your mother in law, suddenly an email on Mother's Day seems like a good idea.

I never thought about it that way, but it's true

 

[Cousin_IT]

Bah! I was hoping that badge link would be a rickroll

We are all just rats, running around in mazes, doing anything the scientist tells us to if it results in a bit of cheese

 

[coldfrog]

What fires me up is that everyone who got the badge is putting it in their profile!

The ONLY reason I haven't put it in my profile yet is that I'm still struggling against retaining my Pac-man themed badge setup. I suppose I could swap them out.

Good article, very true to what has become the game of Life.

Edit: I gave in to it!

 

[Kollega]

Well, the Escapist does have a game part to it - you do get badges, titles - in short, recognition - for participating. But really good idea is to integrate gaming in everyday life - getting points and achievements for mundane tasks, then bragging about them on the 'Net would be one hell of a motivator. That way i could actually get neccesary stuff done and dedicate more time to art.

Also yay, new badge! Try to read the message i've laid out in badges.

 

[Zombie_Fish]

As far as life being a game, it doesn't really work since there's no end that can be reached and a winner declared. It's a competition, for sure, but not a game.

If that is the definition of a game then I doubt The Escapist would count as one. Whilst The Escapist could reach an end quite easily, I don't think they would declare a winner. They could say who has the highest post count/ most badges/ most friends etc., but to declare an overall winner to The Escapist? Seeing as so many people wouldn't even think of this as a game, I think it would be a bit extreme to say that someone's a winner of the site.

Then again, I have no idea what's going on in Archon's mind. So anything's possible, I guess.

 

[randommaster]

As far as life being a game, it doesn't really work since there's no end that can be reached and a winner declared. It's a competition, for sure, but not a game.

If that is the definition of a game then I doubt The Escapist would count as one. Whilst The Escapist could reach an end quite easily, I don't think they would declare a winner. They could say who has the highest post count/ most badges/ most friends etc., but to declare an overall winner to The Escapist? Seeing as so many people wouldn't even think of this as a game, I think it would be a bit extreme to say that someone's a winner of the site.

Then again, I have no idea what's going on in Archon's mind. So anything's possible, I guess.

I think I hit the post button a little too soon. Games need to have some kind of way to measure progress/success, like post counts or badges. Life doesn't have these, or at least not a standard for success that everyone agrees upon that can be seen by everyone else. Since the Escapist doesn't have a way to win, it's not really a game, either, but the ability to see everybody else's score/achievements and compare them to yours makes it very game-like. All it's missing is an end. Life, on the other hand, doesn't have an agreed upon way to keep score. Wealth is often used, but you generally can't get exact numbers whenever you want, so keeping score becaomes difficult, if not impossible.

I'll end that though there before I start using any more commas.

 

[BloodyOne]

Very well put. My friend is writing a paper on social networking, I should link her to this.

 

[Razer_uk]

Thought provoking... Not really considered sites like Facebook or even this as a game. Though I have thought life could do with something like achievements. Give you some clear goals and if they were visible to others, allows people to see what you are like.

These badges are giving me an ethical quandry though: I used to come to this site just for Zero Punctuation, then started watching Unskippable too. Then I started reading the news stories (one advantage of being the only worker in a store: more skiving. ) and only when I saw a quiz that I wanted to try, did I actually register. Now having watched all ZPs, all Unskippables and a few others, do I go back and watch them again (a truer reflection of my activities) or just let the acrue naturally (a truer reflection of my activities since registration.)?

I suppose there shouldn't really be a quandry. I always strive to get as many achievements as possible in games I like: I have something like 80% of the TF2 achievements for example, just not quite good enough for most of the rest / haven't been grinding enough (especially the Pyro 1,000,000 points one.). And I do tend to add echievements to games that don't have them.

For example I did get 100% on GTA 1 before GTA 3 added a percentage complete. In Final Fantasy I used to make it a point to go back through on a seperate play through and obtain every spell, kill every monster see every hidden scene (before it became too much of a boring grind in X) any game with journal entries I try and unlock them all.

 

[laubar]

Am I the only one that thinks that the phrase "Gaming uber alles" and it's implications are terrible insensitive and a bit immature? The idea of gamers as "Ubermenschen" is also laughable. I can't take this article seriously.

 

[Slider2k]

As far as life being a game, it doesn't really work since there's no end that can be reached and a winner declared. It's a competition, for sure, but not a game.

Actually if you think about a life as a SANDBOX game it pretty much makes sense.

 

[randommaster]

As far as life being a game, it doesn't really work since there's no end that can be reached and a winner declared. It's a competition, for sure, but not a game.

Actually if you think about a life as a SANDBOX game it pretty much makes sense.

In this case it's not that life doesn't have a narrative that makes it ungame-like, it's the fact that there is no concrete and self-identifiable end for any plot arcs.

 

[XJ-0461]

That makes a lot of sense, seeing as posts act almost as a score and the badges act as rewards for your score.

Very philosophical article, as well.

 

[s0p0g]

that's some really deep stuff. haven't looked at all them online social networks like that before.
i'm afraid that the number of people playing the game "life" is not small.

so, where are we heading, not doing things for their own sake, but for some game's goal?
scary shit


... and thanks for the badge!!!!!!111111oneoneeleventyone