A word on Video Games

Evan Lahee

All the talk on video games in class really got me thinking about them in retrospect.
They really do inspire people, who sadly can often be labelled as "lazy" or "time wasting" when in fact they're being extremely productive, just not in the "common" or "normal" ways.

My own roommate plays RTS games online with people he knows locally, and even players in Germany, forming alliances and enemies alike and cooperating with them over advance battle tactics that grow ever-increasingly difficult, spending hours toiling away at his computer for a victory. And that's on top of his full-time paper job and homework and class combined. Also in newer games there are features called Achievements where when the game is installed a list of optional tasks can be accessed and used as a checklist to be completed, not for any real purpose, but for the personal satisfaction of the player. It amazes me that people I know will strive to complete these lists out of sheer motivation and to be completionists (I myself just play through the story and am done).

I dug the TED speech on the world coming together through gaming, but really instead of using video games as the platform, couldn't people simply take the same set of motivational skills and put it in a real-life perspective? Use real-life goals such as a reward system (buying treats, a night out, or buying more games) and look at them as "unlockables" to move towards bettering lives for people and feeling better about themselves. I believe humans already possess these abilities of cooperation and collaboration without the further need for evolution, it's just in the hands of the user literally to decide if they want to put their time into their reality or escape to another one that makes them happier.