I'm a Player and I'm Proud

I chaired a meeting today for the first time and, sitting at the table and looking around at their expectant faces, I couldn't help but feel: I'm totally not qualified to do this.

I mean, I am - I suppose. Its all on paper, I've got the qualifications and letters after my name (William Knight MA (hons) - in case you're wondering *breathes on nails, shines on shirt*); but I can't help but feel that in any real world situation I'm just kinda loafing it. It's a feeling I've discussed with several people and I've discovered that this is a fairly universal quality in normal people. You're confident, but not arrogant, firm but fair and give off an air that you've got it all under control. But just under the surface you've always got the sneaking suspicion that at some point someone is going to turn to you and go:

"You there! Yes... you! You have absolutely no idea what you are doing!"

And you'll fall to your knees and concede its all been an elaborate ruse, you are in fact, just a dude, and you still play video games and role play online, you aren't qualified to take blood, arrange mergers, save lives or negotiate divorce settlements, in fact you're barely capable of dressing yourself in the morning without doing that thing with your trousers (one leg in, OK - here's the next leg - ready? ready? GO! NO, don't get it caught on the crotch, steady yourself, steady!... oh look, you've fallen onto the bed).

There is a point to this post, I promise. I'm getting to it. There's just some fluff I need to move out of the way first.

The only area I don't get this crushing feeling of inadequacy is whilst I'm gaming.

I know that if I stick the Black Ops disc in my Playstation I have a damn good chance of getting into a game and completely dominating the opposition. I feel I can run into a crowd and unleash hell, dodge bullets, flash enemies and completely humiliate them. I've had my fair share of poor games, been beaten any number of times and I've come through the other end.

Similarly, if I enter a Jade Quarry battle in Guild Wars I can be pretty sure I can hold down the green quarry versus 2 or 3 caster opponents - I can reliably interrupt 3/4 cast time spells and out-kite any melee. I know that if I go onto GWguru I can answer most of the questions people might have, and I can give damned good advice. I've been playing pretty solidly for 5 years and I can, without hesitation, say that I am a Guild Wars expert.

If I get beaten, I'm more than willing to accept the consequences and acknowledge I lost to a superior player. It isn't arrogance, it's the result of hard work and a love of gaming.

Over the past few days I've been dipping in and out of J McGonigal's "Reality is Broken". So far, McGonigal has blown me away with the enthusiasm she conveys through the book. One of the most important messages she is trying to convey is that the strategies and methods we employ in gaming should be useful in every day life, and if they were, then the real world would be a far more compelling place.

By supplanting gaming mechanisms into every day life we could wash away the feeling that we are loafing our way to the top - always ignoring the dread that some day someone will realise what idiots we really are. If we can harness the enormous effort each one of us put into getting that next title, or finally farming that rare skin and channel it into real world problems - the world could be changed dramatically.

ps. I'm thoroughly enjoying Reality is Broken so far, and I suggest, if you're interested in video games, ARGs and gaming in general, that you give it a go. I'll be writing up a full article once I've finished the book. There are some really exciting ideas in this book.

No Res Shrines: Gaming and the Real World

On the surface, the gaming world is murky and dank. Its dark and cold and confusing, populated by overzealous fourteen year olds slapping their "ep33n" around on FPSs and thirty somethings hunched over keyboards in the basement of their Mother's house in the suburbs and roleplaying busty Night Elves. This is the image of gaming which we have grown to accept; one of mindless escapism, a disconnected self which is controllable in a totally different and disconnected Universe.

Increasingly, however, this restrictive and short sighted vision of gaming is being challenged. Governmental analysts are beginning to confirm something that, deep down inside our heart of hearts, we've always known; gaming makes us better people. This assertion is two fold - on the one hand, there is the exciting prospect that gaming physically and mentally trains us for certain situations. A couple of weeks ago, The Onion jokingly suggested that games such as Gears of War and Fallout 3 are training our children to survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.

Are Violent Video Games Adequately Preparing Children For The Apocalypse?

I know I've learned that surreptitiously slipping a live grenade into the pockets of unsuspecting bandits can be a laugh riot, and iguana bits are no substitute for vast amounts of synthetic Nuka-Cola. Today wired.co.uk (my faithful friend) published an article by Noah Schachtman on how American analysts are using videogames to weed out bias in their operatives.

The agency is looking to axe everything from "anchoring bias" (relying too much on a single piece of evidence) to "confirmation bias" (only accepting facts that back up your pre-made case) to "fundamental attribution error" (attributing too much in an incident to personality, instead of circumstance).

I have to admit there is a place in my gut which leaps at the thought that playing Black Ops might make me into a one man killing machine, a real life 007; utilising my twitch reactions to mow down a camp-full of bogies in seconds and then zip lining into my chalet in Switzerland with my sultry femme fatale; Olga. In actuality I think the only thing I'll end up with is bad eyesight, a bit of a belly and the thumbs of a 65 year old.



On the other hand, there is the implementation of gaming in the effort to stimulate real social change. On a more Alternative Reality Gaming slant; Jane McGonigal's book "Reality is Broken: Why Games make us Better and how they can Change the World" focuses on the attempts at using games to raise awareness and encourage "off the wall" thinking when it comes to national and international social problems. McGonigal states that reality is broken because games act as "happiness hacks" and so are more productive at producing happiness than real life situations. This is why gaming is so often used as an escapist pastime.

McGonigal goes on to state that instead of lamenting this change, perhaps the strengths that can be found in gaming strategies could be harnessed to affect social change. Alternative Reality Games could be used as vehicles to increase awareness of particularly critical subjects or even stimulate players to actively improve their lives through giving real world targets to attain.

Michael Andersen at ARGNet did a sterling job reviewing and summarising McGonigal's latest book, although he is skeptical of the application of gamification tactics to real world problems stating that he does not wholly believe that gaming strategies can be applied to "complex problems that are resistant to game designer attempts to reduce goals to concrete action steps". I've already stated that ARG gaming has affected me in a very real way, increasing my ability to make connections, widening my knowledge of cryptography and deduction and giving me a wide variety of skills which I have already been able to apply to my life.

I'm quite enthusiastic about gaming being a vehicle for change in real life, but I believe we need a big push; something to really carry gamification into the media eye and advertise it as a powerful vehicle for social revolution. Alternative Reality Games need the equivalent of what Facebook was for social networks.