One of the reasons I am on Twitter is, apart from the social and networking elements, that it provides a platform for compounding a wealth of knowledge from a variety of different sources and areas of interest, personal to each individual user based upon who they follow. I have read so many articles and come across scores of ideas that I never would have access to or inclination to find otherwise, thanks to links from others.
Today, such a link came my way via the Frag Dolls' twitter feed. I am sure many of you are familiar with these ladies but for those who don’t, they are an Ubisoft-sponsored, all-female gaming group who attend conventions, write articles and play games. Alright for some, huh?
Anyhoo, this video, despite being 20 minutes long, is well worth a look:
'Jane McGonigal: Gaming Can Make a Better World'
I'll wait for you to finish. No really, go on....
First off, I wish I was as good with public speaking as this lady.
I think the core idea is an ingenious one, make real life like video games to encourage us to ‘go on epic quests’ to save the world. What a shame she only had 20 minutes. The implementation requires a little more thought; unless she has a plan she’s not telling us here, the three ‘world-saving’ games she demonstrates don’t sound interesting enough to encourage billions of people to play them instead of something with more escapism.
She also doesn’t mention the risk that encouraging more people to game more often may encourage more people to become addicted to gaming, which in itself could only add to the world’s problems.
Definitely worth a further ponder though, and I'm interested to see where this leads. *strokes beard*
You should check out her book - and she has a couple of interesting articles too. I'm actually doing my dissertation on participatory theatrical events and am using a lot of gaming theory as my foundation so I've been watching a lot of TED talks like this about games and playing. If you want some suggestions for further pondering just holla!
ReplyDelete