In chapter eight, Jane talks about “leveling up in life”. Specifically, she is referring to making even the most mundane of tasks fun and enjoyable. She is speaking about putting a point and reward system on our everyday live and turning it into a game. In this chapter she refers to three separate examples which she is suggests might work. Her first example talks about an online resource where you and your friends sign up and create a reward system based on tasks that require some form of motivation (plusoneme.com). In her example she was stating that she should be able to gain charisma and public speaking points for performing her lecture. Although this idea does have some merit to it, there are some concerns which need to be addressed such as the willingness of the participants, or their ability to keep track and record vital information for game play. The second example that Jane talks about in this chapter is the adaptation of gamification relating to airlines. Specifically, she speaks about virgin airways and they’re new on board game that is played from plane to plane. This game is designed to give the passengers a sense of relief and get their minds of flying; as for most people it is quite an anxious ordeal. This game was not only said to relieve stress during flight, but as well it affords some passengers the ability to relieve some of their pre-flight stress as they spend most of their time focusing on how they are going to play the game and not on the upcoming flight which they will soon be boarding. She also speaks about this games social benefit’s, as it requires the players to work in coordination with one another in order to beat the opposing plane. I believe that it is games like this that provide the best chance to bridge the gap between real life and gameplay. It is taking a task that is mandatory for you at the time and making it fun. I don't believe that we have to make everything into a game in order to make the world a better place; we just have to turn the worst parts of it into a game in order to make the bearable. Instead of waiting in line to get your hamburger from Harveys give me a chance to win my burger for free.
Chapter nine of Reality Is Broken speaks about fun with strangers. She states that “compared with games, reality is lonely and isolating. Games help us band together and create powerful communities from scratch.” She begins by talking about a game called Comfort of Strangers. This is an alternate reality game that encourages the user to get up and out of their house. The objective of this game is to identify other players as either lovers or dancers. The Player is randomly assigned to either team and the game is won when there are no remaining members of the enemy team. Games such as this are great in a since they evoke a need for participation on its players, however it does seem to have some obvious fallbacks. Firstly, as Jane mentions it would be quite difficult to get the participation needed to get this game massively successful. Secondly this game appears to be lacking on a reward system, as such how can you expect the players to remain engaged in what they are doing. She then begins to speak about a game called Bounce, a virtual reality game which requires the user to connect with someone of another generation. It is a phone based trivia game where the two participants must ask each other questions and find 10 commonalities between them. They then must devise a poem using the answers you had just established. By doing this both participants are gaining experience and leveling up. This game is meant to help establish stronger social skills from both participants. However with this virtual reality game we do se some flaws that would need to be checked out. One flaw that immediately comes to mind would be the lack of participation from the older generations. This game could be easily market towards the younger generations, as they seem to always be searching for the newest coolest thing out there. However we do find that with the older generation we see more skepticism towards trying new things. Especially when they are so strongly associated with technology and “gaming”. All skepticism aside, a game such as this would have many social benefits for thousands of gamers out there. It would allow the newer generations to connect with older generations outside your families. It would also serve as an excellent source of information for both the older and newer generations.
No comments:
Post a Comment