Real Life Gaming? Not Possible

While listening to the video by Jane McGonigal, I felt the urge to shout at and disagree with her on almost all of her ideas. To begin with, I could not take her seriously, and I felt that I was watching a stand up comedian talk at times. Right from the beginning with the photo of the kid playing a game, going for an “epic win”, I thought of the South Park episode where they were playing World of Warcraft for hundreds of hours to level up enough to defeat a player so they could actually continue playing the game. And then she went on to say many people feel like they are better in their virtual realities then they are in real life. And it was this point that I completely agreed with. In an online role playing game, you can be any type of character you want, with any characteristics you desire, to go along with massive quantities of money and items that you would not be able to get in real life. You can’t be a knight going on quests in real life. That is not possible any longer. You can’t be an elf or a monster anymore than the next person, and that is what makes you better in your fantasy realm then in real life. Also in a game, there are no serious repercussions that can take place, besides your character maybe dying and you having to start over from your last save point. In real life, you die doing something to “change the world” as she said, you stay dead, and nothing has changed I don’t believe. That was my biggest problem with what she was saying, and I had to disagree with the majority of what she was talking about.

Written by: JohnCasey

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