My Reactions to What The Gaming World Really Offers
The topic is gaming - what's the first thing that comes to mind? Addiction, obesity, obession, laziness, lack of motivation, waste of time? That is what I think of when I think about gaming. Hardcore gamers around the world will probably criticize me, giving me a piece of their mind about the truth behind why they game. However, I'm not writing this post to attack gamers, in fact my very own brother falls into the category of a "hardcore gamer". This post is in response to a new representation of why gaming is good, and what applications the world can use games for to help solve real-world problems.
I recently watched a video about why gaming is actually a good thing for our world, and why people should game as much as possible. The video discussed very interesting ways of how beneficial gaming is to our society, and how is affects our world in a positive manner. In the video, Jane McGonigal argues about why she believes people should play video games for "21 billion hours...every week" (McGonigal, TED2010). McGonigal argues her point with many interesting and new facts and statistics about the benefits of gaming. I really like how she approached this sensitive subject with her audience, really capturing their attention with outrageous remarks like the quote above. Immediately her audience assumes she is a "nut-job", as I would say, and decides to listen to her bogus theories and statistics. However, she presents new information and old information in a new light, helping people understand why gaming is actually beneficial to the survival of our species and how we as a planet can apply the skills gained from gaming to real world problems.
If you watched the video, then you notice how clear McGonigal's statistics are and how confident she is about her arguments. She doesn't contradict herself or guess on a statistic, she believes 100% that her remarks are the real deal. I really liked how she organized her data in a manner that allowed her audience to follow the message and gain a visual image of her argument. Also, she provides data from notable and trusted sources, Carnegie Mellon University for instance. Her audiences know that this prestigous university usually offers information to the world that holds true and is not "made-up". Because of these statistics, her audience begins to take her argument into consideration, giving more support and attention to her presentation.
My closing thoughts about this topic - I realize that I do agree with McGonigals point, her point being that gamers possess strong skills in certain social areas that many people lack, and with these skills comes the ability to help make our world a better place by allowing world-wide participation in giant online think-tanks (the games being the "think tanks"). McGonigal discusses that is games were made that focused on real-life problems, and gamers needed to overcome those obstacles, many realisitc and innovative ideas can be thought up and applied to our world in order to help make this planet a better place for all humans. I agree with what McGonigal is trying to do, however I don't necessarily agree with how she wants to accomplish her goals. I do believe hardcore gaming is a serious problem in our world, and people who game need to gain the skills needed to deal with the emotions and problems they dislike about the real world (the reason they seek gaming in the first place). Once these gamers are able to move past their obessive behavior, they can apply their skills to solving real-world problems.