How Games Makes a Better World

How games throw out exercise a discontinue world A hardly a(prenominal) months ago I saw a talk by Jane McGonigal on TED. com. She has been a game designer for about 10 historic period now and she had some trustworthyly elicit ideas about how we spend agency to little cartridge clip playing videogames. We atomic number 18 currently spending 3 billion hours a week playing online games. That might sound kindred an awful galvanic pile of playing games and not so much solution problems like hunger, poverty and climate change. But according to her research, we nurse to annex that playtime to 21 billion hours a week to survive the attached century. Have you ever heard about an epic entice?Thats when you succeed with something and the outcome is so extremely positive that you didnt veritable(a) hold out that it was possible. What we need is to transfer epic wins into the real world. But thats not an easy task. In game we become the best magnetic variation of our self. W hen we be playing games we abide much better confidence and we are much more likely to stand up and try once more after failure, as opposed to when we try to tackle real livelihood problems. In game the missions and problems that you have to solve are always foregather to the level youre currently at. That means that before you even start, you know its possible.You have to work hard to succeed, but you know its possible. When we face a problem in real life we oft dont feel the same way. We often feel overvalued by the problem, depressed or frustrated. In game you rarely feel that way. So what is it in games that make us feel like we can win everything? What is it that games have that the real world doesnt? When youre first showing up in a cooperative online game, like Guild Wars, solid ground of Worldcraft or Little Big Planet, there are people that are willing to support you with a world saving mission set away.All these collaborators that are willing to help you achieve y our epic mission is nil that exist in real world situations. Theres to a fault a lot more positive feedback in games than it is in the real world. Games like Guitar Hero always boost your confidence by freehand bonus point when you for instance managing to play every(prenominal) the notes right at a really difficult part of a song. Or when you make an awesome slide in the middle of the solo. You dont get that kind of positive feedback in real life. When Im through with(p) cleaning my room, I wont get +1 cleaning. Or when Ive finished this homework I wont get +25 school.The problem is that its so rewarding to play ready reckoner games that many people decide to spend almost all of their time in this virtual world. Just because they think the virtual world is better than the real one. So far, gamers have spent 5,93 million years resolving the problems in World of Worldcraft. Imagine if we somehow could transfer all that problem solving in to the real world How we could do this h as been a riddle for me ever since I heard her speech. Until now that is. Just a few days ago I read a really interesting article in the news magazine Ny Teknik.The article was written by Helen Ahlbom and she gave some very good examples on how we are already do the world better with games. Nissan and Fiat has developed new cars models that save your raise efficiency in an onboard computer. You later upload your statistics to their website and compete with each new(prenominal) on who can drive most eco friendly. I got so interest by these new ideas that I serious had to visit Fiats website to see it for myself. It appeared that the transferring of all the good stuff from games to the reality had already begun.The game gives you a lot of positive feedback on your driving, much like the feedback I earlier tell you didnt get for real world accomplishments. Ive already started make my own computer games. I always thought that computer games was just something silly you played wh en you where bored. But now I see how games can make the real world a better place. These new ideas has really got me thinking and I think that this is something that I actually would like to have as a job in the future. A portrait taken by the photographer Phil Toledano of a gamer on the verge of an epic win This is a screenshot from Fiats website