How Games Won't Save Us

In reflecting on yesterday’s class discussion over the possibility of playing video games in order to save the world, I am still not convinced.  McGonigal’s claim in the article we read for class was that when everyone has access to “The Long Game” the world will be a better place…no kidding.  I would hope that we would put getting everyone video games lower on the priority list that getting everyone in the world clean water, safe food, and education (among other things).  This argument I feel like is kind of a duh.  And it also makes it seem like by the time everyone does get this world-problem-solving game it won’t really be necessary because we will have a lot of the other problems solved by that point.  And going even further, I just don’t really see how playing a video game would help to solve the world’s problems anyways.  Like I said in class yesterday, I don’t play games because I want to think critically.  I play games to take my mind off of things that require critical thinking – things I am trying not to think about.  I know that not everyone feels the same way, and some do like thinking hard about the games they play.  However, there is a large portion of game players that do use games as relaxation and wouldn’t want what they use for play to turn into work.  The pressure of having to play the game would talk away from the pleasure of getting to play it. 

 

Another problem I have with this claim is that the nature of a game is to have a winner.  In a game, typically people are looking out for themselves or their team, and are encouraged to go for the "epic win" because they know they will have this amazing feeling of winning and overcoming once they do.  In a game where everyone in the entire world is one the same team, there would be no winners and no losers…kind of boring if you ask me.  I feel like that would take half the fun and most of the point out of playing games.  Plus more people all on the same team would mean more opinions and more internal conflict.  Usually more conflict means less getting done, which is pretty much the opposite of both the definition of collaboration and McGonigal’s argument.