RIB introduction (Ian Stevenson)

Reality is broken’s introduction has gotten me thinking a lot about my previous gaming habits. Sitting in front of my laptop-not-really-a-laptop all night, playing Warframe, or Overwatch, or whatever, spending hundreds of hours not sleeping. It’s very upsetting to think about how much time I wasted. Only after getting my addictive tendencies under control did I realize how much of a difference it made to a part of reality. My mood improved, I began taking up hobbies like programing, I learned that I love whitewater paddle-boarding, and I realized how much I was missing. This summer alone, I was hanging out with my friends on an average of 5-7 times a week, and I learned so many new and wonderful things about them. I went into the woods for a weekend with nothing on my back and my friend Tewks along for the ride. I watched the entirety of AVENTURE TIME! on cartoon network with my swim group. I met up with a childhood friend I haven’t seen in years to walk to the VMFA. It was amazing seeing what I could and would do without games to cloud my judgement.

Jane McGonigal talks about her speech at the GDC, in which she said that games could be used for the good and advancement of human society. Well, since then, games have been changing to help reality along a little bit. For example, in a game named Fold-it, (a game about folding proteins) a large group of gamers were able to fold and confirm the existence of a protein that is directly linked to HIV. Games also bring people together to promote healthy change and support, such as when I was witness to a fellow gamer (and IRL friend) going public about being a Homosexual. There are probably thousands of other circumstances where this ideology applies, but I am not sure I am able to fit them in under 2 paragraphs. Have any of you all in Player One heard of any other situations where gamers have promoted societal change? please leave a comment below with your answer and a brief explanation.

Posted on by Ian Stevenson
Categories: Uncategorized

6 Responses

  1. Joseph Sterling says:
    September 2, 2018 at 5:51 pm

    Many things comes to mind: from a study that showed that surgeons played games had significantly improved hand-eye coordination to the shift to the thoughts on internet entertainers from, “Youtube isn’t a ‘real job'”, to, “Let’s all throw money at this ‘Ninja’ kid.” It’s really interesting to see how the people who play games (and bring in money) can change how the public thinks about the things that gamers love.

  2. James Bachmann says:
    September 2, 2018 at 8:16 pm

    I remember a funny example, but it is not really a societal change. I remember watching something on the news, where a kid saved his sister and himself from a moose because of techniques he learned from world of warcraft. This 12 year old kid ‘taunted’ the moose to distract it from his sister and then feigned death. Here is a link to the story https://www.nextnature.net/2010/05/norwegian-boy-saves-sister-from-moose-attack-with-world-of-warcraft-skills/.

  3. Micaela Willoughby says:
    September 2, 2018 at 10:06 pm

    I have heard of successful gamers from YouTube and Twitch donating to charities and such, as well as running competitions and raffles amongst their viewers for nonprofits. I’ve also seen instances where they’ll take a break from their usual game-related content to do challenges promoting messages they can get behind (i.e. positive body image, lgbtq awareness, etc). It’s honestly such a nice thing to see and I’m glad that these content creators feel it’s important to incorporate more into their brand/channel than what they started off as (strictly gaming channels), not saying there’s anything wrong with sticking to what works; however, I think McGonigal is saying that the gaming world has the ability to branch out and connect to pieces of life that may not seem related. I’m not entirely sure how, but I’m excited to read and find out the exact vision that McGonigal has!

  4. Ahsan Ahmad says:
    September 3, 2018 at 12:04 am

    One way in which video games have aided societal improvement is through risk filters on some MMO and MOBA game chat rooms. It is not entirely uncommon for people struggling with depression and self-hatred issues to resort to the virtual world, where they don’t have to present their physical self in social interactions. Occasionally, such people also tend to be more vocal about their problems and emotions in the chat rooms of such games.

    Cue the risk filters. These automated filters pick up phrases from user’s messages that might be hinting to self-harm or suicidal tendencies. Phrases like “I want to kill myself after this game.”, to be morbidly blunt. These then trigger an alarm which calls the attention of a human moderator who looks through the user’s chat history for other such worrying comments. After distinguishing suicidal jokes from actually worrying statements of self-harm, the moderator may call 911 on the user’s location (something that can be easily acquired from IP addresses nowadays) to check up on them. In this way, several people have already been saved from self-harm because they were able to find support in time. If not for the anonymity provided by being a random character in a game, perhaps they would never have opened up and ended up doing something horrible. Even though it may be a small example, I think this is one interesting way in which games are serving a purpose higher than just entertainment.

  5. Hyewon Hong says:
    September 3, 2018 at 10:48 am

    When you talk about societal changes, the first thing that pops into mind is the huge and varied communities that games created. There are the FPS communities, the ever prevalent fighting game communities, “the casuals” who have fun every so often, and communities which seem to inevitably form around popular, fun, and niche titles which people play. Discord servers are made, but more importantly it gives people a sense of community, of belonging to something bigger than themselves, and that is a powerful force to behold. Many professionals in the fighting game scene sight this as one of their main reasons for going pro, trying to become a figurehead within the community that they loved. Personally, playing Smash 4 with my best friend is how we have kept in touch for the last 5 years since I moved away; and removed from all the negative aspects of how games eat up time, they “rot your brain”, I think that games, and gamers as a result, can often build effective communities and a sense of belonging that is hard to rival with other medias.

  6. Shanay Amin says:
    September 3, 2018 at 11:36 am

    In today’s day and age video games have become a huge part in society. With the emergence of streaming and youtube gamers can create an incredible life for themselves. currently some of the biggest streamers create huge donations streams. On one of the many 4 hour streams two streamers raised 300k for saint Judes. For me personally games have helped me so much, I grew up playing national tennis tournaments and the strategy that it gave me has helped me a lot in my life. I grew up as a pretty emotional kid but tennis has helped me control my emotions.