Let's Start Changing the World

In our class time spent on Jane McGonigal, there were mixed reactions.  Some people felt like she had good ideas, others disagreed, and some didn't understand.  Going into the article, I recognized the title and author from the book that had been sitting on my bookshelf this semester.  My friend let me borrow it when she saw it had caught my eye in her room.  She attends Marquette University, up in Wisconsin.  Her freshman year, the school had required incoming students to read McGonigal's Reality is Broken for their equivalent of BSU's Freshman Connections program.  I have not yet read the book, but it still sits there patiently, awaiting my next holiday bus ride home.

I am not a gamer.  The closest I got in my childhood was when Dad would let us play Dr. Mario on his NES, and when I was older, going to my friend's house and getting to play The Sims (--wild, right?  She got to watch Legally Blonde when it first came out too).  So I don't have a fully formed opinion on the topic.  But after reading about McGonigal and watching her TED Talk, I felt like I was missing something.  I heard her big idea, and I heard how crazy some people thought the big idea was.  What I didn't hear was how to make her big idea work.  The Mother Jones article discussed World Without Oil, and other creative storytelling-like games.  If this is what she's bringing to the table, that's nice, but there's got to be more, right?  Creative, choose-your-own-adventure styles are interesting, but certainly don't account for a large majority of games out there.  The hype surrounding her made me think that she was going to design games that solved problems right there, right now!  We know we're the generation of instant gratification, we've been lectured how much we suck before.  But you've got to design for your market, and we want to help!  When we talked about video games changing the world, my mind jumped to two things:

1) freerice.com is a website someone brought up in school years ago.  It's not a video game, but it's strategy certainly has potential.  According to it's FAQ page:

"Here is how it works: when you play the game, sponsor banners appear on the bottom of your screen for every correct answer that you choose. The money generated by these banners is then used to buy the rice. So by playing, you generate the money that pays for the rice donated to hungry people."

The site gives you a quick multiple choice questions to answer, then let's you know if you were right or wrong and gives you the next one.  The difficulty builds as you go, and the subjects can be changed.  If you've got some time to waste, try the SAT prep questions.  It's a great way to feel bad about the things you've forgotten about since 12th grade.  As far as legitimacy, the internet seems to have positive feelings about it.  It's been featured on BBC and NPR.  And if it's not real, we can pretend it is--what a great way to stir up those feelings of slactivism!

Arrested Development, S4E14, 2013

2) Buster Bluth in season five of Arrested Development.  If you're afraid of spoilers, no fear, it's not a big one, but skip down a few lines.  If you don't care or already marathoned it: remember when he didn't know he was a drone pilot?  Good times, good times.

So if games are going to change the world, let's make it happen.  I can't seem to find any other proposed plans from McGonigal yet.  However, video games are an engaging, popular form of media entertainment.  If the Army can use lifestyle marketing, so can activism.

PS: Alongside our sports talk of this week, here's a cool contest going on for ad spot in the Superbowl. Two of the finalists go along with topics we've covered in class: GoldieBlox is developing toys designed for girls that stray from gentle princess toys.  Locally Laid let's their chickens roam in the real outside!  It's a cool peak at how small businesses are picking up on societal problems and could hint at changing times ahead.