Reality is Broken?
In her book, Reality is Broken, Jane McGonial describes how certain elements of game playing could be used as tools for solving problems in ‘real’ life. Gamer’s enthusiasm, concentration and optimism that accompany the struggle for the ‘epic win’, could be transcribed into our attitudes towards ‘real’ life problems. She states that “new alternate reality games are already improving the quality of our daily lives, fighting social problems such as depression and obesity…”. A story from her own personal life gave an additional support to her thesis. While suffering from a depression caused by a severe head trauma, she found a way of healing herself by inventing various reality games, which kept her occupied and also, gave her an opportunity to ‘imagine’ the trauma as a gaming material that needs to be conquered, and not a real life problem that is impossible to solve. Even though, in her case, the implementation of games into ‘real’ life, seemed to work as a successful strategy for solving a ‘non-permanent’ depression problem, I wish to express my doubts in possibility of applying her theory to a wider spectrum of real life problems.
Just a year ago, I had a chance to attend an ARG festival, without even knowing what that abbreviation, or the concept behind it, meant. During the first lecture, I got the overall idea, but also, I got a first association to it – Hannibal Lecter. I didn’t know what exactly caused the association – was it an incident that happened at that time, a word from the lecture, or (I’m afraid to say) my subconscious – but this unpleasant association to the word ARG stayed inscribed into my thoughts. It occurred to me that the alternate reality games could find their most ‘original’ players in characters such as Hannibal Lecter. The reason behind my association, I found in the fact that the most distinctive trait of the minds of such characters is interest in games, or more precisely, reality games. After reading the articles and presentations on Reality is Broken, I couldn’t resist the temptation of mentioning the ‘Hannibal Lecter’ motif in regards to McGonial’s idea of ‘changing reality’.
Alternate reality games are still relatively young disciplines. The way they operate at this point, they seem to have a beneficial impact on society. In that way, it could be said that they are ‘changing’ reality for the better. However, due to the ontological nature of reality, the opposite is bound to happen – ‘reality’ will change the games. As soon as “Hannibal Lecter” puts his input into the world of alternate reality games, the necessary collision between reality and games will happen; and it will become evident that there cannot be an intersection between the two concepts – reality will keep restoring its everlasting dominance over our aspirations, and games will keep their status as one of many other socio-cultural practices. Even though the games will keep changing their forms and applications – from being a pure entertainment to serving as medical tools for healing traumas – they will still be games.
Hence, I wish to propose several questions:
- To which ‘side’ of the population her ‘utopian’ ideal of changing reality thorough games refers to? Would every person use the gaming mechanism equally?
- What would be the final version of alternate reality games? How ‘real’ can they get?
- What is the relationship between the alternate reality games and the effects of globalization?
Radojka
P.S. Here are two links that would lighten up my discussion.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-21116544
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4685909/ns/technology_and_science-games/t/surgeons-may-err-less-playing-video-games/#.UQB0hTtIAXG