All in the Game

This is the most interesting thing I’ve seen in a while

Which is to say, it overlaps with a bunch of things that I find interesting, ie:

a)

The flirtation/vacillation/onion-skin-layers of reality… in love, war, fiction, art. Sex, Fighting – the more primal ends of the human condition. Because reality is not enough… but fantasy can’t sustain interest.

Apparently monkeys masturbate… ok you knew that… and (I’m never going to find a cite for this) they even masturbate to monkey porn… but unless there are real monkeys (presumably of the “required” sex) around, after a while, they give up and stop. They need stimuli from reality to keep their fantasies going.

I think a similar sort of thing happens with humans – but it’s not just sex, it’s also violence and art. The Shock of The Real. Prostitutes are not enough – not even goddesses from Eastern Europe, so there’s an entire genre “Girlfriend Experience”. Punk swept Prog-rock into the water and suddenly pop music was about describing people’s actual lives, rather than going on about Lord of the Rings etc. The only way to top Avatar is to make something real. In fact the mere fact that a movie has cost $300 million dollars, and is about sexy tree-smurfs should be ringing out as an opportunity in the minds of… people who can make it real.

Because that’s the other thing… when things are real, more people get to participate. Or at least it feels that way.

b)

Alternative currency

Although this one is harder than it looks… and I think the way he’s describing it here is a bubble waiting to happen. Any currency which isn’t a linear function of value being created, is a recipe for fuckup.

But what in this context is the value being created? At it’s rawest, I tend to see value as the reversal of entropy. I don’t think advertising creates value – aside from the occasional cultural icons/input. At best it transfers value… so I don’t think a currency which is based upon gaining points from looking at adverts in the long term, is sustainable. I mean basically you’re paying people to look at your ads. You can’t base an economy on this.

c)

Games as pavlovian motivators for… doing good. I think this has huge potential – and is the basis for my notions of how smart-meters should work… and there was a pedometer thing recently that was pretty cool.

ie: everything has a tamagochi inside – hijacking human powers of empathy, anthropomorphism, competition etc to get them to do… chores.

d)

Stuff we didn’t see coming.

Yup. I wouldn’t have picked Guitar Hero. I wouldn’t have picked Wii. There are all sorts of things that I’ve got flat wrong… and for some reason, having this pointed out to me fills me with a sense of relief.