Art, Games, and Tech Discussion

For this week I found the TED talk with Jane McGonigal very interesting. Jane claims that video games help us feel confident and solve problems, world problems. She says that people in general feel that we are not as good with real life as we are in real life. I agree with her that video games can help people feel better about themselves like how World of War craft allows you to be a leader and conquer with others around the world. But I had a very difficult time agreeing that by playing more video games will help us in turn do more in real life. The games she created as she discussed at the end of the talk I feel would help for example the game where you had to figure out what to do if we ran out of oil. This would engage your thinking with real life problems.

I have always seen video games as a good hobby and something to help your self-esteem but it can also over take your life. She even stated that regular video gamers spend up to 20 hours a week on games, a part time job! Many people do not learn to be comfortable with them because their online self is more “perfect” then their true selves. I think the characters created are unrealistic. So I think her theory only works with games that involve real life problems. I feel like she talked in circles a lot and did not simply state how video games will actually help people solve real world problems.

4 comments to Art, Games, and Tech Discussion

  1. ges@uoregon.edu says:

    I would agree with your argument. After watching the Ted talk and thinking more about how video games can actually help you solve real life problems, I had a hard time finding an answer. I was never a video gamer myself; the only video game I actually know how to play is Mario Kart. However, from what I have seen, video games seem to take up more of people’s time and they get lost in a virtual world that they don’t relate to their real personal lives. To me video games are an escape from reality and people who become obsessed with them are more in tune with this virtual world than the world around them. I would actually argue that video games do not help us solve real life problems, only help us escape from reality.

  2. ziqi says:

    I share the similar opinion with toward video games. Since I did play several video games before and I like play video games especially after taking exams to refresh my mind and relax. I think it is hard to determine the effects of video games toward people’s real life. As a video games player, those games will help me to relax and feel a different virtual life which could sometimes stimulate my thinking toward my real life. However, I agree with your opinion that not every video game will help people’s real life and people who usually play video games a lot may actually produce negative effect toward their real life. I feel that Jane did point out some benefits of video games but ignore some drawbacks of video games. I would say playing video games do help people to solve real life problems at some points, but people should not count on those video games too much.

  3. Jax says:

    I felt the same way when watching the TED Talk. She stated a lot of facts about how much time “gamers” put into playing video games a week and how games can influence someones self-esteem in a positive way. However, it wasn’t until the last couple minutes of the video when she addressed how games can be used to help current problems. Also her her proposed plan was pretty vague and left me with a couple of questions. I like her enthusiasm and optimism but I just don’t see how playing something that is virtual can help fix something that is real. I also believe that technology is creating a disconnect between people, meaning that human to human interactions are less frequent. As a result we see more and more people become distant from reality and a decrease in people skills which is terrifying to me.

  4. aharman@uoregon.edu says:

    I agree with you somewhat. I think its hard to see a whole community such as gamers as one universal being because everybody is different. I think that a good amount of people do waste their time on alternate realities because they feel their characters in the game are better than real life but at the same time there are people who use all of the confidence they get from having a “perfect” self in a virtual world in their real lives. It also helps them strive to become more like their alternate reality self. I think that there are multiple sides to every issue and some do have those traits that McGonigal talks about but at the same time a lot of people don’t. I think if most people wanted to play those games the world could get better through their participation but I don’t think the games are compelling enough to draw the mainstream crowd. For example figuring out an oil crisis isn’t as exhilarating as waging a full out war. Overall McGonigal had a very optimistic view on video games but I don’t think they were completely on target.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *