After I watched the Ted Talks video “Gaming can make a better world” by Jane McGonigal, I felt as if video games cannot help people with reality problems because they are not dealing with them. In fact, people who play video games are running from reality because of fear of not succeeding. However, I like the idea that playing games can help people deal with reality and believe it or not there are better ways of using this technique. Jane McGonigal argues “that people should play more video games to better deal with reality.” I disagree, I think people should focus more on reality and present every problem in a virtual perspective. That way like McGonigal says we can all have the “Epic Win.” For example, my brother plays a lot of video games and he is now working in Microsoft. But, through the process of getting his P.H.D. degree, he had a shortage of money. So he spend many months dedicated to writing a program for buying and selling Bitcoin stock. In other words making profit without working. He was successful and used the program in his P.H.D. defense. He looked at an issue in reality and found a virtual answer to it. Therefore, it is better to play reality as a game rather than a game as reality because it creates critical thinking, teaching, and learning opportunities to better solve problems and be successful in reality. But in the end the real question will be, is it best to play more video games and learn how to deal with life’s issues or deal with life dilemmas as if they are video games to achieve the “Epic Win”?
As you mentioned, I think video game does not give an opportunity to learn reality. Video game is just a tool to get rid of stress. It does not suggest a way to find a reality. In 2007, there was a tragedy in Virginia Tech. One guy shot the guns to unanimous people. News said that the criminal was affected by shooting games. He could not distinguish reality and online game. Likewise, relying on game does not suggest a way for you to live. Jone states in his essay that “Technological development brings unexpected results. In constructing scenarios for the future, writers may be optimistically visionary,
pessimistically visionary or unable to envision
future effects.” As technologies have been developed, there are numerous things that we can refer through. However, it does not fully guide our lives.
Whilst I agree with you that people use video games to escape reality in hopes of decreasing their stress and use these games for purely entertainment purposes, I had a different perspective than you from the Ted Talk by Jane McGonigal. I believe her objective of solving real life situations through video games isn’t to do so physically, but more to come up with ideas and strategies on how to solve world crises. She talked about creating games to solve problems like the oil crisis and other real world problems and video gamers can reach higher levels in games like this to come up with creative perspectives on solving something that actually matters instead of fighting battles against villains that don’t matter. To answer your question, I still think it’s best to play video games for entertainment purposes and to cope with life’s issue, and work to solve problems in the bigger scope of things creatively and purposefully, not through games.
Hi，xiaoxue:
You said, “In fact, people who play video games are running from reality because of fear of not succeeding.” I don’t agree with this this point. There are lots of game types for different using. Some little game was developed to spend the spare time. Some meaningful game was developed to education people. Like Jane claim the “run of oil” game in the TED talk “Most of our players have kept up the habits that they learned in this game.” We cannot simply define that people playing game is hidden from reality. Actually, the problem of some people would indulge into some game is what I worry about. Some game can actually help people to deal with life’s issues. But beyond this point, the down side of some game we should stop it. A effective game monitor is necessary to supervise gamer’s behavior.