Is Your Life Just One Big Role Playing Game?
A Remarkable talk by Carnegie Mellon Professor and ex Disney Imagineer Jesse Schell. He looks at the phenomena of Facebook and argues that life does not end with Facebook: it mutates. Fascinating! Topics discussed: Facebook, Guitar Hero, Mafia Wars, etc.This 30 minute talk will get you thinking.
To quote Jesse:
“You might think making games is all about putting 40 percent awesome in a box, throwing in a pinch of zazz and calling it a SKU, but that’s not true. Games, you may have noticed, are all around us, all the time.”
Shell looks at gaming development and its effect on both commerce and our brains. The rise of Guitar Hero, Facebook, Angry Birds, and the rest.
“What do these have in common? A variety of psychological tricks,” explains Schell, who then goes on to examine how these various gaming successes take advantage of humans instincts, and how we hunger “to get to anything real.” He goes on to examine how gaming has extended to grading a class, driving a car, shopping and socializing, ending at a future where everything is a kind of game.