On Gaming As An Idiom

About 4 years ago I spoke at a conference on elearning, and i wondered aloud to th audience if we might not see more and more elements of “gaming” (as we know it in video games) appear in business and work-related applications, and as part of what we do in many areas of activity online.

Here’s a snippet from a post by Flemming Funch, quoting Edward Castronova, an academic specializing in massively multi-user spaces on the Internet (does Flickr come to mind ?). Some of you may remeber that Flickr’s DNA is from a massively-multi-player online game named Gameneverending.

The videogame companies that operate the most popular synthetic worlds – some of which have millions of users – are currently deliberating how to respond: should they try to capitalize on this money flow, or shut it down? If they encourage virtual item trading in real currencies, if only to take a slice off the top, their virtual economies will merge into the real-world economy, with real-world taxation, regulation, and legal obligation being an unavoidable consequence. If they shut down the eBay trade (which, after all, is against the rules of these places as games), they close off a revenue source as well as a part of the game that many users think is great fun.

The lesson for serious people outside the videogame industry is this: like it or not, real life is genuinely and observably migrating online for many millions of people, in its personal, social, economic, and even political aspects. In the new frontier, the features of the real body or the ability to do real-world work are no longer important. What matters is that you can get along with others while doing quite fantastical, quite fun things – slaying dragons, casting spells, performing resurrections, building castles. New frontier, new rules.

You may agree or disagree. I tend to think - nay, I believe - that there will continue to be an evolution of human behaviour in online spaces, for better or worse.

I agree generally with those who suggest that we need to pay deep and oingoing attention to our inner lives, our deepest beliefs, values and needs and continue to learn how best to stay connected to what is important for us and the slices of society in which we live, and …

… I also agree that there are some basic characteristics of connecting and working at building dialogue, shared meanings, and eventually doing things with others whom we’ve come to know via online connectivity, that are important opportunities for progress offered to us by the Web.