Can Video Games Make a Better World?

Society is changing socially and economically. An example of this drastic change are video games. Once seen as an escape from reality and a cause of lack in physical activities; video games are now used for work-outs, family get-togethers, house-parties and on-the-go thanks to smartphones. And with other drastic issues happening within society, such as education, healthcare and the economy; individuals are using video games to help make a better world.

One of these individuals is world-renowned game designer Jane McGonigal. Famous for her alternate reality games and humanitarian efforts, McGonigal believes  Four Ingredients will not only help create humanitarian causes but will make a happy and meaningful life for individuals and the world.

1. Satisfying Work
When a gamer is participating in a game they are intrigued with, they feel highly productive. "We have clear goals and a sense of heroic purpose. More important, we're constantly able to see and feel the impact of our efforts on the virtual world around us,"McGonigal  mentioned within a Wall Street interview. She also exclaimed that as an outcome, the gamer feels a stronger sense of their own well-being and are more likely to set ambitious real-life goals.

2. Real Hope for Success
While playing a video game, a gamer has strong optimism in taking on new challenges. And when they fail, they consistently re-try until they win. This strong pursuit and optimism leads players in saving Princess Peach in a Mario game, reaching the most points within Guitar Hero and even beating Metal Gear Solid on difficult (which requires ALOT of pursuit from my experience).

3. Strong Social Connection
When an individual finishes playing a game with another person, both are likely to trust eachother more. Gamers are also more likely to help someone in real life after they've played with that person through an online or video-game console.

4. Becoming Part of Something Bigger Than Ourselves 
Storylines for video games have become more epic and compelling that massive multiplayer environments are invoking sensations of awe and wonder. Because of this, researchers have indicated that when a person is experiencing these feelings, there is a higher chance of that individual serving a large cause and collaborating with others selflessly. Feels like we need more people like this in the world, don't we?

These four factors are part of several alternate reality game projects that McGonigal has already applied. Two of her most popular a.r.g's are EVOKE and WORLD WITHOUT OIL.

EVOKE is best described as a ten-week crash course in changing the world. The goal is to empower people throughout the world to come up with solutions to our most urgent social problems (aka urgent evokes). As of January 2011, more than 19,000 players tackled real-world missions to improve food security, create more access to clean energy and end poverty in more than 130 countries.

The game also focused on players constructing and launching their own social enterprises. And after 10 weeks of the game debuting, more than 50 new companies were established. One of these enterprises is Libraries Across Africa which empowers entrepreneurs to set up free community libraries.

WWO is another alternate reality game that debuted in April 2007, when we experienced a substantial drop in the supply of oil. Individuals played through blog posts, videos, photo's, podcasts and even twitter. The key of the game is for players to visualize through these communication channels what would happen if the world ran it's last drop of oil. How would the lives of people change?

Players first read a news feed from other players on how a shortfall of oil was affecting their own lives and what they were doing to cope with the problem. And as the crisis continued, players updated eachother with further thoughts, reactions and solutions. As a result, the game had over 1900 players with more than 60,000 active observers with 1500 stories and solutions told.

With this kind of gaming content and collaboration, maybe video games can make a better world. Maybe we can discover the cure for cancer through a video game. But until then, hear what Jane herself has to say about this evolution of video gaming.





Being a Villain Isn't Bad

Everyone loves to be a hero. It symbolizes purity and goodness, because of this, no one likes to be a villain. A villain is perceived as evil and bad, however, it is reasonable to sympathize for them. And the more you sympathize for them, the more you see that villain's are not evil but advocates for change.

Drastic events or traumas happen within our lives that shape our perceptions and develop our morals we live by. Every person deemed good or bad go through this phase in life. It is a loss of innocence that individuals go through.



Two-Face and Ra's Al Ghul

Take for example Ra's Al Ghul and Harvey Dent, Batman's villains. Ra's Al Ghul lost his wife by the hands of a political figure who was not brought to justice. The loss of his wife and the injustice brought upon her death shaped his perception of how corrupt the justice system really is. In the case of Harvey Dent, he received his coined token from his abusive father who would use it as a "night game" that would always end with his father giving him severe beatings. Because of the trauma he suffered as a child, Dent struggled with the idea of free will and could not make choices on his own. This left choices to be decided on the flip of a coin with one side representing death and the other life.



Magneto

Within the X-Men comics, Magneto grew up in the Nazi camps during the dreadful years of WWII due to his Jewish ethnicity. During that time, his family was executed by the soldiers leaving him scarred for life. After surviving the Nazi camps due to his mutant powers, he later witnessed the same kind of inequality being pressed upon mutants by the human society. In a 2008 interview, Stan Lee mentions that "He (Magneto) just wanted to strike back at the people who were so bigoted and racist... he was trying to defend the mutants, and because society was not treating them fairly he was going to teach society a lesson."







Hugo Drax



Being a popular figure among the classic James Bond villains, Hugo Drax had a disturbing history of being tortured as a youth for being German and losing his father who was a German General fighting against the English during WWI.  He grew a taste of vengeance and hatred towards the world for being tortured and losing his father. He perceived the world to be cruel and resulted in him becoming a Nazi bent on revenge within the classic action-thriller Moonraker.


These villains were once good people who were burdened with drastic events that changed their lives, a personal bildungsroman what you will. They are still people and like heroes, villains have sympathy.

Going back to Batman, Henri Ducard sympathizes with Bruce Wayne upon the loss of his parents. Due to this, he trains Bruce Wayne and nurtures him upon providing "true" justice. With Two-face/Harvey Dent, Dent struggles in doing what's right and wrong due to his multiple personality disorder. However, he sympathizes with Commissioner Gordon and Batman in helping to stop crime in Gotham City.

As for Magneto, he is depressed of losing his family as a child and is angered at the mistreatment of mutants. He therefore sympathizes with the mutants being treated unequal as he was during WWII. He vouches to be the protector of mutant-kind even if it requires deadly means. Within the movie Moonraker, Drax sympathizes with fellow Germans who lived in England and forms an alliance with them upon his quest for a new civilization in Space while taking revenge on the world who treated him and his country-men with disgust.

       

Sympathy is a positive characteristic and is shown in very different ways from these villains. As an end result, these villains are not evil but advocates of change.

Drax wanted to build a civilization in space within Moonraker and be superior to the world that treated him poorly. Ra's Al Ghul was an advocate for change in healing the world of corruption through any means necessary. Although Harvey Dent struggles with his alter ego, he attempts to change the system of justice by leaving it to fate. Magneto is determined to protect mutants as he believes them to be "Homo superior" and would set about creating a homeland on Earth where mutants could live peacefully.

From this analysis, all individuals can be seen as villains. All individuals aspire to some sort of change that is fueled by past events within ones life. Because of this, a villain is a subjective term to use. They are advocates of change who at times are brought down by an individual (hero) for the sake of sticking to the status quo. Sometimes, change can be a good thing.