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Why everything is becoming a game

gurwinder.blog

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Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#51

Post by iforiq »

api wrote: post #23
j_bum wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. I stopped at the Kaczynski worship. I don’t understand why people are so fascinated with talking about the ideals of insane serial killers. There are plenty of other highly intelligent individuals with the same ideologies to discuss. Why glorify a murderer?

I read Kaczynski long ago and saw a huge hole immediately. So surrogate activities replace the authentic struggle for survival. I can get that. But why is the struggle for survival better? Isn’t it just another game? Kaczynski like many other romantics rails against the system, but isn’t nature just another system? It’s an older one that we didn’t design, but didn’t we learn in the end that the matrix was inside an e…

>> What would it even mean to escape the “system?” How can you do that except death? If you are breathing you are playing some kind of game.

I think yogic/buddhist enlightenment or nirvana is freedom from constraints due to nature.. the solution (as far as I understand) is essentially a state like death or physical non-existence but somehow still fully conscious and absolutely blissful

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#52

Post by zubairq »

Really good article! I guess that the key is to turn things that I hate to do into a game!

Also, is this also why people go through schools and university because of the system has grades as a scoring system and the "promise" of a good career and life at the end of it?

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#53

Post by kazinator »

The article title promises to reveal how everything is becoming a game.

Spoiler alert: turns out that is just clickbait. It's not everything. Just ... you know, apps. Mostly multi-user, social ones.

Maybe the author really has his head so far up his apps that they look like everything.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#54

Post by cod3rboy »

> This strange quirk of human behavior can even cost lives. In South Korea, a young couple became so addicted to raising a virtual baby that they let their real baby starve to death. The parents prioritized what they could quantify — levelling up their virtual baby — over that which they couldn’t — the life of their real one.

This is so sad. Such incident indeed confirms technology is pursuing people into forgetting real meaning and values of life. I am worried about the generation which has born in this gamification era. They need to be repeatedly taught about life meaning and values to differentiate between what's real and what's imaginary.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#56

Post by the_common_man »

justanotherjoe wrote: post #40

this article is all over the place. At one point it even starts admonishing actual video games, with the usual granny complaints. The article sounds like alex jones style of piecing things superficially together. The worship of ted kaczynski is also bothering, since his views are so banal and not even accurate. (technology is making human a creature of society? not really. We always was. Ask jesus what happens when y…

He didn't worship ted kaczynski by any means. Terrible low effort comment

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#57

Post by the_common_man »

j_bum wrote: post #22
api wrote: post #3

I felt like the stuff about Kaczynski, while interesting, was a diversion. The meat is the beginning and the end: Skinner, how conditioning led to gamification which led to the addiction economy, and then strategies for turning the tables and take charge by choosing what games to play and how to play them. An evolved and condensed version of the closing with practical examples and practice exercises should be taught…

I agree. I stopped at the Kaczynski worship. I don’t understand why people are so fascinated with talking about the ideals of insane serial killers. There are plenty of other highly intelligent individuals with the same ideologies to discuss. Why glorify a murderer?

The blog doesn't condone the bombings or the violence. It talks about Kaczynski writings. For you, this is equivalent to glorifying a murderer. Wow, this is some poor comprehension.

I listen to all sorts of music and I love them. More often than not the artists are degenerates and drug addicts. I hate it but I can still enjoy the genius of their music. For example, Nirvana. Kurt committed suicide but his music is genius. Does not mean i gloirfy suicide or worship Kurt.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#58

Post by adrianhon »

iamacyborg wrote: post #27
adrianhon wrote: post #4

Interesting piece! I’m co-creator of Zombies, Run! so I’m glad to see it mentioned here - we designed it to be in the best interests of players, which is why it doesn’t feature streaks or leaderboards or other ways to manipulate you into overexercising or playing more than you want to. That said, I’m more sanguine about gamification than the author. There are indeed many games to choose from, but the ones that are mo…

Hey Adrian, I read your book a couple weeks ago and thought it was great!

Thanks!

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#59

Post by adrianhon »

_boffin_ wrote: post #34
adrianhon wrote: post #4

Interesting piece! I’m co-creator of Zombies, Run! so I’m glad to see it mentioned here - we designed it to be in the best interests of players, which is why it doesn’t feature streaks or leaderboards or other ways to manipulate you into overexercising or playing more than you want to. That said, I’m more sanguine about gamification than the author. There are indeed many games to choose from, but the ones that are mo…

Question: what / how were the were the discussions on to not include leaderboards, streaks, etc? What what was the primary motivation behind the game? From your comment, it seems play to play rather play to win?

The goal of a fitness app, including gamified fitness apps, should be to help users achieve healthy fitness goals.

Theoretically, streaks are a way to encourage and recognise commitment – often people will use streaks to motivate themselves in writing a book or completing chores. However, it's inadvisable for people to exercise every single day for weeks on end. Of course, apps could build in rest days and lower-impact exercises to make streaks easier to maintain, but very few do and even then, it's hard to know the user's context – perhaps they've been ill and they need even longer to rest. It's pretty clear to me that streaks, as commonly implemented, are merely a way to boost retention at the expense of the user's interest.

I think leaderboards are fine in some circumstances. We use them in our own one-off virtual race events so people can benchmark themselves against others. However, we don't maintain weekly or monthly leaderboards for fitness in general because they end up being boring or even demotivating. When I had a Fitbit, the rankings were always the same, the walkers in London always trouncing the drivers in the US. I expect the only effect was to make the people at the bottom of the leaderboard depressed. For everyone who feels great ascending a leaderboard, there's someone who feels bad descending it.

My career in fitness gamification is based around the idea making exercising genuinely fun is the best way to motivate people. Competitive sports do that for a lot of people, but it can be relatively inaccessible. Zombies, Run! uses immersive audio storytelling and actual gameplay rather than just badges and XP and levels to make things exciting. It's not for everyone but it works for a lot of people.

Re: Why everything is becoming a game

#60

Post by npteljes »

Very long-winded article for no apparent reason to me. Why many things become a game is because there is a cultural shift in exercising power, at the current time the carrot is more often used than the stick.

And then, I'm especially put off by what I can only see as right-wing populist talking points:

"Religion is dying out, Western nations are culturally confused, people are getting married less and having fewer children, and many are losing their jobs to automation, so the traditional pillars of life — God, nation, family, and work — are crumbling, and people are losing their value systems"

This paints the same kind of revisionist past that the modern conservatives paint (among others): that there were some good old days where the values I like were more widespread than now, and so, society is in decadence, we need to restore. No we don't, there's nothing to restore. The only way is forward.

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