tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343773643758367735.post5892978115897703757..comments2023-10-29T11:15:37.625-04:00Comments on sleeping alone and starting out early: on virtual worlds as petri dishesJenna McWilliamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07767988531102621970noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343773643758367735.post-50513428557242509842009-09-12T22:58:33.945-04:002009-09-12T22:58:33.945-04:00Adam, thanks for your comments. I guess my take re...Adam, thanks for your comments. I guess my take really is an arms-length one, as the conditions that lead somebody to play (or not play) a game seem fundamentally different than those that lead somebody to engage (or not engage) with the politics and policies of our culture. I don't disagree that once you're inside of the virtual world, it's as significant and complex as the "real" world; but gaming also seems layered over with another layer of choice that's not present outside of that space. To wit: if I don't like scary underwater games with creepy noises and weirdo crazy people, then I can play Pitfall. Or I can turn off the console and do something else with my time. But if I'm an uninsured member of the American working class and my child gets sick, I can't just move to Germany to get her the care she needs. I have to make do with whatever care the "game makers" decide is appropriate right here in America. What's the gaming term for keeping people playing by making them believe they can ultimately beat the game? In games, you eventually give up if it turns out the makers were wrong. In real life, we just keep believing we can win if we just believe hard enough in the Master Myths of our time.Jenna McWilliamshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07767988531102621970noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343773643758367735.post-38741419885138036912009-09-12T20:22:34.228-04:002009-09-12T20:22:34.228-04:00I don't know that I agree with the objection u...I don't know that I agree with the objection unless you're holding games at an arms length. Phenomenologically it seems that Huizinga and Gadamer have argued successfully that in the experience of play, the play is all consuming in same sense as I take your attribution that life has more consequential constraints that few free themselves from to be concerned with. If you look at art, games, simulations from afar, rather than as they are experienced then I can understand your point. However, when you take the internal perspective to the experience--which opens the hermeneutic frontier to you--then the play *is* just as significant and complex as the other concerns you have in life. The choices are real, and in a well designed game, consequential to your experience. The fact that you can choose not to play a game feels like a red-herring to the issue at hand though, because I don't see that as directly connected to the species of experience (choice) being proposed...at least not when understood from the philosophical positions I mentioned above (which is also consistent with the work on flow by Csikszentmihalyi, and much of what the ludologists have argued).<br /><br />The assertion made by Clement just seems to ignore the reality that it is the individual making those choices, and while it may be a hybrid-Self or some other projection of one's identity taking credit for those decisions, it is *not* someone else ultimately making the choice, but the same Self (although we might argue about the 'me/I' there). I would argue that if economists make bad arguments its because of the partitioning of reality that they are claiming based on their tools, and what has been excluded that shouldn't, not because we are suddenly mind-controlled by aliens when we play games or make choices in a simulation.adamaighttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00149638742933911910noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4343773643758367735.post-40066027209375318072009-09-12T15:29:48.687-04:002009-09-12T15:29:48.687-04:00Thanks, Jenna, for this post. I live with an econo...Thanks, Jenna, for this post. I live with an economist so I deal with this sort of arguments constantly. I have come to conclude that economists can never make any reasonable or sensible arguments about human behaviors because 1) they assume that people's action reflect genuine choices, and 2) economists are almost never poor. I refuse to listen to any economist who make more than a working class wage.Clement Chauhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11680997553003661156noreply@blogger.com