Once the realm of computer geeks the online social gaming movement has really taken hold over the last decade, with none other than the oft-cited World of Warcraft having the most media worthy impact. From physical addiction and real heath problems to creating violent youths and even starving children to death, World of Warcraft has no parallel in the eyes of the media as a horrific vice for those enammoured with online gaming.
But other than these extreme examples, what is the real impact of countless hours spent inside a virtual world. Take the more tame Second Life, where users spend time simply hanging out and socialising in a vast online world of there creation. As recently as a few years ago huge corporations were taking these virtual worlds seriously enough to hold events inside them. Adobe, for example, held an eLearning conference inside the game on their own private island.
A surprising example of this collaborative play can be seen in the hugely successful independent game Minecraft. The game allows players to mine for resources and craft them into whatever they wish, all while evil mobs hunt them down. The game also has a simple creative mode where players have unlimited resources to create whatever they wish without fear of enemies attacking them or their creations. Combined with the ability to create multi-player servers this has resulted in a myriad of YouTube videos demonstrating the enormous collaborative creativity of the groups involved.
These games, by any measure, have been a success. Blizzard, the creator of World of Warcraft, has quadrupled it's revenue, from the game alone, from $250 million to over $1 billion -- per year. Meanwhile Mojang, the company created by the then lone developer behind Minecraft, has sold over 4.2 million copies and, at a conservative £10 each, made over £42 million and is now looking to add merchandising through a deal with Lego. But what does this mean for all those players?
Whether the tremendous effort expended levelling-up your avatar in World of Warcraft, or the unquestionably creative drive that generates these impressive and immense structures in Minecraft, or even simply hanging out in the online world of Second Life, what have the players got to show for it at the end of the day, back in the real world? Other than a novel way of dwindling fossile fuel reserves and racing towards the heat death of the universe these bits and bytes have few, if any, positive result.
Not that I want to rain on anyones parade, after all I am familiar with the old adage all work and no play... but while you can't fly, vanquish orcs, or even punch down a tree in the infinite resolution of our tiny speck of space, you can get the same satisfaction by building things and making a real impact out there.
Wake up and make a difference. Go make some positive change in the (real) world.
But other than these extreme examples, what is the real impact of countless hours spent inside a virtual world. Take the more tame Second Life, where users spend time simply hanging out and socialising in a vast online world of there creation. As recently as a few years ago huge corporations were taking these virtual worlds seriously enough to hold events inside them. Adobe, for example, held an eLearning conference inside the game on their own private island.
A collaborative project in Minecraft
A surprising example of this collaborative play can be seen in the hugely successful independent game Minecraft. The game allows players to mine for resources and craft them into whatever they wish, all while evil mobs hunt them down. The game also has a simple creative mode where players have unlimited resources to create whatever they wish without fear of enemies attacking them or their creations. Combined with the ability to create multi-player servers this has resulted in a myriad of YouTube videos demonstrating the enormous collaborative creativity of the groups involved.
These games, by any measure, have been a success. Blizzard, the creator of World of Warcraft, has quadrupled it's revenue, from the game alone, from $250 million to over $1 billion -- per year. Meanwhile Mojang, the company created by the then lone developer behind Minecraft, has sold over 4.2 million copies and, at a conservative £10 each, made over £42 million and is now looking to add merchandising through a deal with Lego. But what does this mean for all those players?
Whether the tremendous effort expended levelling-up your avatar in World of Warcraft, or the unquestionably creative drive that generates these impressive and immense structures in Minecraft, or even simply hanging out in the online world of Second Life, what have the players got to show for it at the end of the day, back in the real world? Other than a novel way of dwindling fossile fuel reserves and racing towards the heat death of the universe these bits and bytes have few, if any, positive result.
Not that I want to rain on anyones parade, after all I am familiar with the old adage all work and no play... but while you can't fly, vanquish orcs, or even punch down a tree in the infinite resolution of our tiny speck of space, you can get the same satisfaction by building things and making a real impact out there.
Wake up and make a difference. Go make some positive change in the (real) world.
Cross-posted from cs08jjj on social media
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