{"id":409,"date":"2010-03-17T19:25:25","date_gmt":"2010-03-18T02:25:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/islemaster.wordpress.com\/?p=409"},"modified":"2014-03-17T00:22:32","modified_gmt":"2014-03-17T07:22:32","slug":"the-gamer-resource","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/the-gamer-resource\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gamer Resource"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/evokelogo.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/03\/evokelogo.jpg?w=150\" alt=\"Evoke\" title=\"evokelogo\" width=\"150\" height=\"54\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-412\" \/><\/a>Game designer <a href=\"http:\/\/www.avantgame.com\/\">Jane McGonigal<\/a> (of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.worldwithoutoil.org\/\">World Without Oil<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.superstructgame.org\/\">Superstruct<\/a>) explains <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ted.com\/talks\/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world.html\">how online gaming will change the world<\/a> at TED2010.<\/p>\n<p>She describes four skills that we develop by playing games:<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><b>Urgent Optimism:<\/b> Gamers believe that success is possible and we can and should act immediately.<\/li>\n<li><b>Social Fabric:<\/b> Gamers build strong social connections because playing games together engenders trust and cooperation.<\/li>\n<li><b>Blissful Productivity:<\/b> Gamers understand that hard, meaningful work makes us happier than relaxing does.<\/li>\n<li><b>Epic Meaning:<\/b> Gamers want to be a part of a world-changing effort.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Her talk continues to describe the origin of games according to Herodotus, and the not-quite-spoken implication is that eighteen years of gaming prepared a dying society for the exodus (or diaspora?) that saved it.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s clear from Jane&#8217;s work that she believes we live in a dying society, but she&#8217;s not exactly suggesting we launch a colony ship in ten years.  Instead, she&#8217;s hoping that the traits and the effort we invest in games can be directed at the real-world problems we face, before any such exodus is needed.<\/p>\n<p>Part of me thinks that while I have learned some things from gaming, it also makes some people lazy.  Another part of me thinks that she just insulted everybody who has ever led a fulfilling life without thinking of it as a game.  But with the popularity of online games on the rise, maybe she is just trying to take back the growing part of society that&#8217;s been lost to aimless gaming.<\/p>\n<p>Her latest effort, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.urgentevoke.com\/\">Evoke<\/a>, started at the beginning of the month.  Make this your gaming obsession for the next few weeks, and you just might learn something about changing the world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Game designer Jane McGonigal (of World Without Oil and Superstruct) explains how online gaming will change the world at TED2010. She describes four skills that we develop by playing games: Urgent Optimism: Gamers believe that success is possible and we can and should act immediately. Social Fabric: Gamers build strong social connections because playing games&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[138,199,292,342,348,376],"class_list":["post-409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-games","tag-evoke","tag-jane-mcgonigal","tag-resources","tag-superstruct","tag-ted","tag-world-without-oil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1232,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409\/revisions\/1232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bradleycbuchanan.com\/b\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}