The Spectrum of Digital Reality

After reading an interesting article from The Economist, I know now that there are already several uses for video game technology.  To start off my research, I decided to investigate the topics that were discussed in the article more in depth, as well as other related material, and please remember to comment with your thoughts on issues that may be brought up.

The first video game tool mentioned in the article is one you may be familiar with.  It is a driving simulation developed by Code Masters, which can simulate real world cars and circuits in every detail.   Many drivers have already taken advantage of this simulation.  Only research will tell if this has helped drivers improve their skills.  How would you feel if you learn to drive with a video game?

Next on the list is implementing warfare games.  Video game warfare simulations like “Steel Beast” built by eSim games.  Another game “Virtual Battle space 2” has been experimented with training soldiers in countries like Canada, Britain, and Australia. The game was developed by Bohemian Interactive. The author talks about how this can be beneficial because, “If a commander wants his troops to practice infantry combat in the fog, he doesn’t have to wait for the weather to oblige; he can conjure it up on his computer” (p.10). Satellite images can generate virtual substitutes of real places allowing soldiers to rehearse missions and then later analyze the data. Does it make you feel uncomfortable to know how close real war has come to being just a game? If we continue using games for warfare training purposes, could we lose the severity of taking someone’s life?

                Business companies are also being pulled in. Instead of having a classroom setting students can learn to handle life like situations by playing a game.

                In my opinion though, the most innovative way on using games that I’ve heard of is a game called “Foldit”. Thanks to molecular biology we know that “proteins are complicated chemicals made of long chains of amino acids, the tiny chemical building blocks of life. Those chains can fold up in billions of different ways, and the process by which they arrive are poorly understood.”(p.11).These proteins can be misfolded and are implicated to neurological diseases. Computers can recognize a protein folded correctly, but it struggles when it actually has to find the protein.

A team from the University of Washington invented “Foldit”. It is a free online puzzle game that provides players with a task of finding a protein’s most energy efficient shape. The game with its 40, 000 users have made a serious contribution to biology. Seeing as how this game has helped scientists, do you think this avenue should be pursued?

What all this is, is turning what makes video games fun and applying those methods to other activities. This term is called “gamification”. "Gamifiers try to capture that sense of engagement by providing rapid, continuous feedback, a clear sense of progression and goals that are challenging enough to maintain interest but no so hard as to put players off"(pg.11). According to the magazine ther are many who are not convinced because too much gamification doesn't seem to differ in decent management. Well readers, what do you think? Also, be sure to check out the link provided. The video is The Economist interviewing the author, Tim Cross, about the article. The video talks about more video game topics, but if you would like to skip to the part that discusses what my blog is written on skip to 5 minutes and 25 seconds.
Tim Cross, T. C. (2011, December 10). All the world's a game. The Economist, 401(8763), 10-11.
Click here for the link. Enjoy!
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