How Does Gaming Impact Society? @PSFK

The NY Academy of Sciences hosted a lecture on Virtual Humanity: The Anthropology of Online Worlds, the?third installment of its Being Human in the 21st Century Series. Thomas Malaby and Lee Guzofski brought the worlds of academia and cutting edge game play together in a discussion ranging from anthropological definitions of virtual gaming to the questing adventures of World of Warcraft and the virtual realm of Second life. The two lecturers discussed the cultural form that games fill and what higher learning and value we may soon expect from game designers in the future.

Thomas Malaby, previously of?Linden Labs?and professor of anthropology at University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, spoke about how Foldit solved a protein folding problem?which eluded AIDS researchers for more than a decade?in a mere 10 days. The amount of time people spend playing games has an extremely productive and engaging potential. Aggregated individual mastery fuels the possibilities for groups to work together and create solutions to virtual and real world problems.

Fear, elation and grief are all expressed in unison with their?avatar?s experiences in the gaming world. Lee noted that, ?games draw people in biologically, similar to real life events?these surrogate worlds allow for a testing ground in a finite world.? Attendees asked about personas that sought to disrupt, by harassing or ganking players, gamers are quick to ostracize people that break the unspoken conventional rules of MMORPGs. Gamers are inherently good, because that?s how the architecture of the games is designed. ?Alice and Kev? is one example of altruism in gameplay, where two Sims avatars were created as a homeless character highlighting the difficulty of homelessness and eventually raising money for charities.

In the over 5.93 million years of game play spent playing World of Warcraft, which is the same amount of time that has passed since our first ancestor stood upright, games have been employed as?extremely effective problem solving tools, as well as a relaxing recreation. As gamers continue to spend millions of?hours gaming, designers increasingly use the gameplay architecture to unravel social problems, creating realms of responsibility beyond escapism.

NY Academy of Sciences

Source: http://www.psfk.com/2011/11/gaming-for-good.html

yale harvard dan henderson oregon ducks oregon ducks oregon football lana turner bcs standings