I saw this TED Talk the other day about the "Game layer on top of the world." For those of you who aren't going to click on the link and watch the ten minute video, the basic idea is that the past decade was the decade of becoming aware of the social layer of the world. The Twitter, the Facebook, the Web 2.0-y stuff was all part of us connecting to each other in a global way. The speaker believes that the next decade will be about the game layer of the world - where we realize and start to use game mechanics to motivate and control the world around us. It's an interesting talk.
It reminded me of a blog post I read a few weeks ago. Some game designer or other's blog (unfortunately, I can't remember who...) listed 100 things that he's learned while designing games. One of the items was something like "Ethics disappear inside the magic circle."
For those of you who are unfamiliar, the magic circle is a term used to describe a game space. It is the frame of mind where decisions are made not by the rules of the world, but by the rules of the game. It is what allows us to make cutthroat decisions to send our soldiers to their deaths in Starcraft or to charge exorbitant rent in Monopoly. We don't think about the moral implications of these actions because they are part of the game. In order to win, we must play by these rules.
But what happens when all of life is a magic circle? Will people be motivated solely by their performance in the Game? Who defines the rules?
I suppose it's not all that different from the way life is now, is it? Already, we play by certain rules. The rules are more complex than Monopoly or Football or The Sims, but we still make decisions that we believe will give us a successful life - however we define success.
Hm. This whole post ended up a lot less deep than I thought it would be. Look for more to come on ethics in games.
