On Free Loot and XP!

Warthog! by Tuzen
Warthog!, a photo by Tuzen on Flickr.
After weeks of play, the game crashed and my friend’s character lost all his skills; you can imagine, he was upset. I prefer games where the skill is located outside the machine, preferably inside me. This game starts with terrible items that randomly miss, but you play long enough so that your character gets better. They fake skill improvement; fun, but still fake.

I think these kinds of games can make us a special kind of stupid. We can’t help but learn from everything we do. And what lessons do these games teach us? Things randomly happen, material items are important, and rewards come from time spent butt-in-seat. As a player, I don’t want to spend hours inside that kind of warped world view. I switched games.

The ideal game would store all skills inside the player. Digitally there would be nothing to lose. The lessons taught could be useful in the real world. That material things are just tools. Empathy. Teamwork. The achievements of others proves the possibility of your further success.

Can we imagine new games starting from life lessons?

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