Comments on: TED Thoughts: Where Gaming is Taking Us

By: Leland

Leland — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 18:44:22 +0000

Erik,
A coworker just IMed me this link this morning, and it hits a bit on what you’re saying here: http://g4tv.com/thefeed/blog/post/702668/dice-2010-video-design-outside-the-box.html. His whole point is that game-like incentives have started migrating out of the video game and into real life: social network reputation points, FourSquare mayorship, Xbox Live Achievements, and the like. So at what point do these things, combined with the decreasing cost of components like ULV CPUs, flash memory and GPS, start to hit other mainstream areas of life? It starts getting a little whacky when he talks about being plugged into dreams at the very end, but the point is good and he’s a really engaging speaker. It’s from a few months ago, but if you haven’t seen it, it’s worth a watch, if only the middle 15 min.

By: Francesco Ciriaci

Francesco Ciriaci — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 16:10:06 +0000

Thanks for the hints on the books and those TED presentations! I agree with you: gaming will drive mainstream technology. And gaming will shape our world more and more. Have you seen this TED: Gaming can make a better world? Since I saw it (a couple of month ago) I can't stop thinking that there are serious possibilities, mostly unexplored yet, to leverage what the game industry is producing... to serve other goals than "pure fun".

By: John Karanja

John Karanja — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 14:51:25 +0000

Nice read, i watched the Milo trailer (and indeed the parodies) and i must say that if that video is a true demonstration of the capabilities of A.I programmers these days then there is a lot to be excited but also worried about.

Given that like you said databases increasingly collect our own attributes and behavioural tendencies then i can forsee a future where we can create gaming characters that share/mimic our personalities.

This would be great in making work easier, as it would be possible to delegate to these epersonalities our repetitve tasks like shopping as they would theoretically know what we would like to buy through complex correlations and permutations.

However like with every great technology there is an opportunity for people to abuse it, like living their entire lives through their profiles. A good example is that South Korean Family which took care of their virtual baby while neglecting the real baby to the point of starvation.

Lets see what happens next as gaming just reached another level.