With the advent of the cultural phenomenon known broadly as Online Gaming (encompassing both console and PC gaming), a gradual shift has taken place in the public perception of gaming, as well as it's social impact. Needless to say, with Gross Revenues exceeding Hollywood's Box Office income, video and computer games are here to stay.
Having been long reviled by teachers and sociologists as a negative influence, technology has caught up with human social needs. MMORPG's (Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games) such as EverQuest, rather than dungeons of video game isolation, have become virtual Pubs, 'where everybody knows your username'. University of Wisconsin/Madison Speech Communication professor, Dmitri Williams, argues that online games are becoming a "third place", outside of home and work for informal socialization and the formation of "relationships of status and solidarity."
Over the last few years, Williams has published a number of studies that have challenged the common and mostly negative beliefs about game playing. "In other words," Williams said, "spending time in these social games helps people meet others not like them, even if it doesn't always lead to strong friendships. That kind of social horizon-broadening has been sorely lacking in American society for decades."
In 2003, the Media Analysis Labotatory of Simon Fraser University implemented an in-depth survey entitled, 'Online Gaming as Emergent Social Media'. Their findings support Williams' assertions. Gaming technologies have evolved to a point requiring players to cooperate with, and assist each other, for their own survival... a social component often missing in day to day existence, but very apparent to the ancestors who built the very concepts of our civilization.
The US Army is very familiar with the use of gaming to train the player in a mindset, that the team is more important than the individual. In fact, two commercially available video games, America's Army and Full Spectrum Warrior, were virtually produced by the Army, illustrating a culture shift in the Military Philosophy... veering away from the view of soldiers as cannon fodder, and reinforcing their current image branding of the Army as a high-tech, professional workplace.
This is demonstrated clearly by the mission objectives in Full Spectrum Warrior, where the player leads a team of soldiers into battle, and is responsible for their safety through leadership and intelligent tactical deployment. To underscore this responsibility, the loss of even one soldier, means: 'Game Over'.
Due to their interactive nature, Gaming as a tool of teaching, is being discovered by pioneers like Neuron Farm, a research based educational software company dedicated to the creation of quality Web-based applications to increase literacy.
From Galarneau and Zibit's excellent treatise:
Online Games for 21st Century Skills
"As foreseen by visionaries in the 20th century, mastery of the dynamic processes that underpin the acquisition and manipulation of knowledge is quickly becoming a critical capability in the 21st century. Our formal educational systems do not tend to facilitate the development of these capabilities, yet people of all ages are developing them via a variety of digitally-mediated mechanisms. Online games offer one area of exploration for spontaneously-occurring phenomena that represent the natural development of such literacy... Peering through the window of the present into the future, we present a view that envisioning change means taking a long look at what is working now, regardless of whether that activity is taking place in a formal setting or within entertainment-based worlds where the skills are mandatory to mastery, but learned incidentally through play."
"...a long look at what is working now."
For the author, that began the first time he saw a 50 yr old father and his teen-age son, grinning from ear to ear, and posing for photos with the Halo 2 tournament trophy they had won together as a team. Online gaming is here to stay.
Gregory Wolfe aka Reclaimer is a former State Department Protective Service Agent, Executive and VIP bodyguard.
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