This is a pet idea I came up with while being bored to unconsciousness in my Sociology 101 class (the subject material is, at least conceptually, fascinating, merely the pace of delivery and over-simplification of highly nuanced concepts is boring).

Somewhere whilst I was doodling away explanations as to the theory of socialization as an interaction process came to mind, my neighbour was playing Pokemon with another classmate somewhere else in the lecture hall. Then, deep in my hyper-nerd subconcious an idea for a game/toy emerged.

Socialization is an interactive process and social interaction is both an exchange of “social capital” and a method of communicating culture etc etc. What if we took that to a game scenario where you interact with an agent, a proxy avatar, in an isolated or at least separated setting. Then, based on the nature of that interaction watched that agent perform in a “social” setting with other agents.

It would be a highly complex wind up toy, wherein through methods of play and interaction you train your agent how to behave. Then, using that information you’ve given it it will seek to maximize the gain of social capital whilst minimizing loss.

However, other agents will be seeking to do the same thing. So a game situation presents itself. Your agent can gain favour by being dramatic, telling jokes, being flirtatious, being intelligent, charismatic, demeaning, etc. Your agent can lose favour by capitulating, being demeaned, recipricating flirts, laughing at jokes and responding to other agent’s charisma.

There also presents an interdependence phenomena where a small “knot” of agents woud likely exchange social capital in a cyclical fashion or act as a “team” to affect the social capital of others.

I’m not sure how it would all fix out but, I think, it could prove an interesting study not only in social network construction but on the idea of a strictly capitalist view of social interaction to test how closely it follows reality.

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Halo, the first-person shooter game from Bungie Studios on the XBOX and XBOX 360 is arguably one of the most popular game franchises of the last decade - if not THE most popular.

With only three games in the series its phenomenal success has eclipsed the offerings of its direct competitors and locked-in the success of the XBOX as viable console and market leader.

Halo also did something else, it cemented ARGs as a viable marketing tool. I love bees or I heart bees, a viral marketing game created promote Halo 2 was created by 42 Entertainment, a Seattle-based marketing company that creates ARGs or Alternative Reality Games to generate buzz for products.

While it could be reasonably argued that Halo, after Combat Evolved (Halo 1.0), really only marketed itself as a formality to appease Microsoft shareholders the MASSIVE increase in sales between Halo and Halo 2 shows the success of the I Love Bees campaign among others.

ARGs, for those a little fuzzy on the topic, are games that use real-world media and devices to communicate in-game content and interact with players. Instead of delivering the game wholesale on a console and simulating the use of cell phones to talk to shadowy informants, figure out cryptic puzzles on websites and the like - the ARG designers (known as Puppetmasters in the vernacular) use real phones, fax machines, text messages, websites and even commercials and news broadcasts.

Cloverfield is probably the biggest ARG coming our way - culminating in the movie hitting theatres next summer. Essentially the narrative for the movie is extended out, so players of the game will be uncovering aspects of the story in real-time so the events in the movie literally pickup where the game leaves off.

The potential this has as a teaching tool is phenomenal and as-yet untapped. Since ARGs often require extensive and obscure knowledge to be dredged up to solve some of the puzzles in the game the challenges could be contrived to relate to course material pretty readily. If one thinks of the success of The Da Vinci Code, which amounted to the retelling of the playing of a very high-production value ARG one can imagine how compelling such an adventure would be to kids. It combines trivia, puzzles, scavenger hunts, technology and (hopefully) a strong narrative into a single experience.

If you get students compelled you’ll have them learning without knowing it - especially if you don’t break character. In ARG is there is “ting” philosophy, this is not a game - the ARG must function, for all likely intents and purposes, like real life. There shouldn’t be reference to it as a “game,” the items, pages, clues and artifacts have to be treated as real. Moreover, all information should be applicable and usable - phone numbers should work, email addresses can’t bounce, URLs need to work.

This relates to my earlier post regarding the future of MMOs. ARGs with gameplay interaction between players such as a roleplaying game where you are your character, and you engage in combat via your game console rather than literally attacking fellow players - but your missions, quests etc would all be communicated using normal real-world communications system.

As games become more like jobs (like World of Warcraft) people’s tolerance for outrageously high work/fun ratios is on the rise - so long as the media stimulation is high enough. This is a very good thing for educators.

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Between Second Life and World of Craft, about 50 million people exist in entirely virtual worlds. That’s really only counting those “people” be they Anime pixies or Minotaur-wizards that are active - excluding the legion individuals suspended in database limbo awaiting activation by their “players.”

It is interesting how the media - such as the Globe and Mail, conflate Massive Multiplayer Experiences. Second Life is overtly NOT a game - it is a social forum, it makes not a single attempt to emulate a game or provide a game-like experience. World of Warcraft, strictly speaking, is not a game either since there is no victor or loser and no end-state. That said, WoW offers a directed interactive entertainment system which includes a social framework within which to accomplish setting-specific goals.

Why is this distinction important? Because it provides an understanding that there is a massive diversity in the nature of the experiences provided by MMO/Persistent experiences. What’s perplexing to people about Second Life and WoW is not the abstract nature of the experience - it is the novel interface. Wikipedia may be new and perhaps dubious in some people’s imaginings but it isn’t considered a superfluous novelty, its influence cannot be relegated to only those who use it.

Fundamentally, however, wikipedia is an MMO experience just like WoW and Second Life. It is the interface, the method of interaction that makes these things seem like toys or games, not the content delivered.

What seems to be the trend, if Google is any indication, is the convergence of these sorts of “worlds” with ours through various channels of interaction. Augmented reality has been on the minds of interaction engineers for over a decade. The notion of superimposing data on reality or meshing a system with the physical world isn’t particularly new.

I think the primary actors, the drivers for this change, however, aren’t going to be the Palms or the Hewlitt Packards or even the Nokias - though I think they’ll have an important role in standardizing the technology required. The primary movers on this are going to be those companies who deal directly with early adopters of new interactive media - that is, gamers and hardcore webusers.

The next line of portable consoles will likely incorporate some sort of GPS device or other mechanism for tracking some spatial data - much like smartphones come equipped with internal GPS units or at least the capability to interface with them.

Downloadable content and internet awareness in games is a standard feature - in fact most of the hugely successful games are played entirely or predominantly via the internet - World of Warcraft being the frontrunner. Bringing that connectivity to portable devices allows for the networked interaction required for MMOs.

Soon, non-gaming services will piggy back on these devices - Craiglist, Lavalife, Facebook or their Data-Integrated Reality (DIR) equivalents would provide services to users of the gaming hardware.

Soon smartphones will offer similar services, cell providers will likely get deals with various brands to offer exclusive deals.

Soon we shall see headlines talking about the sale of virtual installation works viewable at a specific location only with a Nintendo Connect or PSP 2 or Microsoft XSlate - devices I have only just now invented.

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