Video Games and Life Points

Interesting stuff! This blog brought to you because of a paper Professor Knutson wrote about how we can improve our genealogy application by learning from the “Angry Birds” iPhone game, and because of a video lecture another classmate linked to me. The overarching concept is, what we’re learning about what draws people into video games will likely change our world forever.

I don’t really think I can do it justice in a page long blog post, so I actually encourage you to go watch the video linked above. But as I assume you don’t have 30 minutes to do that, here’s my synopsis.

The world has been changing very quickly lately. Facebook and smartphones have provided a level of interconnectivity which I really don’t think people fully grasp the magnitude of. But this allows us to see what people around us are doing, and it often affects our decisions.

Video games have found really good ways to pull us in, and they keep finding more, which keeps pulling in different audiences. One thing of particular note is achievement points. A super dumb sounding idea, “oh, let’s just give them some imaginary points that don’t mean anything for accomplishing random tasks, and then let them compare how many they have to their friends!” who’s going to care? Everyone apparently, a clear sense of unfinished business, and a sense of accomplishment from achieving things like this turn out to be powerful factors which draw people in and keep them.

It’s only a matter of time before technology gets cheap enough that advertising companies (or even other agencies) can track us and use the information to reward us with imaginary points which interpret into bonuses later. What if you had a wireless transmitter in your toothbrush that tracked how long you brushed your teeth and gave you discounts for brushing longer? Or transmitters in your shoes that gave you bonus points for walking a mile a day which would reduce your monthly insurance payment? Or so on. The possibilities are endless, I highly recommend the video lecture, I’m not doing the idea justice here, but it’s cool.