Future life - real life RPG

RPG=LPG? let me explain. role playing games = life playing games. what? like, the Game of Life. remember that game? i wasnt very good at it. surprisingly, im not doing so hot at the game of real life. but what if this correlation were related? what if the two were one in the same? oi vey, let me explain:

so i've been watching this video.

Wii Games - E3 2010 - Guitar Hero 5

Professor Jesse Schell, at Carnegie Mellon (+10 points for CG in the grad school search) gave this talk about the future of gaming, and its integration into REAL LIFE. whoa what? yeah, remember when the wii came out and everyone was all like "wait, you have to move your body to play?!" (surprisingly nintendo didnt get sued for lack of accessibility options with the disabled. hoy!) and then wii fit was all "hey, let make exercising a GAME!" yeah man. it shouldnt be surprising then that things have been and are continuing to head this way.

as someone who is entirely interested in this technological revolution we're finding ourselves in, i've been extremely interested in integrating gaming and technology into real life. Professor Schell shows us a picture of a future where everything is is part of one big RPG. everything you do can be used for XP. provided you do things using the latest technology.

but that brings to mind another though: what about the analog? what if in this future, you were to do things the analog way. walk in the woods, no geo caching?! no +50 XP for expert position from your new Kama Sutra 3.0 e-book?! heh. well actually i think its interesting because earlier in his lecture, he tells us that this doorway into real life/gaming convergence is being made possible by our distance from the real, by our longing to get back to the real and authentic. these days we don't live in reality, well i mean authentic reality, right? its not subreality though. its more like baudrillard's hyperreality, isnt it? we can connect to a live event happening half way across the world, sitting in our chair, holding the screen in our hands.

freaky, right? so many things are synthetic, manufactured, replicas these days. its no wonder we're trying to "get back to nature" as it were. this and this is organic. this and this is made with an authentic recipe from italy, etc etc. So as Schell says, our urge to reconnect with reality and life opened this doorway for virtual reality to start crossing over into real reality? non-virtual reality? hows that for a brain-buster? non-virtual reality. if technology continues down the path that Schell painted, i wouldnt be surprised if the most accurate way to start describing some things IS non-virtual reality.

as with any technology, this can be used to enhance our lives, the quality of them, as Schell ends with, or it can be used to create a completely detached, de-humanized and dystopic future. it all depends on how we use it NOW. creation is so much easier than restructuring.