Gamer subculture is the shared perceptions, mores, and norms of people who self-identify as people who game recreationaly. That’s kind of circular, which is the point. When he talks about health insurance providers giving the same points as Minitru (The public education system), he invokes a rule that I have only seen to be true in gamers: That a high score is worth hard work.

Farmville did and does generate revenue from three streams: Direct purchases, Lead generation, and habit monitoring/adserving. I don’t have access to their accounting, so I don’t know the size of their revenue streams or costs associated with servers, programmers, and the like. And anyone who continues to play for fun enters at least the fringe of gamer subculture.

So you’re saying Farmville’s system didn’t lead to revenue –> profit? And how does “gamer subculture” (which you don’t define) apply to Farmville?

But in the mid 1990’s, in the early games of modern computer gaming, games would burst through to reality just as much. The earliest reference I could find to gaining unfair advantage in a networked competitive multiplayer game looks to be from the mid 1990’s
“Many otherwise inexplicable happenings can be shown to not be cases involving sysop intervention with TEDIT or AEDIT” http://www.textfiles.com/rpg/iago
regarding the BBS door game Trade Wars 2002, which came out in 1990.

And I know that I have lots of things that I spent money on that I don’t think are worth what I spent. I also have a lot of things that I got for free that I think are worth spending time and money on.

He loses the points discussion when he turns points into legal tender: “…and you can use these points for tax incentives.” That’s not points, that’s money. Then he breaks the survey model “…And if they did, then big points for you! Right?” by equating results with information. Because who wouldn’t lie on a survey to get a tax rebate? (Full disclosure: I take surveys for ‘points’. Those ‘points’ are directly transferable to actual products, including gift certificates, at known exchange rates. That means that those ‘points’ are a limited form of currency.

Despite his apparent position, he fails to understand the gamer subculture, and he certainly doesn’t understand collecting points or achievements. The easier something intangible is to buy, the less value it has. When Farmville lets me buy in-game coins, it dilutes the value of coins; the same total number of hours has been spent on making coins, but there are more coins in circulation. Do that enough, and the only people left playing are those to whom the exchange of cash for coins is worthwhile, plus those who are noncompetitive but like the game anyway.

And creating a primarily ad-based economy would seem to violate some basic physical law. Can I ever earn enough by being exposed to ads to meet my basic needs? What percentage of the GNP can advertising be? Non-advertised products would be, on average, that percentage cheaper.

Second, you missed the part of the talk where he mentioned how this is happening right now. Right outside your door. Major corporations want us to be in the world he described; they’re pushing us toward it. They have a ton a money and they want yours – what’s to stop them?

Third, spend a year or two working in the tech industry and then try to say how “bogus” his picture of reality is. It may be an idealistic vision from the standpoint of large corporations and entrepreneurs looking to make the big bucks, but the very fact that people are taking the idea and making it real right now, as I type this, well, at least in part support his argument.

This was found with a Google search for ‘design outside the box transcript’. Seriously, folks, it’s a good idea to include it whenever it’s already out there…

But it’s all about who’s in charge, are we going to eventually reject the direction things are going? Probably… The future is notoriously unpredictable.

A second watch-through though, kind of underscored Schell’s final point of the video: who, exactly, will eventually exert control over this?

The problem is that his future makes the assumption that the methods he outlined will be used to make you better people, but also to consume more. Basically the difference would be games designed to educate and expand your awareness, and, well… FarmVille. And the FarmVille future would be horrific.

But — and this is something I also noticed during the second watch-through — he also mentions about the bit about how people are sick and tired of the fake commercialized bullshit.

Would that mean that once gaming methods start spreading out the way he says it will, that there will be a backlash, from people who know that the things those games do are in essence things that manipulate you into doing things?

If you’re interested in knowing just how WRONG this guy likely is, check out the book “Future Babble” by Dan Gardner, or just listen to the interview of him on CBC’s Q (and then pretend you read the book like i just did).

Check out the January 4 Episode with the interview in it:
http://www.cbc.ca/q/episodes/

Anyway, that said, this guy sounds awesome and i will read his book. While keeping in mind that predictions are bogus.

That said, the digital creep is unfortunate, as is the push towards non-privacy. I want to be able to go offline and read a book with a mug of coffee, and not have my digital life impinging on that.