The Reality of the Illusion
I've been on vacation this week, and this thread has received an awful lot of responses. I haven't read them all so if someone has already responded along the lines of my argument below then I apologize. It might have been on one of the pages I haven't read for lack of time.
But I'd like to respond in a slightly different way than the responses I've read so far. I think that Celebrim made an interesting argument. I agree with some aspects of the original argument and disagree with others. But this assumption struck me as faulty (though maybe that was not the intent of the implication in the OP):
So its probably not a big secret that one of the attractions of gaming is that through a game you receive the illusion of having accomplished something. Whether its Bejewelled Blitz, WoW, Settlers of Cataan, or D&D one of the reasons people play games is for the immediate affirmation of success and accomplishment which in real life generally occurs alot less often and requires alot more effort.
One may participate in a game and achieve many different types of success, some of which are even of benefit in real life. Now of course one does not practice to,
"Overthrow the Wyrm" in real life. Not in the literal sense in any case. But through the game one does practice, mentally (and I think mental practice is as fundamental as physical practice to the mastery of some skills), and sometimes physically (mapping, note-taking, examination, observation, etc.), a number of skills which make real life success more, not less likely. This is what I like to refer to as
Parallel or Indirect Development of Transferable Skills. (Through an activity, and it could be nearly any activity, one is developing real world skills through the medium of an artificial, imaginary, or simulated environment which demands or requires that one think, act, observe and problem solve as if one were attempting to problem solve a parallel problem in real life - the result being that one can transfer what one learns in the unreal or virtual environment and apply it to the real world.)
So whereas one will never encounter bugbears (not the game versions anyway) or a gelatinous cube in real life, and so will never need "bugbear killing tactics" in their real world and daily environment, one is learning an awful lot about problem solving and tactics and mapping and negotiation and psychological maneuver and typology (the basic assumption of the original argument is after all that one is observing the differences in psychological nature and behavior between various individuals - so the game provides opportunities for that function) and observational methods and a whole host of other skills which have a parallel application for real life and which will, if properly exploited, actually potentially increase the odds of real world success at real world endeavors. So I reject the underlying implication I see in the statement that through a game you receive the illusion of having accomplished something. Depending upon what you are practicing in a game (especially things like Role Playing games and Virtual Reality games and Alternative Reality games, etc.) and how, and depending upon the skill sets you need to practice in real life, there may be no "illusion of accomplishment" at all. But instead a very real and practical and pragmatic kind of accomplishment through the practice of in-game skill sets that can then be directly applied to the real world, or at least practiced in the real world in a parallel way that is extremely easy to adapt and exploit to actual success based upon one's previous gaming experience.
(Much depends upon how one practices the game, of course, as to how well such skill sets and other benefits can then be applied directly or indirectly to the real world. A game may, for instance, hand-wave or even completely ignore things like mapping or the description of or practice of skill sets or demonstrations of capabilities, but I think that overall, most games at the very least allow for indirect practice of real world capabilities, even if one does not consciously think of such things in this way while so engaged.)
For instance today I am going geocaching. Skills learned as a kid through gaming (and not just through gaming, but at least sometimes learned through and definitely often practiced through gaming) have been of great benefit to me with geocaching. As but one example. Geocaching to me is just a hobby, but learned and/or practiced skills in gaming have been of enormous professional help to me as well in various careers I have had, everything from being a delivery driver (as a kid) to being a psychologist, a detective, and a writer. Gaming has assisted with my success, not only as regards a number of my other avocations, but as regards a number of my vocations as well. And it has been my personal observation that oftentimes gamers are far more innovative and flexible (not to mention dogged) when it comes to solving real world problems than those who do not or have not gamed. That observation may be anecdotal, but it does not mean it is not true.
Now to be absolutely fair to CB maybe he didn't mean the illusion of accomplishment statement to stand alone as an isolated phrase implying that gaming provides an illusion of accomplishment rather than the potential seed-bed for real accomplishments. Maybe he meant that phrase to harmonize with the surrounding statements so as not to imply that gaming accomplishments are illusory but rather a "
kind of illusion of accomplishment and success" strictly in comparison to real world success. That I can agree with as a qualified statement. Gaming success does not lead directly to real world success. On the other hand gaming success need not be an illusion of success at all, either within the parameters of the game itself, or in relation to the larger, real world. The one type of proposition does not preclude or exclude the other type(s) of proposition(s).
I'll also agree that gaming environments have a very compressed time-line and "experience base." Events occur in compressed and/or an accelerate format. So gaming accomplishments, game time-frames and deadlines, and gaming objectives and goals can be achieved relatively quickly in comparison to their real world counterparts. But that's not always the case. When in college I had buddies that played through a campaign (I did not participate) that started when they first embarked upon their academic careers, and concluded about the same time they graduated with bachelor degrees. So although they did not intend this consciously, the time frame for completing their campaign goals roughly equated to the same general time frames expended on achieving their basic collegiate careers. Generally speaking however I think it is at least likely, and certainly possible, to manipulate a gaming enviromement in such a way that it is much easier to achieve game and caiman "success objectives and goals" much more rapidly, and sometimes much more easily, than to do so in real life (where neither the individual nor those around him, such as bosses, superiors, etc. can so easily manipulate the surrounding environment or external conditions).
On the other hand one of the big lessons learned through gaming is how to beneficially manipulate a given environment and the various factors that influence that environment so that one more easily achieves in-game success. Those same basic skill and idea sets can then be applied to real world environments if one wishes to do so, or tries to do so, to make real world success either more likely, more rapid, or both.
Now of course I've said nothing about the basic premise of CB's argument, as I understand it, which is that a certain type of psychology or outlook on the part of certain players can affect game play in a certain way. I'm sure that's probably been argued ad infinitum, with all sides probably making good points at certain points. The player psychology type is a totally different argument than the one I'm making. And maybe someone has already argued my point(s) and I missed it due to lack of time to read all responses.
But it occurred to me, in reading the original post, that I could not agree with the idea that gaming leads to an illusion of accomplishment (or perhaps I should more accurately say, and maybe this is what CB really meant, only
an illusion of accomplishment and success) or a kind of accomplishment which might be deemed,
only illusory. I've seen the opposite demonstrated too often in real life to agree with that premise. (I have several buddies in the military and we have all discussed on more than one occasion how beneficial early gaming experiences have been to our various careers.) Again this may not be what was exactly intended in the OP, but it seemed to me an underlying and basic assumption or implication.
If it was an underlying implication then personally I disagree. If it was not really CB's real point but a sort of off-hand or secondary remark design to support another assumption about player psychology, then with the caveats I explained above, my position is that gaming accomplishment is not necessarily any type of illusion at all. It depends very much upon what type of accomplishment it is, and how that accomplishment and ability and capability is used and exploited, as to whether it will remain entirely illusory and substanceless, or whether it can be of real benefit to real world success of at least some kind or to some degree.
Well, I've got to return to my vacation. I'm going to a new geocache this morning.
And I'm going to devise a couple of my own.
See ya.
