Nov 10 2010
Week 11: Response
Schell spent the first part of his speech talking about how no one has seen the current trend of video games coming. No one predicted how much of a hit the Wii and Wii fit would be. No one predicted the popularity of webkins, of a simple text-based Facebook game. This is all a great example of how technology is being developed and sold so fast that the sellers and the buyers don’t have time to analyze if the technology is good or bad before they use it.
But before I get into the moral question of the future of games, which Schell discusses at the end of his speech, I’ll address the economic trend of the future of games first. The economic strategy of the games Schell mentions- Farmville, Webkins, Club Penguin- is exactly the “Freemium” cross-subsidy that Chris Anderson discusses in Free. It doesn’t cost anything to play Farmville or Mafia Wars, but if you want to one-up your friend that you’re playing against, you can either play the game for a very long time until you get a high school, or you can buy your way to the virtual top with actual money. Club Penguin is similar: users can play for free as long as they like, but they can’t spend their virtual money until they pay actual money for the premium version. This is the “Freemium” cross-subsidy Anderson describes. The majority of users get the product for free because a few users pay the premium subscription. And that translates into a simple Flash game raking in hundreds of millions.
Anderson talks about the “Freemium” cross-subsidy for products in general, but is this the way the economic model of video games is headed? I think there needs to be more stabilization before a new model can move forward in this direction. For example, Xbox 360 charges users to go online, but PS3 users can go online for free. If all platforms were consistent in their charges, then maybe the freemium economy would be able to more effectively infiltrate games. Perhaps internet access would be free for all platforms, but the charges come within the online games, like having to use real money to buy guns in a shooting game, or buy car parts in a racing game, etc.
But personally, I’d rather pay one fee, up front instead of being tricked into buying different things. I would rather pay for something physical- like a video game- instead of having to pay for virtual goods. I think this sneaky way of charging people for fake items is rather annoying. Will people refuse to pay for this, or will they accept it?
In the last part of his speech, Schell predicts that the future contains objects that give us points for every action that we do, from brushing our teeth for the recommended amount of time or taking the bus or practicing our piano for enough minutes. He claims that it will make us better people because we will strive for the higher points. But Ian Bogost says that this doesn’t really reflect higher morals- it’s just a con to make us think we’re being better.
I say that if this technology exists in the future- and I’m sure it’s probable, almost anything is- it doesn’t mean that we should use it. Though technology is produced at such a rapid pace, people need to learn to take a step back and decide if we want to implement the technology, if it is good or bad, before we actually use it. Technology tracking our every move and saving it for our grandkids to reflect on? Who cares?!?! I love my grandparents and I want to learn all that I can from them, but what books they might of read had they a Kindle isn’t relevant at all. There’s no point in storing such useless information, so even if technology can do it, it maybe shouldn’t.