Hidden deep in the bowels of Something’s In The Air Redux is what I think is an important essay called “The Philosophy of Video Games”. Reading it requires doing the “Centerfold” path 3 times after “Dark Rachel” has been activated.

If you don’t understand those instructions, don’t worry because I put the entire essay on a single page with the added benefit of links to sources RIGHT HERE.

As both a philosophy fan and a video game fan, I’ve been interested in the topic which crosses paths with a philosophical theory called the “paradox of tragedy” which the essay goes over.

Many of the lessons from this essay I actually implemented into SITAR itself, especially the parts of “alternate moralities”. The essay kind of just ends with unresolved questions, and I want to address where the philosophy of Games goes after that short essay below…

The next topic: Gamification

After writing that essay, I have delved a little deeper in to the topic looking where it will go, and it seems the pro’s and cons of gamification is definitely worth talking about.

On the pro side of gamification is Jane McGonigal:

On the con side is C. Thi Nguyen:

As much as I like McGonigal’s ideas of gamificating the world to reach noble goals, I mostly agree with Nguyen. The truth is gamification of business puts too much emphasis on stats that can be measured, and ignores stats that cannot be measured. Often the most important “quality” stats are the unmeasurable ones.

The gamification of social media is especially destructive to social discourse causing social division. He explains why in this next video. tl;dw: “filter bubbles” where we are not exposed to other views because everyone we know thinks like us, is not the same as “echo chambers” which are designed to actively teach distrust in the other side, a “cult” in other words.

This more than anything is why we are so divided as a country. (If that is not an incentive to watch this video, he also talks about “porn”)

Over reliance on measurable metrics is driving technology, and therefore society, too.