i think there's nothing wrong with inviting game explorers to immerse in worlds designed to support their courage for social change IRL outside the games. many people are interested in game creation and game experiencing outside of a consumer-based paradigm. people enter game worlds to satisfy needs for play, creativity, experimentation with alternate concepts, etc. worlds they're not addicted to staying in is an important design consideration, but rather than creating experiences that we just understand as dying or becoming phantoms, we can also imagine them as practice zones, spaces that can serve needs for practicing alternatives and bolstering our skills. if our game world practices can support "show[ing] us a way through the innumerable crises of our time" we can carry from this what's useful, instead of only considering the experiences as things to let perish and move on from.
could game worlds also be practice spaces to try things that support our moves IRL for social change, practice zones that we learn from and can move on from but while carrying the experience benefits with us, instead of just considering them as material to let perish and leave behind?
ooh, I really like the idea of worlds as "practice zones" -- as you said, this term foregrounds the possibility of finding something useful while also keeping in mind the impermanence of the experiences we have there.
As for the idea of dead worlds, I maybe should have been a little clearer that allowing a world to die doesn't necessarily mean that you have to leave everything about it behind. In a later section of that blog, Avery Alder goes on to talk about how people can take what they want or need from a roleplaying experience, while leaving other things behind. I totally agree that we shouldn't "overcorrect" the problem of addictive worlds by making worlds that people simply forget about and discard. Maybe the ways we deal with real death - memorialization, honouring, burial - could be useful here? Not sure though, still thinking this through myself!
sorry, didn't mean to hammer on questions, i was frustrated by technical glitch of not seeing my first comment show up at all (turned out as not a substack stalling issue, but b/c of site design to show details like comment panels just with chromium browsers, not firefox). yes, thinking differently on how to treat ideas like consuming, retaining, exiting, concluding relationship, death etc, seems important! :)
i think there's nothing wrong with inviting game explorers to immerse in worlds designed to support their courage for social change IRL outside the games. many people are interested in game creation and game experiencing outside of a consumer-based paradigm. people enter game worlds to satisfy needs for play, creativity, experimentation with alternate concepts, etc. worlds they're not addicted to staying in is an important design consideration, but rather than creating experiences that we just understand as dying or becoming phantoms, we can also imagine them as practice zones, spaces that can serve needs for practicing alternatives and bolstering our skills. if our game world practices can support "show[ing] us a way through the innumerable crises of our time" we can carry from this what's useful, instead of only considering the experiences as things to let perish and move on from.
could game worlds also be practice spaces to try things that support our moves IRL for social change, practice zones that we learn from and can move on from but while carrying the experience benefits with us, instead of just considering them as material to let perish and leave behind?
ooh, I really like the idea of worlds as "practice zones" -- as you said, this term foregrounds the possibility of finding something useful while also keeping in mind the impermanence of the experiences we have there.
As for the idea of dead worlds, I maybe should have been a little clearer that allowing a world to die doesn't necessarily mean that you have to leave everything about it behind. In a later section of that blog, Avery Alder goes on to talk about how people can take what they want or need from a roleplaying experience, while leaving other things behind. I totally agree that we shouldn't "overcorrect" the problem of addictive worlds by making worlds that people simply forget about and discard. Maybe the ways we deal with real death - memorialization, honouring, burial - could be useful here? Not sure though, still thinking this through myself!
sorry, didn't mean to hammer on questions, i was frustrated by technical glitch of not seeing my first comment show up at all (turned out as not a substack stalling issue, but b/c of site design to show details like comment panels just with chromium browsers, not firefox). yes, thinking differently on how to treat ideas like consuming, retaining, exiting, concluding relationship, death etc, seems important! :)