Guernication

My thoughts on games and the issues around them.

Author: Guernica

How many Einstein's have their been? How many Mozarts? Or Oppenheimers, Newtons, Pythagoruses (Pythagori?), or Socrateses?

I watched an interesting film the other night that many of you might be familiar with - The King of Kong. For those that have not seen it, it is the story of the battle for the world's highest recognised score at seminal arcade title 'Donkey Kong'. Essentially it is the story of two men, Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe, both of whom lay claim to being the GOAT. Mitchell had set the record decades ago at around 874k points and had been pretty much untouchable since then. His challenger, Wiebe, had come out of nowhere, practising on an arcade case in his garage for years until he was ready to lay claim to the title with a score of over a million. Suffice it to say his ascendency to the throne did not go unchallenged and the furore continues to this day.

Steve Wiebe, as talented as he is, is likely to only ever be the Greatest in the World at Donkey Kong. Even though he he is a competent drummer, having taught himself to play the kit he bought for his son, and artist and teaches science at a high school, he will probably never build a rocket, design a plane or bridge or building, or make the next breakthrough in quantum theory. If it wasn't for DK, his talents - his ability to recognise and work with complex patterns and timing, superb muscle coordination, and immense concentration span - would probably not even be known. If it wasn't for videogames then, it is quite possible Steve Wiebe would just be a good teacher who was known among his friends as a being pretty good with his hands, at being dedicated to whatever he was doing at the time and perhaps a little withdrawn sometimes.

The idea that there are hidden talents amongst the world's population is not new. There are people who make a career out of inventing ways to uncover the capabilities of our children, usually through their schooling. But videogames are, at least relative to human history. I believe videogames have the capacity to uncover talent and genius in a way we have never had access to before.

Think about it. There are six billion people on the planet today. This is believed to be more than the total number of people who have ever lived before, giving us a maximum number of humans to have existed at around the ten billion mark. Is it really likely that out of all these millions and millions, only one person ever had the intellectual capacity of Albert Einstein? Or Steven Hawking? Or Michelangelo? Of course not. But these particular men happened to be born at a time and in a place that enabled them to have the education and opportunities that developed their genius to a point where they could be recognised. All the others lived out their lives quietly. Some died as children. Others were peasants, farm labourers, or just worked in jobs that never presented them with kind of challenges that would allow their intellects to develop.

But the electronic games awe play today are becoming more varied in their content and more demanding of their players. Hand-eye coordination is no longer enough. To be good at Guitar Hero, to master songs at the hardest level, you need the kind of skills that would actually make you a pretty good guitar player (should you ever decide to actually pick one up!). End-game content for MMO's demand good teamwork at the least, and leaders must have the ability to coordinate, to lead, delegate, encourage and so on. New ways of controlling games such as those introduced by Nintendo are changing what we actually do when playing games, bringing more physical and spatial awareness into the picture. Games are no longer just about recreation - we do not relax when we play nowadays. For many of us, gaming is the most demanding part of our lives.

Take my guild-leader for example – let's call him French. By day French is a forklift operator. I'm not trying to be down on manual labourers. If that's what you do for a living, more power to you. Man's got to eat. But this cannot be the most stimulating job in the world. You get in the cab, start the engine, go pick up a palette, move it, put it down. And repeat. Limited variety, limited challenge. But by night (or whenever he's off-shift) French is responsible for a guild with two dozen members. He controls the guildbank, monitors member's progress, figures out what gear people need and where to get it, coordinates raids and groups, and so on. He built our website and runs the vent server. This weekend we're doing Karazhan – a ten-man raid. This requires recruitment skills, direction, resource management, diplomacy, and more. A range of emotions, challenges, rewards and setbacks await our leader. Is it likely French will ever have this level of responsibility in his work? Leadership over dozens? Charged with helping them all achieve success? Probably not.

I'd guess we're all familiar with the sentient AI scenario. Its been in a lot of films. Someone somewhere builds a computer to do a menial or repetitive task, the computer gets smarter and smarter until one day it achieves self-awareness and – pow! - the grey goo hits the fan. Think Terminator or 2001. But what if this self-awareness, this understanding of one's capabilities and the disparity between them and one's daily life expectations, actually happens to us, the meat-bags, before the computers? What would happen if all the thousands of keyboards wizards, Guild CEO's, and Guitar Hero prodigies, all suddenly realised one day that they are capable of taking over the world? That they have the same skills and brain-power as the leaders of industry and science? And what if they then also found that they never will work at that level because they did not go the right school, have the right parents, or just speak the wrong language? Will the uncovering of nascent genius and earth-shattering possibilities result in a new generation of bedroom Einsteins and Mozarts that bring forth art, culture, and technology that seems like magic to the rest of us? Or increasing dissatisfaction, ennui, and depression when these same genii realise they in fact trapped in their ordinary lives?