[ExI] simulation as an improvement over reality

[Mike Dougherty]

On Thu, Dec 23, 2010 at 4:04 AM, Adrian Tymes <atymes at gmail.com> wrote:
> As someone who's written and tested games, I can tell you that wouldn't
> be as awesome as that sounds.
>
> In the case of Pong, either there is a paddle in position to intercept or
> there is not.  A crowd-controlled paddle would rarely be in a given, small
> range of position, if there is little time to get it into that position and any
> question about what that position is, even ignoring deliberate griefing.

As someone who's played and complained about games, I can agree with
you.  I think the original point was spike's suggestion that gaming
will be the only real frontier after our physical world is
well-in-hand.  I was trying to suggest (by simple analogy to
first-video game principles) that crowd-cooperative gaming would begin
to approximate a literal hive-mind.  Obviously the payoff from Pong is
insufficient to drive the requisite brain chemistry for very long.
I'm not really sure what keeps millions of Facebook users clicking on
[pet|farm|etc]-ville games.  My guess is that the herd mentality can
be understood and exploited in a way that both the players and played
both enjoy.  If my Pong example was too basic, then suggest an
environment/design where the gaming concept I was describing could
work.  Else perhaps I failed to convey my point at all.