Imagine a Game
(Original)

Veerle Vrindts
(Age 20, Belgium)
Maastricht University

Imagine a game, which is never game over.

Imagine a game, which will change your world.

Imagine a game, which will make you see things from another point of view.

Imagine a game…

We're all players in a game called 'life'. We have to find ways; encountering obstacles, victories, comedies, tragedies, but most of all… other people like us. I started playing twenty years ago without even noticing my role. Little by little I felt aware of the game, the choices and the directions life can take.

Observing my culture, I witnessed new worlds we're shaping in challenging ways.

I'm born in the eighties. As an eight-year-old, I queued for the release of PlayStation. I was ten when my parents bought a PC and twelve when I stared at the screen of my first GameBoy. The games we kids played in the nineties were innocent. We were little chubby Italian plumbers in our Mushroom Kingdom, jumping around, collecting coins to save a kidnapped princess. Life was simple, good always defeating bad.

Since I grew older, the gameworld showed his darker side. I saw my friends enjoying first-person shooter and real-time-strategygames. After school, they became serial killers in the private sphere of their PC or game-console. My boyfriend shocked me with his race-game Carmageddon, which allowed him to knock down pedestrians. He even received bonuspoints by doing so. Recent games like ManHunt totally lost the connection with good overcoming bad. You have to be the criminal, killing realistic victims in the cruellest ways.

If flight-simulators teach how to fly, what do violence-simulators teach us? The answer leaves little space for peaceful dreams.

But… there is hope! Together with the growing realism in violent videogames, another generation digital games started to flourish: strategic life-simulationgames! The Sims, released in 2000, encouraged people to enjoy playing in a world very similar to their own environment. They had to take care of a family of 'Sims', make interactive choices for them like buying houses, purchasing furniture, lead them into failures or victories,… in other words: 'play God'.

After this success, the game-industry developed a new world: Second Life! It's a virtual 'copy' of reality with his own economic system and a lot of connections to the real world. Big companies place advertisements in the Second Life world, you can even change your Linden Dollars for real money.

Real-life games copy capitalistic worlds. The most important value is 'becoming rich and successful as quickly as possible'. If I was a gamedeveloper, I would change the aim of the game. Am I naïve when I dream of a peaceful world of equality? Am I wrong when I say videogames can show how to achieve it?

According to the Second Life platform, I would create a copy of the world. Global maps like Google Earth go a long way forming these images. By zooming in on the globe, you can visit places you even never heard about. But 'you' are not just a Western individualist, dreaming of a filled purse. 'You' can also be a child, born in the slumps of Lima or a homeless victim of an Asian tsunami. Fate chooses.

In this game you don't gain money, but happiness credits. Your score will rise if you help somebody or accept help: by saying something nice to a stranger, offering a hand or a listening ear, donating money when you can afford it or receiving it when you need it, by volunteering in one of the development projects, etc. You loose happiness credits because of aggressive or violent behaviour towards other living beings.

Every day difficult tasks are offered. If you succeed, your happiness score raises a lot. But…you can't do the tasks by yourself; you need to cooperate with at least one other player. Some example tasks: baking a giant community-cake, collecting hundred clothes for a charity organisation or even building a house! These tasks are funny, but moreover they will encourage team-working and inspire young people to start their own real-life youth-led projects.

The game will have social connections. Projects mentioned in the game, exist in real life. By participating in the virtual version, you contribute directly to these projects. When you click on the different countries of the world, you can read about the issues this area is confronted with. Intercultural learning will overcome stereotypes. There are possibilities to meet people from around the world. All participants will have their own profile and you can start chatting whenever you want.

The game I dream about will never be 'game over'. When you reach a certain level of happiness, you can choose to be a new digital personality and share your 'happiness'. The peaceful circle of life starts all over again and the achievement of the dream will grow with every generation. 

Imagine a game…