Can i say, first off, that this Semi-Utopian vision scares the hell out of me:
For those of you running flashblocker or freshly stocked on caffeine, Brian Schell presented a talk where he talked about the future, where your life becomes a "game" and you're awarded points for successfully accomplishing tasks like "brushing your teeth" or "watching commercials".
The openly paranoid will note that in addition to determining how many points you get, there's a lot of highly invasive activity going on here. Kinda reminded me a little of this little chestnut from the past.
Sorry, but honestly, i'm really not that much of a gamer. Having only seldom managed to get my initials on any arcade box, i really don't care how many points i have when i finish something. i only finish it because i enjoyed playing the game. Playing "Reality: The Game" doesn't really thrill me, and frankly, if the planet were to suddenly start, i'd be spending all my time trying to figure out how to hack it and cheat. "Oh, darn, you caught me. Looks like i'll lose 10,000 points and not qualify for that free bag of Cheetos. Horrors."
See, that's the one thing that's missing from good Mr. Schell's talk. Games are supposed to be entertaining. Being able to buy my way into a game, or gargle Listerene for extra points, not really that entertaining. Sure, some folks will definitely go for that sort of thing, but then, those are the same obsessive Type A folks that race you to be first to the red light and then swear at you because by the time you got there, the light just turned green and you've not lost any inertia. (Ah, physics.) After all, i don't believe that chess has points.
