Turning to the Virtual World for Advancement

By -
From Zero to Hero

Real life advancement isn't all it's cracked up to be.  It doesn't exist the way it used to.  Companies have no loyalty to their employees and our generation will constantly be switching jobs and the companies until we retire.  We can't expect a company to take care of us the way our parents could.

The other day Tobold wrote "In my opinion games are for entertainment, not to "work" towards some virtual achievement."
 
I respectfully disagree.  I think we are turning more and more to virtual worlds for our sense of advancement because it's so hard to find in the real world.  Advancement in the real world no longer has a defined path.  Staying with one company for an entire lifetime of work isn't an option any more.  Real world advancement isn't a straight path up.  We move horizontally between jobs or get titles and responsibilities without a pay increase.  Promotions are hard to come by.  The path to advancement is harder to find than ever before.

What about us 20 somethings that can't find a job to save our life in this horrible economy?  Our entire lives we were told to go to college and get a degree so that we can get a great job and make a living.  That hasn't panned out the way it was sold to us.  We spent years working for a degree just to get kicked into a job market that has no place for us.

Is it any wonder that we turn to virtual worlds and MMOs instead of constantly wallowing in the reality of our situation?  MMOs are so appealing because the path to advancement is so clear.  Look at the World of Warcraft.  If you are willing to invest enough time you can advance to the highest level.  If you work for it, you can have the best gear or get into the best guild on your server.  The game clearly lets you know the way to move up in its world and there are no barriers except for a time commitment.  Anyone can participate and there is no unemployment in a virtual world.

No matter what, virtual worlds always reflect the real world in some way.  Why would we constantly grind away towards advancements and achievements in virtual worlds if we weren't deriving some satisfaction from it?  I think we may have been looking at the MMO/work relationship completely wrong.  People actually want a work-like activity with a clear path of advancement because it's so hard to find in real life.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Latest Board Gaming

By -
Image
Besides video games I also regularly play board games when I'm hanging out with people face to face.  My brother, my wife, and I end up playing a lot of 3 player board games, but sometimes we get other players involved too. I realized I haven't talked much about what I've been playing in the world of board games, so here goes: Ticket to Ride - We own 3 different base versions of Ticket to Ride, 2 expansion sets, and an extra map set.  We love this game.  This is the game that gets the most overall table time when I'm playing board games with friends.  It's super accessible but still holds fun for people who have been playing the game for a long time.  I recommend this as a great beginner board game for anyone. Masquerade - A hidden role game where roles are constantly switching hands.  You're limited in actions on your turn and can only take one action.  This means that a lot of the time you're not entirely sure what role you currently ...
Read more

S2E22 - E3 2017 - “Who doesn’t want to be a dinosaur?!”

By -
E3 Hype! E3 2017. Not comprehensive. Not VGNN.  Only talking about things we think are interesting enough to talk about.  You have video game news sites for the rest :) We’re talking about Press Conferences, if more news comes out throughout the rest of the week it won’t be here because we’re recording on Tuesday night! http://e3recap.com/ has been my friend Overall trends Esports being forced onto games that aren’t even out yet “Influencers” being put front and center BJ: torn on the current “influencer” boom. Feels like a bubble that’s totally disingenuous Shorter press conferences with less big game announcements Really hard to tell what is actually exclusive Microsoft “Console Launch Exclusive” Most of these press conferences would have been better pre-recorded as just a series of trailers instead of having a stage show, honestly. Updates on games we already knew existed.  This is what we get for so many years of announcing g...
Read more

What is Blaugust? 2023 Edition

By -
Image
I jumped right into the previous post without actually explaining Blaugust.  So... what is it?  Blaugust is an excuse to get people blogging... in August.  Hence, Blaugust! I'm not the best person to pitch it, but Blaugust is put on by a long time friend of mine, Belghast.  Here's what he had to say about Blaugust for the 2023 kickoff: Blaugust is a month-long event that takes place in August each year that focused on blogging and other serialized content. The goal is to stoke the fires of creativity and allow bloggers and other content creators to mingle in a shared community while pushing each other to post more regularly. For years blogging has been dwindling, and in part, Blaugust was my attempt and reversing that course by compiling a bunch of veteran bloggers in one place and making it super easy to ask questions and get answers. The idea is that this festival of blogging can help reignite dwindling fires for the next year and give folks a sense of kinship as a...
Read more