> Jesse Schell (a gaming CEO and CMU prof) gave an interesting talk
> about a future where life is a game -- schools, corporations and
> governments structure everything as a point system.
> http://fury.com/2010/02/jesse-shells-mindblowing-talk-on-the-future-of-ga
> mes-dice-2010/
Ah, yes, I remember running across that talk a couple months ago. What he describes in such glowing terms, though, is really a dire vision of unrelieved neoliberal hell.
It's funny how the more Wall Street neoliberalism tries to imagine the future, the more it ends up recoiling into neocon barbarism. The point-counting system he describes at the end is the prison-house at the end of the US Empire. The suburban dream house, that Ur-fantasy of the 35-year credit bubble, is transformed into a panopticon which tracks your every muscle-twitch for the sake of profit -- every subprime mortgage becomes its very own Guantanamo Bay.
But there's good news: advertisers and oligopolies are losing control of the gaming culture, thanks to increasingly assertive and powerful digital networks of artists and fans.
-- DRR