Video Games That Encourage Human Interaction Can Build Better Vibes
Video Games That Encourage Human Interaction Can Build Better Vibes
Video Games That Encourage Human Interaction Can Build Better Vibes
By Boone Ashworth
December 6, 2023
Summary
Some leaders in the gaming industry want to push back against that narrative by creating games that encourage users to form communities as part of the gameplay.
The idea is that by fostering more human interactions, games can promote positivity and openness, bringing people together instead of pushing them apart.
"Whether it's a town hall meeting for a community or whether it's a group of gamers getting together in a park, whenever people meet face-to-face, there's a level of civility, courtesy, and respect that you often see," says John Hanke, the founder and CEO of Niantic, the developer behind the massively popular augmented-reality mobile game Pokémon Go. He says a big part of cultivating that sort of positive interaction involves designing a game that entices players outside their comfort zones-or, in the case of an AR game like Pokémon Go, actually getting them outside.
"It's just sort of wired into us to be more open to real human contact and not be as quick to withdraw and as heated and nasty as online. Hanke's remarks were part of a panel at LiveWIRED, an event held yesterday in San Francisco for WIRED's 30th anniversary. The session, called"Will Games Eat the World?", featured Hanke; Rachel Kowert, the research director at Take This, a nonprofit that cultivates mental health resources for gamers and game developers; and Jade Raymond, the president and founder of Haven Studios, a game developer that was acquired by Sony last year.
"For anyone who plays games, you realize the most important thing about a game is the story the players create, not the story that the creators want," Raymond says.
The job of a game developer, she notes, is, "creating a framework where players can live their own stories, their own adventures.
Finding ways to help people accomplish goals as a group without necessarily having to shoot an enemy team in the face can help cultivate an environment that makes everyone feel included and makes games more accessible.
Reference
Ashworth, B. (2023, December 6). Video games that encourage human interaction can build better vibes. Wired. https://www.wired.com/story/live-wired-panel-will-games-eat-the-world/