From: Why Games like Call of Duty Are Bad For You, But Games Like RuneScape Are GOOD For you!
0:00 BDobbins breakup, “My life was pretty good at 18, I was living every 8th grader’s fantasy.” Youtube, preserving the “don’t grow up” lifestyle, 0 responsibilities, none of the mundane (cleaning, taxes, hotel reservations etc all done by partner).
3:02 Adulthood is dying, “kids are not growing up”, not getting married / not having sex / still living with parents / opting out of work, permanent adolescence. Adulting classes existing and rising in popularity is pointing towards this symptom. Causes range from economical (great recession, stagnant wages, inflation), social (overprotective parents (who themselves came from bad times and wish to protect their kids) and controlling systems like in schools, lack of free play).
5:55 Complaints about modern gamers in “CoD has almost ruined a generation of shooter players” mirrors those with millennials. In playtesting participants often gave up easily after not doing well immediately: “I do good on CoD so I think the game is just not good.” Cod is full of randomness to equalize the playing field. It is not that they don’t want to struggle to get good, it is that they never had to as CoD hands out participation trophies and guns that require the same amount of low skill. What if it was backwards: it didn’t ruin a generation of gamers but simply catered to and profited from a malfunction that was already there.
8:23 Research shows that gaming affects the brains development and change over time significantly depending on the game being played: Call of Duty boosts IQ. “Is gaming good or bad? Is food good or bad? There is good food and there is unhealthy food.” Neurological effect of games should be researched just as rigorously as diets are: who, how, when and why to play or not to play certain games. “CoD is the McDo of gaming.”
10:19 CoD ultimately contributes to damaging patterns at large. The game’s design caters to players by shielding them from negative consequences and not allowing them to experience true failure. Games imitating CoD exacerbate the problem even deeper with all games being dumbed down little by little. Games are mirrors to their audiences: each game vigorously playtested and researched to focus groups.
17:00 There is concern for the mentally weak, sexless generations who do not want to work, there are trends showing that this will only get worse generation to generation as economic landscape bleeds most people dry while technology hinders free play and social development.
18:10 If CoD is McDo then Runescape is the healthy food that requires patience and has free play. RC also has labor, free market and its own economy and has heavy emphasis social interactions.
21:11 “Players traded in real world money for RC gold, feeling virtual currency is more valuable than the real shit”
22:30 BDobbins personal RC scamming stories, “In all of us there is a heart of darkness that enjoys outsmarting someone, manipulating them for personal gain.”
23:40 BDobbins personal RC faction stories, internal group dynamics, backstabs, making up
38:55 RC vs school: “color, life, laughter, freedom” vs “gray, bleak, regimented”. School did not allow for enough socializing, gave too much homework such that even after school children did not have enough time to explore their own interest or play with friends nor make new ones. School sat kids down for too long, gave them too little physical activity and punished them for being hyperactive, subduing them. School controlled when and where each student was allowed to do or say anything. Games may seem more real and natural than the stifling reality people inhabit and that the neglect of early education, specifically in regards to school, is a significant factor. Such a way of raising children has resulted in adults thinking in the same ways: hoping systems to provide for them and direct them.
42:15 Unschooling where children are left to learn through self-directed and unstructured activities. RuneScape (and other games like Rust, Minecraft, EVE), with its unstructured nature, can help in addressing these issues and preparing children for the real world.
47:36 “Since we can’t know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try and teach it in advance. Instead we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they’ll be able to learn anything.” “Illiterate is not someone who can’t read and write but someone who can’t learn, unlearn and relearn”: gamers constantly learn new games.