Game Designers As Social Engineers

hapwned writes "In an article from The Escapist, Allen Varney explores a future where a 'simulated reputation economy' will be as valuable our current monetary economy. From the article: 'The game designer today occupies a nebulous social role, a mutant cross of technician, scenarist, entertainer, architect and sometimes even artist. The upcoming reputation economy offers ambitious designers a larger sphere, a chance to change the world and eventually transform the lives of millions. If you're up for it, start planning.'"

Comments

Bah to Rehetorical Questions.

[Swordsmanus]

Nice of that article to ask such a question without citing evidence. I've seen a fair amount of reviews in the 4.0 range that contribute to the average-to-poor scores on metacritic. Go ahead, check the site and look at the reviews they include for the more poorly rated games. Even some overall "average" (5.0-7.0) rated games have some really low scores included.

Here, I'll make it easy for you - lots of low scores on games of all systems from various sites contained within these metacritic compilation-reviews. Keep in mind that the majority of these are recent games. There are far, FAR lower score reviews to find in the history of each system (excepting the more recent PSP, DS, and XBOX 360)

PSP: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/psp/worl dseriesofpoker

DS: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ds/space invadersrevolution

PS2: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps2/beat downfistsofvengeance http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/ps2/true crimenewyorkcity

NGC: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/cube/one piecegrandbattle http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/cube/gei st

XBOX: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbx/adve ntrising http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbx/shad owthehedgehog

PC: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/bigmu thatruckers2 http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/pc/beton soldier

XBOX 360: http://www.metacritic.com/games/platforms/xbox360/ nbalive06

Whoever wrote that article would have better served his/her readers by actually looking into which review sources refuse to give lower end scores and pointing out who the culprits are so that his/her readers can avoid them. Instead, he/she asked a vague rhetorical question that serves only as a broad and baseless generalization. Of course, that would take effort, and ejaculating uneducated opinions into the eyes of the public is so much easier!

Re:Didn't Cory Doctorow already say this?

[Allen Varney]

...in "Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom"

Uh... Yes, indeed he did. Which is why I quoted him early in the article. And this kind of comment gets modded "Informative"?