Science Faction Ltd is one of the pioneers in a unique new form of training: Reality Games.
Reality Games are games designed to lead to achievements in reality rather than just in the gaming arena.
Participants take part as themselves, they do not need to play a role, but simply need to take what they find at face value.
Reality Games can have lasting benefits and lead to permanent changes in culture and capabilities.
We can make or tailor Reality Games to present specific challenges and develop specific skills to meet client requirements.
Science Faction's training process manifests as a reality game: Alien Artefact 202. We have learned from the psychology of games in general. Jane McGonigal has this to say about online games:
"An epic win is an outcome that is so extraordinarily positive you had no idea it was even possible until you achieved it. It was almost beyond the threshold of imagination and when you get there you are shocked by what you are capable of."
A lot of people feel that "We are not as good in reality as we are in games."
When we're in game world many of us become the best version of ourselves, the most likely to help at a moment's notice, the most likely to stick with a problem as long as it takes, to get up after failure and try again. And in real life when we face failure, when we confront obstacles, we often don't feel that way, we feel overwhelmed, overcome, anxious, depressed, frustrated or cynical. We never have those feelings when we're playing games, they just don't exist in games."
What about games makes it possible to feel that we can achieve everything? What makes epic wins so possible in the online world? There are lots of characters who are willing to trust you with a world saving mission right away. Not just any mission. It's a mission that is perfectly matched with your current capability , you can do it, but it is on the verge of your capability. So you have to try hard. There is always something specific and important to be done. There are tons of collaborators ready to work with you to achieve your epic mission (not so in real life) and also there is this epic story, this inspiring story, why we're there and what we're doing and then we get lots of positive feedback +1 this +1 that.
It's so satisfying to be on the verge of an epic win, so people spend all their time in these game worlds because it's just better than reality.
The average young person in a gamer culture will have spent 10,000 hours gaming before the age of 21, equivalent to six years of school. Malcolm Gladwell in "The 10,000 theory of success" says it takes 10,000 hours to be a master of anything. What are gamers getting good at? Something?
"We're witnessing what amounts to no less than a mass exodus to virtual worlds and online game environments." - Economist Edward Castronova. This makes perfect sense because;
This is rational for now but it is not an optimal situation. We have to start making the real world work more like a game.
We want to imagine the best case scenario for the future, and then we want to empower people to make that future a reality. We want to imagine epic wins, and then give people the means to achieve them.
