Ingress coda
Dec. 3rd, 2013 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexI posted a pointer to my previous write-up of my Ingress experience to a couple of Ingress player boards and got some good commentary and feedback. Here I'd like to address two points people raised in favor of Ingress that I did not touch on in the previous post.
Objection 1: "The best part of the game is the social". People have great stories of the folk they've met through the game, the events their side has organized, and so on. All of this is true, and none of it is relevant. Ingress is a social game in just about the way that golf is a social game. There are things you can do in Ingress if you have more than one person around, but nothing in the Ingress game rules or structures requires cooperation or teamwork.
If you like, compare Ingress with chess. To play chess the rules require two people playing opposite each other. We've added rules that let people do things like play chess by mail so no actual social interaction is needed, but those are rules outside the basics of chess. Chess is a social game; Ingress is not.
The social that comes with Ingress comes as a result of the people involved. People form social interactions around bird watching, bowling, and barbecue. All of those social things are great, but none are required by the underlying activity/game. Compare with basketball or baseball, which are inherently team games. You can do lots of things with baseballs and basketballs by yourself, but that's not playing the game. Likewise with Ingress, you can do lots of things in groups, but the game itself doesn't require it, isn't structured to reward it, and can be a completely solo activity without missing out on anything. Ingress fails at social - some people who play Ingress win at social, but I suspect they'd also win at social if they were organizing dinners or backpacking expeditions or anything else. No credit goes to the game for this.
Objection 2: "It's a great way to get exercise." This one has more merit and at times I've called Ingress the ultimate gamification of exercise. The rules of Ingress portals are such that in theory you should be able to walk to them, though portals have been set up on the tops of mountains and in other locations that are hard to reach by standard walking. But I don't think Ingress does anything particularly novel here - every AR game is situated in the world and requires you to go out and be in the world.
The notion "well, I walk more now that I'm playing Ingress" is also a particularly situated notion. It's great if you're in an area that accommodates walking well and the weather is good, but when you're dodging cars in the dark because the sun went down at 16:30 and the outside temperature is 22F before the wind chill, this whole "I walk to play the game" conceit melts away quickly. Not that I've, y'know, ever done that.
Yes, I get more exercise playing Ingress than if I played a desk-bound game. But I also get more exercise because I have a dog and she needs to go for walks, too. It's not a particularly great point in favor of Ingress-as-a-game.
Objection 1: "The best part of the game is the social". People have great stories of the folk they've met through the game, the events their side has organized, and so on. All of this is true, and none of it is relevant. Ingress is a social game in just about the way that golf is a social game. There are things you can do in Ingress if you have more than one person around, but nothing in the Ingress game rules or structures requires cooperation or teamwork.
If you like, compare Ingress with chess. To play chess the rules require two people playing opposite each other. We've added rules that let people do things like play chess by mail so no actual social interaction is needed, but those are rules outside the basics of chess. Chess is a social game; Ingress is not.
The social that comes with Ingress comes as a result of the people involved. People form social interactions around bird watching, bowling, and barbecue. All of those social things are great, but none are required by the underlying activity/game. Compare with basketball or baseball, which are inherently team games. You can do lots of things with baseballs and basketballs by yourself, but that's not playing the game. Likewise with Ingress, you can do lots of things in groups, but the game itself doesn't require it, isn't structured to reward it, and can be a completely solo activity without missing out on anything. Ingress fails at social - some people who play Ingress win at social, but I suspect they'd also win at social if they were organizing dinners or backpacking expeditions or anything else. No credit goes to the game for this.
Objection 2: "It's a great way to get exercise." This one has more merit and at times I've called Ingress the ultimate gamification of exercise. The rules of Ingress portals are such that in theory you should be able to walk to them, though portals have been set up on the tops of mountains and in other locations that are hard to reach by standard walking. But I don't think Ingress does anything particularly novel here - every AR game is situated in the world and requires you to go out and be in the world.
The notion "well, I walk more now that I'm playing Ingress" is also a particularly situated notion. It's great if you're in an area that accommodates walking well and the weather is good, but when you're dodging cars in the dark because the sun went down at 16:30 and the outside temperature is 22F before the wind chill, this whole "I walk to play the game" conceit melts away quickly. Not that I've, y'know, ever done that.
Yes, I get more exercise playing Ingress than if I played a desk-bound game. But I also get more exercise because I have a dog and she needs to go for walks, too. It's not a particularly great point in favor of Ingress-as-a-game.
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Date: 2013-12-03 09:24 pm (UTC)Not quite true; the limits on number of resonators per player per portal mean that even a level 8 player can't make a level 8 portal without help (or by using a ton of the flip-card items). This does reward cooperation, though it can be somewhat separated in time (add my 8 tonight, you add yours tomorrow, etc) as long as the portal isn't successfully attacked. (And, of course, it will be.)
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Date: 2013-12-04 02:25 am (UTC)Agreed. Both of those statements were more or less true on a New England college campus in early June. The same campus in January, maybe not so much.
I can also see how those statements might be more true year-round in, say, Mountain View.
Yes, I get more exercise playing Ingress than if I played a desk-bound game. But I also get more exercise because I have a dog and she needs to go for walks, too. It's not a particularly great point in favor of Ingress-as-a-game.
That was also my thinking.
As an aside, a couple of my friends did get a dog with the idea that they'd get more exercise; turns out the dog didn't much like walks! So maybe Ingress more reliably encourages walking than some dogs. :)
no subject
Date: 2013-12-04 08:27 pm (UTC)Then, bundle a bunch of rounds into a season, with leaderboards based on rounds. This gives people the victory while giving them the incentive to continue to play.
Mind you, this solves none of the "each level gives you more of the same and after L8 you're Done, Really." problems, but I think it would be a good start.
Thoughts?
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Date: 2013-12-04 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-04 08:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-12-09 03:58 pm (UTC)My point is that Ingress isn't a game (you have shown that). So to judge it on game criteria makes no sense. Personally, I prefer to call it an activity. This activity motivates me to do things I wouldn't have otherwise done. Among other things, I look more closely at the world around me thanks to Ingress. I had NO CLUE how many monuments, plaques, statues, churches, etc. there were in places I thought I knew well. Also, I learned some interesting things about where I live/work. (For instance, I learned that George Washington visited Haverhill and quite liked it, and that the first Macy's was opened in Haverhill) Some other things this activity motivates me to do are meet new people and walk more. Good things to do more often (at least in my case). So maybe you should judge it as an activity instead?
AgentPalazzo
no subject
Date: 2013-12-09 04:20 pm (UTC)As I mentioned in the intro I'm prepping for a panel discussion on games and literature; Ingress is part of what I wanted to talk about. Second, I play and beta-test a lot of games and wanted to compare my experiences in this beta with other experiences I've had. And finally, as a player I found myself frequently bored. I sat at level 7.9 for a long time when I could have gone to 8 much more quickly and I've been trying to think through why that was.
Your point that Ingress isn't a game is an interesting one. As "gamification" slips into more and more activities the notion of what is or is not a game gets fuzzier. That said, I think there's a strong argument to be made for Ingress being positioned as a game with activity components, rather than the other way around. Unlike, say, Fitbit you don't get points for activity in Ingress.
I also agree that the game encourages exploration. Like you, I've been places while playing that I would not have visited otherwise. But like the social aspect I think that's largely a result of the people involved. For example, Ingress has been casual-to-outright-commercial in approval of portals. Why are Zipcar franchises legitimate portals if the purpose of the activity is to explore art and history? Clearly the people playing the game have these interests and reflect that in the portal candidates they submit, but the game itself doesn't promote that.