Addiction and improvement

This post was prompted by David Wong's new article today on addiction over at Cracked. Let me start by saying I'm a big fan of Cracked, and particularly of David Wong's articles in particular. The format and style of these posts themselves shows I may read Cracked too much. But this particular article's ending disappointed me so hard I had to respond to it.

Hopefully that doesn't just mean I've been on the internet too long
[source]

The Article
See, a lot of Wong's other articles manage to bring you along as he weaves a big overarcing story of some large aspect of society, with just enough personality and self-awareness/humor to keep it entertaining and perhaps 'palatably preachy' and try to offer some hope or way out at the end. And today's on addiction is no different, except at the end.

Wong lays out his story/model/arguments about addiction (loosely defined) and its complex role in modern society and economy. To summarize, it focuses on how advances in understanding it and how to foster such responses, how businesses use that knowledge to make money, and how society is ok with it as long as it increases stability (even at the cost of individual freedom or agency). I can follow that, and it makes some sense. My issue is the downer conclusion it ends on, about how the economic and social incentives will make companies (and other organizations) keep using this knowledge about how to shape behavior to short circuit our reward systems; where Wong asserts people will stop trying to improve because they will have easier options for the same rewards. And oh gods, its so horrible... (slightly paraphrased)

To which I have to say "Bwah?"

You heard me! Bwah?!

 
My Bias and Problem
The thing is, when he starts talking about how to shape behavior, that is literally what I am working on, so the discussion is much less abstract for me. If you recall, I'm working on designing educational games. Specifically I'm coming from a psych background and trying to figure out how to apply what we know from cognitive psychology, combine it with game design theory, and learn from current commercial games in order to produce educational games that are both educationally effective and actually, you know, good games that are fun.

In Wong's model, part of my job is to be an "addiction expert" and figure out how to learn from psychology and other successful games so I can make new games that will hook players, but use that time to do something good for them, like teach them.

"Got math? Well do you? Cause I will SUCK YOUR D-"
"Ok, we may have gone too far..."

And thats my biggest problem with Wong's conclusion; it seems to overlook the potential of these methods to do good, and cast them solely as the downfall of society. It hits me like saying the internet, or TV, or any given technology that is largely being used poorly and having negative consequences is, in itself, bad and will be the end of society. Every time the technology being considered gets more powerful, that threat seems more plausible, but the thought behind it remains just as misguided.

I still think technology is inherently neutral, and can be used for good or bad ends. The standard dramatic example is that splitting the atom can be used to power cities or level them. But its true of technologies that aren't physical as well. The same kinds of superficial gamification that companies use to sell more products can be used to make online communities less toxic, for example.

Somehow previous efforts weren't super effective.

Wong is right to be concerned about the incentives in place for people in power to use new knowledge to maintain the status quo and reduce freedom for those not in power. That is a worrying system and set of implications.

However, I can't help but see the potential of applying this same knowledge to help people and empower them. To motivate them to exercise, learn, develop skills, work with others, and otherwise benefit. Sure, there will be that arms race among and with commercial products, but looking at video game design makes me optimistic about that. There, gamification is a big deal, but those who research such things know that superficial gamification, the basic addictive features most people think of, are only so effective .

A Possible Solution
I think Wong's fear suggests its own solution. Hes afraid that we've found how to short-circuit the reward pathway and it'll damage our progress; that people will be able to artificially get the same rewards from less effort so they'll stop improving themselves to get natural rewards.

So why not artificially reward self improvement as well?
To me the natural solution is to use this knowledge to reinforce natural responses and super charge that cycle. To compete with these incentives directly rather than just give up. Even if it leaves people the same as now, it would avert the dystopia hes afraid of.

...though it may look like someone else's prediction.

I know the downer may be just to get people's attention; to get them to actually care about this and think about things that they normally don't. But I can't help but object that he fails to mention the possible upsides. Since thats what I'm trying to work on, and all.


What do you think?
Is it all gloom and doom? Am I over optimistic?
Is it all worrying over nothing? Have I been on the internet too much?
Let me know in the comments.

The ultimate science game is 20 Questions?

So as a game designer who is intensely interested in the scientific process and has studied the psychology of scientific reasoning, I'm interested in making a game to teach science. I don't mean teach facts about a particular field, I mean a game that embodies, represents, and can be used to teach about the process of science. The cycle of observation, interpreting that observation, testing that interpretation with another observation, and so on that we use to understand how the world we live in works. I think that would be super awesome and provide a sorely needed service.

Yes, geeking out about the scientific method and
trying to make it a board game may be even stronger
nerd credentials than previously presented, I suppose

This post isn't about the side project game I'm working on, though. Well, except for context: I was thinking about how to do this, and being the big dreamer I am, my initial impulse was to not just represent the cyclical ongoing process of empirical observation and theory revision, but to have systems in the game to show the interplay of surrounding factors as well. For example,  needing some theories in other domains first (like plate tectonics and hereditary traits for the theory of evolution), how new theories have to address all the evidence for current theories, how past theories accumulated anomalous data until a new theory was more attractive, and so on. So after the initial rush of sketching out these systems, I realized this would be a rather complex game.

Not that I don't enjoy complex games.

That's of course fine for a general boardgame, but if I wanted to communicate these concepts to kids as young as possible (which I do) this is not an optimal approach. What I really needed was more a progression of games/activities. So ideally, something only verbal with no pieces at all to get players thinking in a scientific way, then a core game that was just the scientific process, and then expansions for those other systems that could later be bolted on; so once players were familiar with the core game, depth and some complexity could be added, to provide a richer experience and model of the process. (So as a side note, I'm fiddling with just the core game now.)

But when I tried to think of that initial activity, I realized it already exists; The game I want to start with, thats a verbal game with no pieces required, that has players iterate through this cycle, and that involves some critical thinking to refine an idea and progress. Its called 20 Questions.

Yes, the game that proved that one friend is always thinking about Batman.

Think about the goal of 20 questions and how it works for everyone guessing;
You are trying to determine information about an unknown thing. To do this, you get to conduct a number of tests that tell you limited information about the thing (ie yes or no), and then use the information for all the previous tests to devise the next test. You go on figuring out what questions to ask and using the responses to ask more questions until you know the information you want, and that is just such a nice idealized version of the general scientific process in playable form. It makes me giddy, just thinking about it.

But it gets even better. Think about when you play 20 questions and how it progresses. It always starts with the same, practically formalized questions: "Person, place, or thing", "real or fictional", "larger or smaller than a breadbox", "living or dead". Then some other broad but less used questions, and eventually you are asking questions you have probably never asked in a previous game.

Ok, so a real living person who is sort of famous
from the internet, for youtube videos...
Have they ever done a video in peanutbutter face?

Which is just so appropriate. First you have the big general tests that are used on everything, because they are so general, and these are time-tested...tests that have persisted because they are effective. Then the main categories within those distinctions. The breadbox one strikes me as particularly funny, because its a common question/test based on a reference thats outdated but is still used in this one field as a standard convention. That may be funnier to people in some fields than others (or anyone using the Imperial system over metric).

But as you progress into tests that will be useful for addressing this specific, novel problem, there stop being stock tests. You have to think about similar things you've dealt with before, or generate entirely new questions based on what you think the possibilities are. And that even involves evaluating what the remaining possibilities are and what test would distinguish between them.

Ok, so yes to the peanut butter, but not a vlogbrother.
You faked me out. Hmm...was it for comedic effect or cosmetic?

I mean when I thought about it, I just couldn't come up with a better lightweight activity to express science as a game. Its just so good. A game where the point is literally to discover some piece of information about the world (it may only be what someone else is thinking of and of limited utility, but as a psychologist its still totally worth knowing). And the way you do this is a cycle of test, refine your idea of what the possibilities are, then test again. And sometimes you get a response that makes you completely rethink what those possibilities are.

Cosmetic? geez I am not up to date on my peanut butter facial youtubers...

And you can play cooperatively with others, where you are all trying to think of good questions and collaborating. And its such a general game, it demonstrates how this kind of thinking can be applied across many, many areas. Its just so good.

And as boggled as I am by how well this ubiquitous game presents scientific reasoning, I am at least as boggled by how much less interesting and effective the standard ways of teaching "the scientific method" are. Even more so when I searched for other games on it.

"Look on my gamified quizzes, ye designers, and despair!"

Like a lot of others in science and science communication, I think the science is awesome, in the full, outdated, drop-your-jaw-and-stare meaning of that word. From the impressive feats to the everyday improvements, its just great. And all that progress comes from this empirical, critical process.

I think its a great disservice to reduce that process to something students memorize, regurgitate, and then think of as "something scientists do in a lab", something separated from their own life.

This is something people do all the time, but don't think about as 'scientific' since its not in a lab or a classroom. I think (perhaps naively) that if you get people, especially when they're young, to see science as how we learn about the world, as something they are already doing outside the classroom, and at its core as that process of making sense of the world based on what we've observed of it, then they'll respond better to it. It can become a thing like running or talking or reading,  that everyone does, but some do professionally, rather than something scary you don't understand.

And I think more people like that would be a good thing.
Even if they still argued just as much but about what findings meant and methods. 

And Hank could have even more people calling for an encore.

What do you think?
Is 20 questions not as awesome as I think? Can you read even more into it?
Is there some other game that embodies scientific thinking even better or more portably?
Or do you just have a story of how science is awesome?
Let me know.

Film Adaptation is like Science Communication

That's the thought I had this morning, catching up on reactions and commentary from various places to David Goyer's recent comments. I mean, I was also revisiting the ongoing story that the reason DC can't seem to make good DC movies (that aren't Batman) while Marvel is doing gangbusters is that they don't respect, know, or know what to do with the characters.
Its an unfortunately well developed narrative at this point, with a history.



"You want me to write a scene where Braniac is razzalin' polar bears?" (source, image)

But this particular iteration hit me differently, because the bits about Martian Manhunter being goofy or needing to (essentially) be a completely new character to be in their movie  actually reminded me some questions I get about educational games and approaches. Not just because I'm self-centered, but because of the premises.
People ask "how do you make science interesting?" or how you "slip in" "stealth learning" into a design. They ask these questions where there's this tacit, implicit assumption science isn't interesting, and you have to "hide the learning" to appeal to kids.

And that assumption is just friggin' wrong.
Like super, super  w  r  o  n  g.
(And I don't mean that in an insulting way; it super easy to see the stigma attached to educational games and the history of poor quality, and assume it is because they are educational, rather than other factors.)

And rejecting that premise affects my work.
I made a biology game, and I know biology is interesting because I'm surrounded by biologists.
I'm surrounded by people who think its so interesting, they want to spend their whole lives studying it. People who tell me cool things about it all the time, and talk to each other about how to find out even more cool things about it.

So to me its not "How do I make biology interesting?"
Its "How do I show people how interesting biology is?"

Specifically, its usually how do I show them quickly and clearly, since a) what they've been seeing so far hasn't grabbed them and b) I don't have the years to go into it that the biologist have spent seeing how neat it is.

To do that the place you have to start is finding the core of why is this cool, why it matters, why should you care. You have to find those hooks within the foundations of what you're actually looking at, find those things the audience can connect with, and bring those out. You make those clear and get them on board, and from there you can build out wherever complex or crazy place you want to go, be it evolutionary biology or:



...and now that you've got how hes a child trying to prove himself to his parents,
and learning to deal with problems more maturely, as most people can relate to,
let me tell you about how he's a space god in a distant galaxy
who flies and shoots lightning....

If I start from the premise there is nothing valuable or appealing to the audience in the subject at all, that I have to add something completely new to get them to care...why am I even trying to do this other than to make money? And why would I think it would work, even then?
(Also; nothing the audience can relate to at all?
Is the story about friggin' Varelse? Try harder.)

Its self-defeating. If you don't think theres a reason to care the subject, even if there is one, you won't be trying to show it to the audience. And whatever you are getting them to care about isn't from the subject, so even if you do get the audience engaged, they're not engaging with that subject.
Even if its name is in the title, its gonna feel tacked on, arbitrary, and unimportant, because that's what you've communicated.
Its like games where you do the crappy "learning" bit to be allowed the reward of paying the "fun part". It communicates the enduring the learning part is work that you get rewarded for.



The term in some academic literature for this is "chocolate covered broccoli".
That being in peer reviewed journals makes me happy inside. image

Similarly, treating the title character as something you have to shoehorn into the movie you actually wanted to make (or think will sell) both tells new people the character is not interesting and tells fans you don't want their money; whatever they saw in the character is not what you're interested in, so they can just crawl back into their basements or whatever (because being fans makes them socially awkward and their dollars worth less than sex-having 'real people' dollars...somehow).

So yeah, to me the problem that a lot of educational games have is kind of the same problem DC has, and its why Marvel is kicking their ass.

And it comes to the forefront in comments like these where the people at DC explicitly don't think characters that have been around for 60+ years can be appealing. I highlight that number not because  history makes it good, but if a character has been around that long there's probably something distinct there to work with or people would have just forgotten about him. It also means theres a lot of work to draw on to find something you can use, before throwing up your hands that's its not doable.
I'm saying just looking at the surface of it and throwing it out as ridiculous is the easy (and stupid and less profitable) way out.

Yes, I may have just called the convoluted 2003 Hulk the easy way out
compared to the more straightforward 2008 model.
The irony's not lost on me. image

If you don't see anything appealing about the character other than recognition their name has and the spectacle they provide, those are going to be the truest parts of the movie, and thats usually not a good thing. Even if you try to give it depth beyond that, the fact you feel you need to make up deeper stuff means it won't "feel" like its that character to the people who are familiar with it. And that's the best case, assuming it works and isn't just terrible.

Of course if you make a story people can connect with
you don't even need name and spectacle.
And if you want to see how far characters and spectacle can get you,
just look at almost any Pixar film. image

Just to be clear, I'm not saying reboots, reimaginings, new ideas, and so on are bad or you need to be slavishly loyal to source material. I thought the Mandarin was great in Iron Man 3 and even in educational games there tends to be some tradeoffs in accuracy for vastly better gameplay. I'm saying, as other have said before, you have to be loyal to the concept. If you get the core of what a character is about, what they do, and why people connect to them, you can put them anywhere, anytime, and make it work. If you don't get it, it can look as awesome and iconic as ever and still be an existentially depressing level of bad. (Look DC, other people screw up, too!)

You can make money with a spectacle and a name. But you can build a beloved franchise with an actual character that people care about.
The same way you can make an "educational game" slapping quizzes into something fun, and try to sell it. But if you make a concept playable, and show students why they should care, they may actually learn something rather than just memorizing it.


So what do you think?
Now that its written out, I'm  aware how gloriously nerdy it is to see the parallel between how to explain science effectively to the person-on-the-street and how to translate a superhero (or sci-fi or other fantastical tale) into a movie that same hypothetical person-on-the-street would enjoy. Yet currently, both are huge opportunities, and still often mishandled.
Do you think its this failure to respect the subject behind the failures? Some other issue?
Something else behind the successes? (cause we've seen skilled, engaged people with lots of talent and resources hit and miss =P )
Let me know in the comments.

My Favorite Superhero

Lately (when not working) I've been marinating in commentary and analysis of superheroes. I recently revisited the great Death and Return of Superman and found that since then Max had posted the DAROS pitch and Regarding Clark. Then there's been the general ongoing stream of stuff in pop culture on the sites I frequent like Cracked, The Escapist and to a lesser extent The Mary Sue.

So superheroes have been on my mind. And after watching Max explain the appeal behind his clear favorite, I tried to reflect on mine and it wasn't initially clear.

No Sue, I'm not talking about you.

I feel I should preface this with "I did not grow up reading comic books". I was watching Batman: TAS, and Spiderman and X-men on TV, I was playing video games, but I wasn't actually reading the source comics. Even in college when I did get more into it, I was reading trade paperbacks of miniseries, which I still prefer; Watchmen, The Long Halloween, Barry Ween, Sandman, all the previously mentioned Warren Ellis stuff, etc.. I never even tried to get into main continuities. I already knew the characters, and prefer defined stories with them, personally.

Now a little while ago if I'd thought about this, it would've been Deadpool; he's an entertaining and interesting character. But while I enjoy reading deadpool, after Max's more analytical philosophical breakdown of Clark, Deadpool didn't feel like someone I could get behind in that kind of way.

Though I do fully support irreverence, silliness, awesomeness and fun.

It should come as no surprise that after deeper reflection on themes and characters that  I settled comfortably on Elijah Snow. It feels like this has allot to do with both his approach and Planetary's lack of the "the status quo is god" type of thing inherent in so much of superhero comics. That tropes's not a new observation or even a bad thing for those stories, but when I look at what speaks to, resonates with, and inspires me its not going to be that. Its not going to be someone "Healing america by beating people up" as Nextwave put it.

Ah, that old chestnut. Emphasis on the nut.

Its not even going to be The Authority, trying to change the world by beating people up. That proactive rather than reactive approach is closer, but still not right. Its going to be someone trying to do the right thing, which sometimes may involve force but that not the goal; thats in service of the bigger goal.

That's why it has to be Elijah Snow.

The stories of Elijah Snow are not about "fighting crime"; they are about going out into the unknown and finding secrets and discovering new knowledge. Given superpowers he doesn't become a cop, but a scientist and an explorer. Hes a detective, but hes not batman tracking a thief; hes the mystery archeologist tracking the past to unveil it to the present, in order to improve the present, if only through increased knowledge.

(Oh, uh, big Planetary SPOILERS ahead, by the way.)
(Seriously, go read it, its great. If you want spoiler-ific reasons, for all the good I'm saying, he does beat up Dracula and perpetrate other awesomeness. Its a fun ride.)

...like stupidly, over-the-toply, B-movie fun, but also good.

And I know the reasons it can't happen in most comics, that you can only do it in a miniseries, but I love things like the "lifestations" in the 3rd world, that they list in the last issue. For all the problems of post-scarcity, satisfying basic needs like that saves so many more lives than stopping a mugging. And this is a character who will actually do that, and still go on fun adventures.

And he literally kills Reed Richards for being malevolently worse than useless.

And then he kicks him in the crotch.
Its glorious. Go read it.
(Yes, I know this isn't Reed or his expy, but the sentiment is there)

But more than the acts, its that core of the character.

"Its a strange world, let keep it that way."
"Saving him means more than yanking him out of there. It means saving his life."
Or just simply puts as  "He saves things"

Its about protecting the world not from destruction, but from deception. The conflict is not with those who take innocent lives and freedom, but those who do so to so many by making the world a dimmer, less wondrous place. Its not even really about "improving the world" itself; its about showing people how great the world is and how it works (though the tech from that makes the world better for people), and recording it for later.

 Like I said, he's a scientist, trying to understand the world and explain it to others to help them. Thats what resonates with me. That's the right thing I like seeing a hero striving to do.

What about you? What hero resonates with you? Lemme know in the comments.

Quick thought: scientific reasoning and reading

I was thinking about science this morning, and came up with something I wish I had during the previous work for my Masters:

"Scientist aren't the only ones who do scientific reasoning any more than book critics are the only ones who read. Sure the critic may read more challenging material and have a richer discussion of what is going on in it, but reading is something your average person does all day everyday from signs to get around to emails and entertainment. It's something you're doing right now without thinking it extraordinary or uncomfortable. So it is with scientific reasoning too; when defined as 'drawing conclusions based on previous observations and experience' then most problem solving or even wondering if something is true would fall under this label; its why you could say (if pretentious) that you were 'theorizing that X is Y' or 'hypothesizing this author is wrong'.

So when we talking about how people use scientific reasoning, its not about just scientists, but about how people solve problems and make sense of the world they live in everyday."

That would have been a stronger, cleaner introduction to the topic than what I went with at the time, which relied more on examples than a good analogy. I really like the reading analogy to strongly say that this is a common practice, though there are specialized practitioners.

My focus may be more on 'critical thinking' and 'problem solving' now, but its all related. And I still think if we can understand how people do these types of things and how to either teach or help them to do them better, the benefits will more than pay for the effort.

Just a quick thought.

Holy crap.

Warning: This is a profoundly affecting game about a serious topic. Theres even a "trigger warning" because if you have had a traumatic experience, this could be bad for you to play. Its a very powerful experience for allot of people. So that said, its here:

The Day the Laughter Stopped

And in the interests of not spoiling more than with tags, I'll continue below.



























Cheery name, isn't it? Holy crap that's an effective game. I'm not trying to be callous about the topic, of course; its an important statement about an important and horrible problem. The maker talks more deeply about it here and continues here, and I would recommend both of them, if you have the time. I'm not going to be able to add a lot to all the consideration he's given it and expounded upon there.

But I felt like I had to share it somewhere, because its such a work of art, a powerful piece of communication, as I said, such an effective game. After the initial reactions to the narrative, I was struck by that part of it. Its so simple, but so moving, and that's so impressive. Its very clearly conveying a certain idea about this horrible thing, and that's why people have such strong reactions to it.

Ok, let me stop gushing for a minute though and point out some things this highlights, upon reflection. I was just talking again  about "what is a game" with some other academics the other day, so I'm in a philosophical frame of mind. Two things that are very interesting looking at this game compared to others are how "your choices don't matter" and "you can't select some options".  Now, those quotes are there because, within the narrative of the game, those may be correct, but for the experience of the player they are not. In Rules of Play, theres that talk about the game being the interaction between the players and the rules, not the trappings; two chess masters can play chess by speaking moves to each other and its as much chess as playing with a board. But here is an entirely different example of that idea; the game is not just the story, but your experience going through it. Even if you can't resist, your clicking it and experience of that lack of ability is an important part of the game.

Now there may still be some confusion about "interactive fiction" vs "a game", or how one choice makes something a game or whatever. But if theres a discussion about two designs that are mechanically equivalent, but the player experience differs, and someone asks if the players' experience of them matters as long as the outcome's the same...this is the over-the-top answer to drive home just how important player experience is. Its so much more affecting that just reading the story, and the reactions people have when the "choice" doesn't work shows just how much the experience matters, not just the on-screen/in-game outcome. Man. Its a hell of a thing.

Just wanted to share.

(Again, I'm not trying to be callous by not talking about the content, but A) Hypnotic Owl covers it really well, B) I too have closely known people hurt by this so, unfortunately, just how horrible, rapes (and things surrounding them) are was not a revelation or new idea to me. But how effective the design was was something new, hence my rambling about that.)