Scully's Blog
About Scully
Level 21 Digital Humanities Major (Dartmouth)
Level 68 Bear Shaman (Age of Conan)
Level 60 Tauren Warrior (WoW)
Level 35 Fire Blaster (City of Heroes)
Level 79 Ranger (Runescape)
Don't roll your eyes, the roles people are choosing to play in digital spaces are just a preview of future social trends.
As an undergrad majoring in Digital Humanities, I'm ready to ask hard questions about where the human desire to role-play and the future progress of augmented reality technology will leave thought, society and law.
If you have any interest in the evolution of gaming into Reality Design or Civic Ludology, send me a tell at www.twitter.com/bscully.
And sure, I made up the terms "Reality Design" and "Civic Ludology," but I've spent enough time playing games and watching the increasing effect of media on public consciousness to realize that governments implement "level design." Guru's strive for "immersion." Every desire-based human system of action can be understood, criticized and improved upon as a game-system.
In short: Political Philosophy and Game Design are close cousins. The former is written to be noticed and heralded if perfect while the latter strives to pass unnoticed by those whom it governs.
HASTAC should be a wonderful step towards educating and connecting the kinds of sociological, anthropological and psychological system designers we will need in the media saturated world soon to come.
To be even shorter: let's avoid 1984.
@Copyleft Brendan Scully 2009
