Thursday, September 17, 1998:

Well, just how silly is it to select games based on whether or not the game goals match your personal goals as a player?

A lot silly.

Unless your goals as a player are to run around the edge of a cardboard square passing by a specific square marked "GO" and collecting two bright orange pieces of paper with the number $100 printed on the front then it would be real silly to ever expect your goals will match the character goals in Monopoly.

Or maybe your goal as a player is to find and kill someone with the name Gannon. Wow, wouldn't that be a convenient coincidence for such a person to find the game Zelda? I can imagine some one exclaiming: "Hey, what a coincidence. My life goals are to find and kill someone named Gannon and here I find a game by Nintendo that has a character the exact same. What's the odds?" I can also imagine that some person being carted off to the loony-bin.

That just doesn't happen.

People don't have to be told that it is silly to expect character goals to be the same as player goals. So then why do these same folks have to be clued in to the fact that maybe certain life games can be played even when they might have character goals that are not the same as player goals?

Don't know. But clueless they are.

I happen to work with a group of people that have player goals of learning to appreciate where another is coming from and being able to address the person in front of them rather than talking at a cardboard cut-out of the person. Not the only goals available in the world -- but pretty darn good ones.

These same people can not understand why in answer to their question: "Hey, how can I learn to appreciate where another is coming from and be able to address that person in front of me rather than some cardboard cut-out?" they are given the answer, "Hey, how about selling some CD music and tapes?" Obviously the two subjects can not be related. The goals of selling music CDs is to sell a music CD and the goal of expanding one's communication skills is not equal to selling.

So these folks figure that the character goals of learning to sell music CDs is a diversion away from their goals as a player to learn better communication. Well, it just so happens that one can not gain true success in music CD sales unless one learns to appreciate where another is coming from and be able to address that person rather than some cardboard cut-out.

That's not so hard to figure out once one slows down enough to take a look. As any physicist will tell you, "once you have adequately forumated the question the direction in which to hunt for the answer becomes self-evident." Or, putting it in the negative, "you can't hope to answer a question until it is properly formulate."