The Art of Communications

You’ll never hear “Come out and play” again
It’s the twenty-first century. It’s time to play “inside” a virtual world, a place…
…where you are free to try new things without serious consequences (unless being kicked out of a game for a few days for bad behavior bothers you)

…where the play environment looks familiar, but the laws of physics are anything but law (you can fly, survive long underwater walks without oxygen, be half-man, half animal)

…where you can travel anywhere in a virtual universe and still remain part of the same game

…where you never see the real people you play with

…where you can be whomever you want to be ~ a rule follower or a rule breaker

…where the game never ends. You can play at any time of the day, all day, every day all throughout the year

…where after experiencing a virtual reality game like Second Life, playing will never be the same

Sound like fun? Millions of people think so, and the numbers of online players grow larger every day. Today, as more colleges use interactive websites in their courses, “playing” has come right into the classroom 1 (right where most students would probably like it). Who ever thought professors would encourage us to “play” at homework?

How to define “play”
Over fifty years ago in 1950, Johan Huizinga, a Dutch historian with a deep interest in physiology, attempted to get serious about play by trying to define it. He concluded that:

* Play is voluntary. We do it at our leisure.
* It is not real life; it is pretend. It is an illusion, a magic world.
* It is limited by time and place. It occurs in a marked off space.
* There is beauty and tension in play.
* Play has rules, but it has no moral function.
* Play creates a temporary order.
* Play has a beginning and an end.

He also thought it was necessary.

Although much of his research still holds true, perhaps some of Huizinga’s observations need to be re-examined for players in the twenty-first century. How could he have predicted that “play” would evolve into people engaging in virtual reality games on networked computers with a limitless number of people from around the globe, all at the same time? Whew!

New ways to play
Second Life is a perfect example of how technology has changed the way we play. Unlike the traditional definition of play as having a cycle of start to finish, the purpose of this game is to create a make-believe life. 2 And life by its very own definition is continuous, unpredictable and thus always changing or capable of constant change. Virtual lives have a beginning, but their end is questionable. The game lives on and on, and on.

Unlike conventional forms of play, time is irrelevant in virtual play. You can drop in for a few minutes, or stay the whole day. You call your own timeouts. Since it is conducted in cyberspace, it is a digital “playground” . There are no marked playing fields, no traditional boundaries.

But even though the way we play is different, the humans who play remain the same. Since anyone can play in the virtual game world, you should expect the wide spectrum of human behavior. Rule followers, rule breakers. Polite behavior, outrageous rudeness. It’s all there. Just like in real life, people make it interesting.

The business of play
Today, even businesses are learning to play. They must in order to compete in a technology-driven environment. The internet has forever changed the landscape of buying and selling. The interactive world is here, and a company has to understand cutting-edge technology and know how people use it for their benefit.

Many successful businesses are heading in the direction of a virtual world by creating a unique setting or “play” experience for customers when using their goods and services. As societies around the world have perfected their manufacturing techniques of transforming raw materials into finished goods, many products have become commodity items with little differentiation. What separates one brand from another is how you “experience” or interact with a product.

To succeed, you must “play”. You’ve got to offer customers, or as the Disney Corporation prefers to call them, “guests”, something more than a mere transaction of money for goods or services. You have to connect with your target audience on an emotional level so that they experence a relationship with you, if just for a moment in time.

With all this talk about the modern morphing of simple play, I must say that I still prefer a restaurant that lets customers eat peacefully at their tables, and not have dancing, jungle animals burst into song in the middle of the appetizers. But then, I also prefer to play with real people.

Citations
1 Kennedy, Brian (2004) Creationism, The New Republic Online, December 8.

2 Walker, Jesse (2005) Games People Play, Reason on Line, August 29.

3 Ricketts, Camille (2004) Virtual Reality Check, The Stanford Daily, January 20.

Huizinga, J. (1950) Nature and significance of play as a cultural phenomenon (pp. 1-27). Homo ludens: a study of the play element in culture. Boston: Beacon Press.

Pine, B.J., & Gilmore, J.H. (1999) The Experience Economy. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press, pp. 1-26.