Fix 13

Ten-Thousand Hours Collaborating

This game makes establishing a settlement possible without help from others. However, doing so makes it harder to move up levels in the game. If I interact and collaborate with others through sending gifts or trading for their needs, I could advance to a higher level more quickly.

I would like to continue describing my experiences about the collaborations in the game by giving some details about specific game terms.

Collaboration

In her book, McGonigal (2011) stated the following about collaboration: “Collaboration is a special way of working together. It requires three distinct kinds of concerted effort: cooperating (acting purposefully toward a common goal), coordinating (synchronizing efforts and sharing resources), and cocreating (producing a novel outcome together)” (p. 268).

I believe this game includes all of these kinds of concerted effort. When I think about the collaboration in the game, the first thing that comes to my mind is helping other gamers and receiving help from other players. I think of these helps in a kind of an epic way because we are trying to settle an island by defeating bandit camps with our soldiers and experiencing adventures with the soldiers and other players.

Shared Concentration and Synchronized Engagement

In her book, McGonigal (2011) described a game: “They actively focus their attention on the game, and they agree to ignore everything else for as long as they’re playing. They practice shared concentration and synchronized engagement” (p. 269). The Settlers Online game also provides shared concentration and synchronized engagement. All players have to log in every day to prevent the loss of our settlement. This might be an example of shared concentration. As for synchronized engagement, we know whether or not our friends are online in the game.

Reciprocal Reward

The author alleged the following about a game: “Whether they win or lose, they’re creating reciprocal rewards” (McGonigal, 2011, p. 269). The Settlers Online game also provides these rewards to the players. I have experienced a player’s trading with me for an amount of coal, even though he needed the coal, because the primary goal of this game is helping each other. This makes the game meaningful emotionally. With this help, he won because he felt good by helping me, and I won because I received help. It is a reciprocal reward.

Real-Time Coordination Tools

The author stated, “Game developers aren’t just designing more co-op play; they are also creating new real time coordination tools to help us find the right people at the right time to cooperate with” (McGonigal, 2011, p. 273). In the Settlers Online game, players also get help from other players in a synchronized manner through the Help tab. Therefore, the Help tab is one of these real-time tools. Players are also being friends and trading resources in the game in a synchronized platform.

Massively Single-Player Online Game

McGonigal (2011) said about a game, “There are no other players in the simulated ecosystem; everything in the world is controlled by artificial intelligence” (p. 275). In the game, we experience the same thing. We do not have to play with any of players as long as we do not want that in the game. We are managed by artificial intelligence.

Reference

McGonigal, J. (2011). Reality is broken. New York, NY: The Penguin Press.