Discover Top Posts Tagged with #pokeholic

Gamification

Claude was maxing his high score on Maximum Cherry Bomb Super Kiss 7 when his agent called.

“Hey, I'm busy” he cried, as his finger nimbly completed another complicated movement. In his smartglasses a cascade of retro lo-fi colours told him he'd added another thousand to his high score and gained himself a good few more views on his streamfeed channel. Quickly he dropped the completed cherry into the gaping mouth of the digital frog and was rewarded with a friendly croak.

“you still on Cherry Bomb?” said his agent from her skype cage in the top left of his vision “that’s, like, so last month. I can get you access to a new app that will blow your socks off....”

“can't talk Nina” said Claude, grabbing three cubes that glowed in front of him “I'm on a roll. I got the gold frog, the bronze mushroom and if I keep up at this pace I can make a run at the big boss himself....”

Claude quickly placed the three cubes on top of each other. As he did so he kept one eye on the big digital dragon that thrashed around just a few metres in front of him. If he didn't make cherries quick enough then the dragon would come and bite his hands off, and then it was game over.

“sure, that's one thing you could do” said Nina, her avatar appearing in a window in the top left of Claude's vision “if you wanted to miss out on the new app from Cockstar games”

“cockstar?” said Claude, hands suddenly fumbling “umm, not interested thanks...” but his fingers told a different story as they placed the final cube atop the rest. It wobbled for a moment then fell loudly on the floor. The sound echoed out in rippling lines of 8 bit white squares. The blind dragon's head swung ominously, then a smile cut across its face. It moved lightning fast, striking forward at Claude and biting off both his hands before he could move back.

“oh shit!” cried Claude, as giant letters in front of him announced that it was game over. Underneath it there scrolled Claude's current game ranking. He was second in the gaming league, by about ten measly points.

“Hey, no fair!” shouted claude. Around him the game disappeared, the pretty neon lights replaced by fluerscent overheads. The ripples of coloured 8 bit blocks vanished to be replaced by the dingy walls of a warehouse and the bright cubes he had been placing became boxes of catering supplies on a conveyor belt. Instead of a friendly frog there just stood a bin, half filled with plastic cups and plates ready to have addresses of wholesalers stamped on them.

Claude saw his fellow gamers, still playing away. While they still saw the happy world of Maximum Cherry bomb the reality was they were simply filling boxes in a dead end warehouse. Instead of playing a fun race against time game they were simply repeating the same few actions over and over again. Three dozen plastic cups, the same number of plastic plates. Three dozen forks. Stacking them in a box. Pulling a lever for the box to be sealed and then dumped to be sent out by drone truck to wherever they were needed. The sort of dead end manual job that generations of Americans had sought escape from, but now they queued up to do.

“hey, man can I have another go?” said Claude to the superviser, whose baseball cap glowed with the name of the current owner of the nondescript NY warehouse. Every time the warehouse changed ownership his hat shone with a different logo. So far during the supervisor’s eight hour shift it had changed twice as internecine warfare between silicon valley startups flared on the fringes of the Nasdaq “I mean, it was just an accident....”

“not gonna happen, buddy” said the supervisor, who still couldn’t believe that people were paying him to work this dull ass job “You know the rules. You lost all your, whatsit... lives. Mean's the game’s over. Thought a guy with your experience would know that much”

“but I was so close!” said Claude, slapping the conveyor belt in frustration. Uncomplete parcels wobbled on their way to be packed by eager Maximum Cherry Bomb gamers “i coulda got a high score that really mattered! It ain't fair!”

“yeah, we all coulda done a lot of things” said the supervisor, thinking of his own life choices “besides its only a game. There’s more to life, right?”

On that last point claude couldn't help but vehemently disagree. For him and the thousands of other men and women his age, life was only worth living if it was a game. Luckily for him the entire world economy relied on people like him and that belief. After all how else did you get people to work in shitty jobs if you didn’t make a game out of it?

The great employment crisis had emerged as the 21st century reached its middle decade. The work available to most members of the human race could be equally divided into jobs that were dangerous, those that were degradingly tedious, and those that were both degradingly tedious and dangerous. The tiny percentage of jobs that were both creative and well remunerated had long been colonised by the children of the rich and famous. There hadn’t been a single figure in media, law or journalism that hadn’t got there by birth for over twenty years. This would naturally have caused a great deal of consternation, however as the people likely to do the reporting were themselves recipients of this nepotism it generally wasn’t talked about.

The problem emerged in that the great majoirty of gthe world’s population simply didn’t want to do jobs that were boring or dangerous, or both. A highly educated geneation, raised on smart apps and myths of instant celebrity did not fit easily into an economy designed for people who were good at repetitive and servile work, and who didn’t mind being poorly paid.

However the profits of the super rich, and the economy of the civilised world, required a great majority of people to work in awful jobs for not very much money. Once upon a time that function had been fulfilled by migrants coming from or living in the developing world, until it became clear that they'd had quite enough of developing and wanted instead a decent wage. When everyone had smart glasses and a good grasp of MTV English it became much harder to find cheap factory workers and office cleaners. Everyone instead wanted to be a creative professional and it became impossible to find anyone willing to be exploited in the name of capitalism.

The world economy therefore ground to a halt, without the box fillers and the machine minders, not to mention the street cleaners, bottom wipers and fruit pickers the entire fabric of modern life was impossible. While once this would have meant that companies would start actually paying a decent wage modern economics was such that no company wanted to threaten their profit line by offering a pay rise. It was a matter, after all, of principle. They hadn’t become massive multinational corporations by giving money away for free.

Thus starvation and ruin beckoned until one tech startup hit upon a novel way of getting workers for their office cleaning business. Quite simply they turned a menial backbreaking and tedious job into an AR game.

In it competitors donned smartglasses that showed them a virtual display that overlaid the real world. Surfaces that needed to be cleaned glowed a dirty red, and when swiped with the specially branded cleaning wipes twinkled in a glowing blue. Points were accrued for the numbers of windows cleaned, and a highscore could be posted to any number of social media networlds, allowing people to compete with each other across the globe. It was released as an act of desperation, its designers thinking they might con a few hardcore gamers who had grown tired of running about picking up cartoon animals. They didn’t quite expect the response they received, servers crashing as the app was downloaded by eager gamers. It spread like the pandemic virus that the world had been waiting for. At its height CleanCleanGO! cleared two million downloads in one week as gamers proudly displayed how many windows they had cleaned and what high scores they had accrued. When it emerged that players were paying to compete with each other to clean windows, and that some canny players were selling high scoring profiles to eager gamers, the developers realised they had found what the world needed.

This lead to a mania for menial job AR apps and it wasn't long before every tedious job – from catering to admin to factory work- had been repackaged into a game. For people like Claude it was a chance to compete, to make his name and to show the world that he was a somebody. For people like Nina, his agent, it was a chance to make a ton of cash out of people's innate vulnerabilites.

“See it as a sign” said Nina as Claude sulkily grabbed his things from the locker and headed out from the factory floor. He elbowed his way past a crowd of eager gamers, all queuing for a chance to play their eight hour shift. Maximum Cherry Bomb had been the most played game of the last month, just behind the latest incarnation of Candy Crush – which in reality just consisted of hosing down freshly slaughtered animals in an abattoir – but looked amazing through the latest pair of samsung smartglasses “Maximum Cherry bomb has peaked. If you want to make your name on the pro gaming circuit then you have to find something new. TruStarPatriot is so new they haven’t event done product placement for it”

“yeah, I’m not going to go on a hunch” said Claude suspiciously “what if it tanks? I don’t want my rep tarnished?”.

“well, its your choice” said Nina “but, yeah, maybe you're not ready for it. It might be a bit beyond your level of expertise”

“hey, I can handle it” said Claude “I’ve aced everything cockstar have ever released”

“No, forget I mentioned it” said Nina, reeling Claude in “you’re right, its probably just some litter pickup clone”

“Just give me the download code” said Claude, who ten seconds earlier hadn't had the slightest interest in the game. Now it was all he wanted to do.

“don't you want to know anything about it first?” asked Nina, knowing that Claude didn't care. He was the kind of boy lost without something to compete over. Give him a coin and a cup to throw it in and he’d be happy for hours “it’s trending across the sub saharan africa region, which is very hot right now. The game starts with....”

“No spoilers!” said claude quickly “what did you say it was called?”

Nina grinned. You had to love people hacking. If there was one blindspot that the modern 21st century human had it was they couldn’t resist competing and they couldn’t resist playing a game. If the Egyptian Pharoahs had made building pyramids into a competitive sport then they wouldn't have had to use slaves. People would have been queuing up to get a chance to lug stone blocks around to score points.

“It’s like a flaw people have in their psyche” explained Nina to her fellow gamerketeers in the fashionable loft that was both office, party space, hang out space and crash space. In the two years since she had graduated in Invasive Marketing and Ethical Psychology Nina had already paid off the crushing debts that she had accrued from her education, and had done so by getting other people to work hard for free “They can't help but compete for things. Its kind of pathetic”

“I don't know” said one of the boys they kept around the place to look pretty and make sure everyone stayed on trend “its sort of noble. Like how we make each other do better. You know like at school on sports days, you''d like do your best and everything....” his eyes misted over with nostalgia for an era lost in time by at least eight years. If he wasn't careful he'd start humming the old school rap.

“Exactly what I mean” said Nina “People competing for what? You went to a British school. Its like they all want to be Hogwarts. Gryffindick against hufflefuck or whatever they were called. May as well call it red vs blue, and still people would compete” she eyed the stats of her stable of gamers, all of them beavering away and giving her ten percent of their hard earned bitcoin “its like we learned how to hack people’s minds. All we gotta do is turn any dipshit meaningless Mcjob into a game and people will be lining the streets just to play it” she took another swig of adrena-coffee “there’s one born every minute...”

“I thought you said TruStarPatriot was different” said the boy “that's what you told everyone. That it was a paradigm shift in modern gaming that would mark the next evolution in AR game technology”

“for all I know it might be” shrugged Nina “how the fuck should I know? The game designers offered me a big pile of cash if I got them pre launch buzz. You think I bothered to read the previews?”

“umm, you might wanna look up what this one involves though” said the boy, his own smartglasses showing a playthrough of the app.

“why should I care?”

“well for one thing” replied the boy “you might wanna let Claude know that he needs to practice his bomb disposal skills”

“what?” said Nina

“Well you know how we’ve been trying to defeat all those terrorists leaving bombs about the place?” Nina nodded dumbly “well it seems that’s been turned into a game. TruStarPatriot is an anti terrorist app. In it gamers have to risk their lives hunting down suspected terrorists. Its the next big thing”

“holy shit” said Nina, her eyes wide at the thought of Claude running around against the clock trying to fight terrorism

“I know, its terrible isn’t it” said the boy “I can’t believe that its not illegal. I think….”

“Why the fuck did I never think of it? An app based on fighting terrorism. National security is like the biggest untapped market there is” she slapped her forehead “fucking genius!”

However as Nina left work in the early evening she had a nagging sensation, a little like how she had felt the last time she had eaten too much GM dinosaur meat at the staff BBQ. It was only after much googling she realised what it really was. Guilt.

“what the fuck have I got to feel guilty about?” she mused, hailing a pedicab hauled by a sweating gamer whose eyes were hidden behind smart glasses. She supposed he was playing Cityrungo!, an app where points were gained for miles covered in the shortest amount of time. The gamer looked skinny enough to fit through the spokes on his wheels and was panting heavily. She heard him groan as she pinged him her address

“well, if you want your high score” she said, giving him a helpful kick in the small of the back “then you have to work for it” she shook her head as the pedicab started moving. It was only when the pedicab driver keeled over, clawing at the emergency uberlance button on his handlebars that Nina realised what she was feeling guilty about.

“Claude” she said, stepping over the prone body of the pedicab gamer “I feel guilty about Claude and that new game because it might get him killed” she snapped her fingers “and maybe its cause he’s also my brother. Mom would go nuts if I let him get killed”

With that she hailed a new pedicab. This time she'd try one with a little more adipose around the middle, that might mean a little more stamina “take me to Brooklyn. Office of TruStarPatriot games, and step on it”

“so let me get this straight” said Nina “You decided that the best people to defeat the scourge of international terrorism. The people who could fight back against the dark forces that threaten our lives with death and destruction were a bunch of game addicts?”

“yes” said Barney Wu, chief design architect for TruStarPatriot. Nina had managed to get a one on one interview with the hottest app designer in the world by dint of her invading his office and threatening his staff until they ran out of managers to try and throw her out.

“and not the Police, or the Feds, or the military?”

“The police?” said Wu “are you serious? They only have one answer and that’s to shoot shit up. The Feds are so cash strapped they were paying their agents in food stamps and the military, well the military were the guys who gave us the idea. They been using locals in bomb disposals games for, like, years”

“that’s the dumbest idea ever” said Nina, throwing up her hands “what the hell makes you think that a bunch of gaming nerds are the best people to track down terrorists? Last time I checked there were twenty five different terrorist groups in the city alone, from the militant vegans to the republican party underground, not to mention the cloned animal rights movement. Your average gamer has about as much political nous as a twelve year old. What in the name of god made you chose them?”

“simple” said Wu, ticking things off on his fingers “they’re problem solvers, they think outside the box, they are used to getting into the areas of the city that people really shouldn’t – most of our gamers are veterans of Parkour-go! And slither – you remember that?”

“yeah, and I remember that a bunch of gamers almost died because they got into spaces too tight to get back out of”

“survival of the fittest” said Wu cheerily “and most importantly of all they got motivation. Your average federal employee is getting shit from above, from below and from everyone in between. He catches a bad guy and people tell him he should have shot them down, or if he shoots them down the civil liberties people give them hell. Our gamers don’t give a fuck about that. All they care about is their high score”

“yeah, I’m starting to wonder whether that’s always a good thing” said Nina doubtfully

“come on, you’re an agent. You’re gonna make a killing out of TruStarPatriot. Plus if its a success then we’ll start rolling out regular police work apps. We got HomicideDetective in beta and Rockstar games have already put GTA: RepoMan on Steam. You can beat up people who don’t pay you, they pixel out the blood so its PEGI 15”

“Growing market” nodded Nina approvingly, then shook her head “but fuck, what about ethics?”

“What about ethics?” said Wu “This ain’t Gamergate. Plus come on, these guys make their own decisions. I never forced anyone into this. If you’re worried about your brother then maybe you oughta talk to him about it”

“yeah, well he ain’t taking my calls”

“I can show you our operators map. He’ll be on it”

“Isn’t that kinda against the app’s privacy settings?”

“Look” said Wu “if it gets you out of our fucking office I’d give you his goddamn bank details”

Nina punched the co-ordinates into her smartglasses and ordered a high speed uber ripoff that screeched to a halt in front of her belching the sort of fumes that should have been made illegal had the EPA not been sold to the Koch brothers some years earlier.

“Get me here, like, yesterday” said Nina sharing the co-ordinates with the driver, a girl so skinny she could have modelled for Gap’s new Starvewear line “I’ll give you a bonus every red light you run”

“understood” said the girl, her eyes filled with three separate alt reality games she was playing and her head filled with whatever appetite suppressants were currently popular.

Within ten minutes they screeched to a halt outside the old city hall building, one that had long since undergone conversion to luxury flats and was therefore a target for the paramilitary wing of the anti gentrification movement, not to mention the militant historical preservation society.

“let me in” demanded Nina of the liveried servant on the door. He had been dressed up in some fantasy quasi police uniform from the gay nineties, with heavy Wizard of Oz inspiration “I’m on app business” and she proferred her ID as proof.

The doorman, himself an avid gamer who was currently rocking the high score for being deferential to his betters, stepped aside.

“okay, so where is he?” muttered Nina. Claude was still ignoring her calls and short of trying to hack into his smartglasses there wasn’t much she could do.

“legally not much I can do” muttered Nina “But as his agent I’m also technically part his employer. And as his employer I have a right during office hours” she checked the time, luckily the legal definition of office hours was pretty much 24/7 “to make sure that he isn’t goofing off. I can have a look through his eyes and see where he’s at” with that she fired up the BadWrkr app and in her glasses the locations of all her agents bloomed in a series of decals. She could, if she so desired check the movements of her employees, their current blood alcohol levels and even what they were watching in their smartglasses. Naturally this went against the US constitution but since all employees has signed a common waiver to take on Panamanian citizenship for the duration of their employment they could be treated however the company wanted. For her part Nina had long since taken on Swiss citizenship, because no one fucked with them and they had a wicked ass passport.

“Come on bro” said Nina, looking through the decals for Claude “where the fuck are you?”

Then he appeared, several floors up above. Nina pounded her way across grey marble in search of her errant brother and in the hope he wasn’t about to make a terrible mistake.

Claude was just laying his shaking hands on the bomb and about to wipe the sweat from his brow when he heard the sound of footsteps behind me.

“Hey, if you’re playing TruStarPatriot this is mine” he called behind him “I already tagged this area, so go find another”

“claude, its me” said Nina gingerly entering the room “I think you oughta step away from the bomb”

“sure, just gimme like twenty seconds. I got a wicked high score soon as I get this done”

“Come on Claude, this is dangerous” said Nina, pointing at the shaped charge on the floor “do you even know how to defuse that thing? The fuck you playing bomb disposal boy for? You’re gonna get yourself killed”

“Nina, what?” said Claude, looking around at her in confused surprise “No, sis, you don’t get it. I don’t go round defusing bombs. I’m the guy that sets them up so other guys find them”

“Huh?” said Nina

“look” said Claude, setting the shaped charge and then carefully arming it “you don’t think TruStarPatriot actually gets gamers to look for real terrorists? I mean, maybe at first they did but the game got so popular demand outstripped supply weeks ago. So now you got guys like me leaving em about for gamers to find”

“oh shit, so its not real then? Thank fuck for that” said Nina, breathing a sigh of relief as she looked closer at the bomb “Makes sense you know, I mean its a dumbass idea to get guys like you to do this. I guess it does look kinda fake too...”

“no, no its a real bomb” said Claude “I got a guy in Brooklyn makes them. Artesenal style” Nina recoiled with shock “I mean, come on. It needs to look real, right? Otherwise no one will be convinced, some of the gamers are like total experts on this shit. They could tell an ISIS shaped charge from an IRA semtex bomb..”

“Claude, what the fuck are you doing?” said Nina “this is actual fucking terrorism you’re involved in. leaving bombs around the place. what’s next? You gonna start shooting at politicians. You are going to get caught, this is going to get you killed. Its not just a game anymore”

“You’re right about that. Its so much more than that” said Claude with a grin and Nina saw in her smartglasses that Claude was topping the high score ranks of TruStarPatriotPro “I’m the best there is. I’m Carlos the fucking Jackal. The Scarlett Pimpernel. I’m the best of the best I’m...”

That was when the police burst in and Claude found himself caught in twenty red LED dots that would turn him into paste if he so much as moved an inch.

“Yeah, sorry bro” said Nina “time to retire. I might have just alerted the police” she looked at her brother and shrugged “its for your own good”

“Oh Sis” said Claude “I thought you got it” he turned to the police “hey guys, you read my tags? I’m with TruStarPatrioPro”

“Dude” said one of the cops, high fiving Claude through his Nike sponsored cop armour gloves “I knew I recognised you. Goddamn if I haven’t been livestreaming your game all week”

“Oh for fucks sake” said Nina storming out of the room “you fucking gamers. you’re all the fucking same. I preferred it when cops used to shoot first and ask questions never”

That was when one of the cops in his excitement at meeting a high scoring gamer accidentally leant on the shaped charge. Claude had been correct, it was fully operational.

#gamification #pokeholic