Courtesy of the GDC Vault is this free video of the Game Developers Conference 2011 Game Design Challenge session.
Developers John Romero (Doom, Quake) Jenova Chen (Journey, flOw), and Jason Rohrer (Passage, Sleep is Death) presented to a standing-room only crowd three starkly different approaches to designing games as religions.
Romero simulated Christianity by mixing social media with physical play and requiring the winning apostle to kill Romero himself. Chen gamified the library of TED talks, adding social features to allow people to leave better feedback on how they've been influenced by certain speakers. Rohrer created a "holy object" Minecraft mod that existed on a single USB stick that people could only play in and alter once before passing it on to the next player.
Rohrer's winning concept went on to stir a bit of a holy war, as written by Wired's Jason Fagone, including the USB stick recipient's three month pilgrimage in Hawaii and a frantic online auction for the game.
Speaker(s): Eric Zimmerman, Jenova Chen, John Romero, Jason Rohrer
Company Name(s): Independent, thatgamecompany, Loot Drop, Independent
Track / Format: Game Design
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What a ridiculous idea. Somebody had some major balls and major arrogance to come up with an idea like this. Bigger than Christianity is ok, but bigger than Jesus is walking on very thin ice.
I don't think it's crazy to attempt to make something bigger than Jesus. However, I don't think anyone can achieve that without even studying or analyzing in depth and understand where he studied, the place he visited, what his teachings were all about and how to apply them.
That said, it would probably highlight the fact seomone wants to create something bigger than Jesus, gamification is going in the complete opposite direction.
I just don't get why those ideas are about trying to add additional rewards around a mechanic that isn't necessarily fun, engaging or useful at its core in the first place. Most of the core features presented in those ideas were superficial such as just acquiring followers and didn't bring much substance to the table and such approaches won't allow a conscious and educated gamer to experience flow. It might work on casual players, the current majority, but it's not something that works universally for casual, advanced players and high level players.
To me, that conference makes it look obvious that we understood fun, player psychology and flow better 20 years ago. Maybe we aren't approaching gamification the right way.
This could be a good opportunity for these legends in indie development to concoct a spiritual, existential experience which we have not sensed before... unfortunately, the naming conventions of such events are still stuck in the primordial mud.
But yeah, they wouldn't pick any other religious figure...
That said, it would probably highlight the fact seomone wants to create something bigger than Jesus, gamification is going in the complete opposite direction.
See the wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_popular_than_Jesus
To me, that conference makes it look obvious that we understood fun, player psychology and flow better 20 years ago. Maybe we aren't approaching gamification the right way.