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Games are becoming cool very quickly, too quickly in fact. When the World Bank starts advertising to South Africans to start playing an MMO, you know something’s going wrong. And that’s exactly what’s happening with a game called Urgent Evoke.
 
The concept is good: Games that get people to do good things in the real world. The problem is that people don’t play games to get involved in the real world. It’s escapism, or recreational problem solving. Solving the world’s problems is not recreational. It’s not a game.
 
Simply put, it can be played on a cellphone, where every player around the world will be doled out missions, called Evokes, one every Wednesday night. Complete these and you earn skills and abilities like Collaboration and Courage. Missions will include performing real world actions that make a difference, such as volunteering, making business contacts or researching an issue, then submitting evidence of their work online. Pretty lame.
 
What Jane McGonigal, the games brain-child, does not realize is that we do try to do those things in any case. Us, who are ultraistic to begin with, get involved in charitable events ‘cause we want to, not because we get XP for it. That’s just dumb.  Working to see your neighbour have food and water is reward enough.
 
But don’t get me wrong: I’d like to see it work.  As I initially said, the concept in itself is good. Jane claims to be a gamer but I have my reservations.
 
To check it out got to www.UrgentEvoke.com.

Grant Hinds is the presenter for GameState, South Africa, if not the world’s, greatest online TV Show. It's online but it's not an MMO. We like helping others too.

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