Gamification

[basilgodevenos]

Joseph submitted his proposal. He checked his score.

Proposal complete: +500 points.

On his way home Joseph hit five green lights in a row. He checked his score.

Green lights hit: +250 points. Combo: x5. Total: +1,250 points.

In the elevator, he checked the rankings. He was in the top 100 in the region. Remy, his wife, took the game more seriously. She was in fifth place, globally.

Joseph opened the apartment door and felt the knife pierce his chest before he saw Remy.

“Why?”

She showed him her score.

Murder: +10,000 points. Love for victim: x10. Total: +100,000 points.

[purplemur]

And therein lies the danger of total gamification. I wonder, though, if you could do a few in-app purchases to avoid having to actually kill your loved ones.

[Algernon Sydney is Dead]

I wanted to like it, but the end came as a total cheat/hack. (Which could be meta, as many games have similar flaws or exploits).

A game where murder, of innocents, gives a high positive score and murdering a loved one is a bonus; would be a radically different world. Joseph would have been on guard (or more likely, murdered by his parents, years ago).

It would be a dystopian "dog eat dog" nightmare, ruled by brute force and terror -- much like big chunks of California.

Also, the story's 'verse is inconsistent. If murder is plus points, then Joseph should have scored for: embezzlement, not a "proposal"; for running red lights, not hitting green ones; etc.

Maybe if it ended something like:

Dodging his wife's murder attempt: +10,000.
She must have loved him after all, to sacrifice her score for his.

[basilgodevenos]

@ASiD: Good notes. My thinking was that Remy was the first person to discover that murder was worth points. I think it's reasonable to say that someone had to be first, and as an obsessive gamer she had the motivation. I tried to give the impression that if a guy who didn't take it THAT seriously could be in the top 100 regionally, that the game wasn't played ubiquitously. So your friendly neighborhood murderer may not have been a player.

The main idea was what a person who is obsessed with a game is willing to sacrifice for it. I've seen marriages in peril because of World of Warcraft.

[ROU Killing Time]

@ASiD: Good notes. My thinking was that Remy was the first person to discover that murder was worth points. I think it's reasonable to say that someone had to be first, and as an obsessive gamer she had the motivation. I tried to give the impression that if a guy who didn't take it THAT seriously could be in the top 100 regionally, that the game wasn't played ubiquitously. So your friendly neighborhood murderer may not have been a player.

The main idea was what a person who is obsessed with a game is willing to sacrifice for it. I've seen marriages in peril because of World of Warcraft.

Been a few marriages started on WoW too. It all balances out.

[Algernon Sydney is Dead]

@ASiD: Good notes. My thinking was that Remy was the first person to discover that murder was worth points...

That would also fail the "fridge logic" test. There are thousands of murders, every hour (just in Chicago alone? ). I imagine that news of murder giving a plus score would be widespread almost as soon as that feature went into effect.

[purplemur]

@ASiD: Good notes. My thinking was that Remy was the first person to discover that murder was worth points...

That would also fail the "fridge logic" test. There are thousands of murders, every hour (just in Chicago alone? ). I imagine that news of murder giving a plus score would be widespread almost as soon as that feature went into effect.

Maybe she was one of the first ones to finish downloading the "Crimes of Passion" expansion pack?