Translatable Skills

     Games have been a part of human society for as long as anthropologists and archaeologists are aware. Many species of animals are documented playing with each other, especially the young, to refine defensive or predatory techniques. The modern field of psychology justifies games as a way of developing mental skills like strategy and social interactions like sharing and competition. Board games such as Senet are found in the tombs of the Egyptian pharaoh's and others are referenced in several ancient civilizations. Humans enjoy games because they offer a deviation from the norm with reduced consequences for actions. The American Capitalist game Monopoly by Parker Brothers allows players to amass wealth and eventually force opponents out of the game by resource constriction. Since the game is played in a safe environment with friends and families, the extreme behavior of game play is only acceptable with restrictions and a general understanding that no economic extortion should occur following the game.
     Games are an escape of reality or an altered version that would not be possible otherwise. The Olympics were originally set up as a way for city states to compete nonviolently, a tradition that inspired the modern Olympics. Similarly, medieval Europe used chess to practice battle tactics and hunting to simulate the stress and gore of battle. Amusement, relaxation, or practice for honing skills are all valuable and necessary components of the history gaming. Humans create and play games that are appropriate for their needs and stations in life which is why games from past societies can seem both impossibility alien and astoundingly familiar.
     Since the 1970s modern games have adapted electronic features as the human world becomes more electronic and digitized. The connectivity of the internet has exposed a previously unknown realm of possibility from technological growth and the sharing of knowledge quickly, easily, and and through multiple facets. One of these new areas isMassively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs). The most famous and sterotyped, World of Warcraft (WoW)  by Blizzard Entertainment, has about eight million players that can interact, trade, kill, and fight together. These MMORPGs are, essentially, worlds of their own populated by human characters as well as computer-derived characters (Non-Player Characters (NPC)).
     For a specific example, RuneScape (Jagex Ltd) fulfills the stereotyped medieval fantasy world of other MMORPGs, but because the purpose of the game is not necessarily derived from combat, RuneScape's gameplay offers more varied content for this analysis. Within RuneScape are a variety of "skills" that can be trained to achieve whatever the player desires since there is no mandated end game. With twenty-six in all, these skills fall into several categories:
                 Combat (melee, magic, archery, health)
                 Gathering (mining, woodcutting, fishing, farming)
                 Artisan (crafting, cooking, smithing, carpentry)
                 Support (agility, thieving)

     The setup of skills are compatible to create fluid game play. Woodcutting chops trees to collect logs which can be burned to cook food, crafted into timber for building a house, or whittled into bows and arrows. These items are tradable with other players, forming the foundation of the game's economy. In the interest of brevity, no in depth explanation of the skills or their interactions will be provided here due to large volumes of material accessible elsewhere online. 

     In the real world people must perform and repeat tasks to sustain life, accomplish goals, and maintain civilization. RuneScape skills require "grinding" which involves repetition to generate experience that raises the level of that skill. Skills go from level 1 with 0 experience to level 99 with 13 million experience. Level 99 is mastery of that area of the game. All features and content with that skill are available to the player.

     If the point of games is to prepare the player for real aspects of the world, RuneScape may trump other MMORPGs' efforts because of their combat-heavy focus. In an attempt to realize the practicality of virtual skills versus true ability, my own life was analyzed and compared to the requirements of RuneScape and reality. In reality true mastery of fishing would require decades spent catching fish multiple ways in a variety of environments under unpredictable and dangerous conditions, but in RuneScape a player need only achieve the experience limit. 

     Games offer an escape from reality which provides a method of achieving mastery in many separate things. Reality restricts by its very nature and encourages escapism where one can transform into a powerful, wealthy player in a simulated world where the limitations are only those of time and the imagination. Immersive games could continue to grow in popularity as reality is digitized and requires those skills. Already the stock market and military drones are run entirely by computers with only the occasional human input.
     Games reinforce skills needed in the real world by providing otherwise inaccessible experiences. MMORPGs are a new frontier because the medium through which the game is played is not even two decades old. As the world becomes more involved in a digital realm of interaction, the evolution of games into this new form will fulfill and, as it has undoubtedly already, influence the development of the internet, society, and commerce as the Digital Age continues.

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Agatha Tyche