The Game of Conscious Living - Steve's Ultimate Destiny?

[mdcmd]

Hello all,

I am a long-time reader, but don't visit the forums much. I am writing because I had an inspiration yesterday that I wanted to share with this community and perhaps even with Steve.

I recently watched Tom Chatfield's TED talk on 7 Ways that Video Games Reward the Brain, and he shares some fascinating data about large multi-player video games and the communities that are created around them. These games are created and designed to stimulate our brains at very deep levels. They reward effort, they make tasks challenging, yet not too easy, they occasionally give fantastic rewards which surprise and delight us, and they build communities. Real people have paid real money (totaling billions of dollars) to buy items that only exist online, and they will come together in groups and try to solve problems in the game. Tom suggests there are lessons we could learn from this and apply to real life.

And then I had an idea that sent a tingle down my entire body, like a little wave of energy coursing through me. What if someone applied those lessons to design a new kind of video game, creating an online community of gamers focused on conscious living and health?

I see it as an adventure game, an online version of The Hero's Journey. Venturing out into the world to learn the lessons of living. Traveling through the world or even time, interacting with healers, philosophers, sages, yogis seeking wisdom. Acquiring points while learning lessons about how to live a conscious life.

And then...

The real power of this game would be figuring out ways to acquire points through real world action, integrating the game into players lives. Buy spinach at Whole Foods? 7 points. Log 3 miles on the treadmill at your gym? 13 points. Go into the virtual mediation room and listen with headphones to a 15-minute meditation? 18 points. Help another player? 4 points. Do a 30-day trial to wake up early each day? 270 points. Teach a virtual course on lucid dreaming? 6,421 points. The possibilities would be endless. But the key would be to tie the theory of the virtual world to real world actions. Isn't that what we have learned from Steve?

And points could be redeemable for real world goods. 1000 points gets you $10 in groceries. 1,000,000 points and you get free health insurance for the year. Again, the sky is the limit.

I am a family doctor, not a software developer, so I have no illusions that I'm going to create a game like this, but I would love to see something like it exist in the world, particularly because I find so many of the current video games to be so violent and negative and vibration-lowering. I would love to be able to recommend something like this to my patients, where they could enter a virtual community of people who are trying to live better, healthier lives. So I thought I would share the concept broadly in hopes someone would get inspired and take this on.

And then I had a second inspiration (not the full body tingle, but more of hair on my arms standing up). Who do I know of that is a former video game creator who has turned himself into one of the healthiest, most conscious people on the planet? Steve!

I believe that everything we do in our lives we are drawn to for some reason; the activity or job fills some need in our lives, engages one part of us. We satisfy or grow in the way we need to in that personal dimension, and then move on to something else. What if those things are prep-work for what we are ultimately going to do? I would love to see Steve integrate his former career and his current one in a way that could benefit so many others, like his writing and personal example have helped me. What a potentially powerful medium for Steve to spread his message, as a video game could touch the lives of people that may not read his book or visit his website.

Steve's writing on subjective-objective was very illuminating to me, and I just spent an hour reading through one of the monster Intention-Manifestation forum posts. I am still wrestling mightily with these concepts. But I do know that if I am creating everything in my own world, I would want my Steve Pavlina character to make this game.

As a disclaimer, I am not trying to say Steve should do this, or that I have figured things out for Steve, or that I know Steve's destiny, or anything like that. And we all know that Steve is going to do what he thinks is the right thing for him. I was just passing on an inspiration and putting an idea out into the universe so that perhaps some other conscious creator can run with it and make something cool for the rest of us to enjoy.

And if this all seems totally crazy, then I will quote the Flight of the Conchords in their awesome video Hiphopopotamus vs the Rhymenoceros:

Where did you get that preposterous hypothesis?
Did Steve tell you that, perchance?
Steve.
(but, alas, no, Steve was only my muse)

[JHL]

Its an interesting idea, but actually not too dissimilar from concepts that already exist in the marketplace. My medical aid scheme, for example, has a loyalty program that rewards you in this manner for making healthy lifestyle choices. Eat healthily and get points, go to gym and get points, stop smoking etc. Points can be redeemed for rewards like discounts, holidays, etc.

From a commercial point of view its in the interests of the medical aid company to sponsor these prizes because its clever actuaries have worked out that if their clients are motivated to become healthier, they will actually generate a positive return on investment from the loyalty program due to decreased medical claims over the long term.

But an interesting additional element your game alludes to is competition. People will strive to do all sorts of things in the interests of winning, that they wouldn't necessarily otherwise consider, or do with as much zest, at least. Leader-board's are now commonly used in marketing to build communities and fuel participation.

Its a good idea and I think it would work. Coding the game would be relatively straightforward. Tough part would be finding sponsors. Who's going to reward me when I earn 30 million points for finally taking a "How to be nice to people" workshop?

[Illuminatus]

Originally Posted by mdcmd

And then I had an idea that sent a tingle down my entire body, like a little wave of energy coursing through me. What if someone applied those lessons to design a new kind of video game, creating an online community of gamers focused on conscious living and health?

I see it as an adventure game, an online version of The Hero's Journey. Venturing out into the world to learn the lessons of living. Traveling through the world or even time, interacting with healers, philosophers, sages, yogis seeking wisdom. Acquiring points while learning lessons about how to live a conscious life.

And at what point did you fail to realize that this game already exists, and is called Life?

[JHL]

Originally Posted by Illuminatus

And at what point did you fail to realize that this game already exists, and is called Life?

Minus 1250 points for sarcasm.
Minus 950 points for missing the point.
And
Minus 7 billion points because I broke my no-chocolate-for-7 days plan, and its your fault.

[Hemlock]

The one thing I see that could be better about this concept than concepts introduced in the past is that you don't mention the support and and living mainly being online. Further you bring up things like, traveling and visiting sages. This almost makes it seem like a scavenger hunt for good experience, which honestly, who cares about points, if a big group of people formed for a scavenger hunt of amazing experiences who wouldn't be up for that game if they could afford it?

[mdcmd]

Thanks for the responses, yes even thanks to you, Illuminatus, because yours made me laugh.

JHL, I have seen such rewards type programs, but the ones I have seen are not that engaging in and of themselves. With this idea, the quality of the game becomes key to its success. Imagine Farmville, which has over 60 million users, but with a nobler purpose.

To Hemlock, I like your scavenger hunt analogy, and I think you highlight one my main points, people like communities, they like doing things with others, and going on a cool adventure with others would be fun.

And finally to Illuminatus, I do realize that there are some people who have been enlighted (or illuminated) to the degree where they get such inspiration from life, but I think the world could use a few more such folks.