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0 pointsnosianu4y ago0 comments

If you shift the coordinate system to within the virtual system nothing is fake any more. I left the context that I used for the words "virtual" and "fake" outside and with their actual real life at the center. My reddit or HN or SO points don't have any influence there. That it means something right on those sites - does that have to be said?

You get to keep everything that you achieve in your own head, like "having fun" or whatever satisfaction you derive from what you do on those sites. You don't get to take out anything you manage to "create" their though, like your level and points. So except for what you manage to do in your own head it's much-input-no-output, a black hole box that swallows all your efforts and keeps them without giving back. Again, speaking about the "game", not about your own satisfaction e.g. for helping others.

The game is used to pretend to you the rewards are higher, but in order realize that promise you have to stay in the game world because the rewards you earn cannot be taken out.

So yes, within the context of those sites it is "real".

0 comments

zem4y ago

yes, but people only seem to toss around terms like "imaginary internet points" or "fake points" when it comes to gamification of things that are inherently not games.

the point i'm making is that to the people playing them as games, the rewards are the points, there's nothing to take out. no one says i'm playing a video game for "imaginary videogame points" that cannot be taken out into the real world, they understand that the score is part of the intrinsic nature of the game.

i think people feel there is some intrinsic reward to participating in stackoverflow, or reddit, or whatever, and that people valuing the karma rather than (or even in addition to) the human interaction, or the satisfaction of helping others, are somehow doing it wrong - for them, the gamified aspect is an unnecessary and fake veneer over the intrinsic rewards of the site's core function. which i can definitely sympathise with, and there are absolutely venues in which i too opt out of gamification, or simply ignore that entire aspect of things, but i do not extend that to sneering at the people who do participate.

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