In My Life as a Night Elf Priest, Bonnie Nardi argues that video games are important since they provide people/companies a medium to promote values/ideals/beliefs without players necessarily knowing. They also help companies, such as IBM, increase work performance by letting their employees relax while at the same time work and collaborate with other employees. In such cases, I agree that video games are effective since they effectively and indirectly transmit their creators’ message to the players. They also offer people another way of socializing with others.
However, Nardi also argues that video games are a good way of forming and sustaining relationships. Because they bring people together by engaging them in an unfamiliar experience, I don’t think that the relationships made through gaming are sustainable. The players, even though they may be fully engaged in the experience, must identify the gaming environment as separate from reality. This view then allows them to act differently in video games. As McLuhan pointed out in his book, people are attracted to entertainment as they do not take it seriously, and so they don’t take themselves seriously and instead play roles they wouldn’t in real life. Video games are only helpful in sustaining relationships if the players actually meet in real life.
