The US Needs a Balance Patch
Since I started making a career out of playing video games, I’ve played a lot of them. In that time I’ve learned a lot about what makes a game fun. More specifically, what makes an online multiplayer game fun. The answer? Balance. Games where everyone starts the same and are given a complex set of tools in order to come out on top of the competition. In games like this, it is a player’s knowledge of his environment, his strategies using the tools he has been given, and his quickness to act that give him an edge. These games are incredibly fun and addictive because when you lose, it’s because it was your mistake and you can use that knowledge to get back in there and try again. On the flip side, there are games that are very unbalanced. Where having the best internet connection immediately gives someone an edge, or starting next to a powerful weapon or in a strategically superior position allows them to win. It’s this kind of game, where you can get killed instantly upon starting, that make you want to throw your controller through the screen.
Life is a game, and it’s unbalanced. I am talking about the game of life as played in the United States. While I am sure there are much more unbalanced games throughout the world, my knowledge and experience of the game is limited to the US. The US has become more unbalanced in recent years. It can be seen through the erosion of the middle class. More and more people are starting the game with either no chance at winning, or a guaranteed win. One of the main problems is that life is a perpetual game and there is no easy reset button to level the playing field. When the game of life becomes too unbalanced, that is when revolutions occur; it is how the US began. It seems as though we are approaching a level of unbalance in the US that has become intolerable, and people are getting together to change it. The question is, can change come peacefully?
The US is a country based on growth. From Manifest Destiny to the Industrial Age, this country was founded on growth and it’s ideals come from growth. The problem is that growth has a limit, and it seems that we are and have been approaching it. Where wealth in the past came from exploiting some new untapped resource or market, much of wealth today comes from exploiting other people. The housing and stock market crash of 2008 came from exploiting other people. It came from the rich exploiting the poor by offering them loans that they couldn’t afford, and when it was time to collect and the money wasn’t there, the poor paid yet again by bailing them out through taxes. When I think of capitalism, I think of a free market where the best rise to the top. That is not what we have here in the US. What we have is a system that keeps the top at the top and the bottom at the bottom. It is counter productive and bad for economic and social progress. We glorify rags to riches stories, to keep the American Dream alive, but in reality there is less social mobility than ever before.
When a game becomes too unbalanced, people will stop playing it. When a good game developer becomes aware of some glitch or exploit that is making the game unbalanced, they make a patch to fix it. The US needs a balance patch. I am not sure what that would be or how it will come into effect but it is desperately needed. I do not think it will come from the government or industry as those are run by the few in power. Something new needs to come along that is from the many and will level the playing field once again.
