The Digital Frontier
How Video Games are Humanity’s Next Big Journey
Early one morning, I was rudely awakened from my quarantine auto-pilot mode when I saw a post on Instagram. It read:
BORN TOO LATE TO EXPLORE THE EARTH,
BORN TOO EARLY TO EXPLORE SPACE.
When I read this, it invoked a deep sense of frustration in my heart. Not only because it was overly pessimistic, but because I understood it was true in some sense. I know I most likely won’t get to explore the vastness of space in all of its glory like the heroes in sci-fi movies, and I know I won’t be discovering any new continents on Earth anymore. So, it got me thinking:
What frontier was I going to explore?
For the longest time, this was a tough question for me to answer because the majority of my life as a student wasn’t spent discovering new things. It was learning material that has been scrutinized to such an extent that it can’t be questioned anymore. High school hadn’t prepared me to be someone who was breaking new ground, it prepared me to spit back out large heaps of known information. And that’s what I begrudgingly did for many of my years there. However, as I thought more about the question, I came to a realization: Outside of school, I already had been exploring a new frontier. I’d been exploring it ever since I first turned on my Gameboy when I was four. I call it the “Digital Frontier.”
To me, gaming isn’t all about playing games anymore. It is an exploration of this new digital frontier. And through this journey, I’ve discovered new ways to learn, inspire, and communicate.
When I came to USC, I was scared of the thought that by becoming a game designer, I would be relegated to strictly creating entertainment. But, I don’t simply want to give people an escape from reality. I want to create meaningful change in the world and positively impact those around me. And through games, I truly feel I can accomplish this because if there’s one thing I’ve learned from playing games, it’s that the avenues for learning and discovery through them are absolutely limitless.
On average, self-identified gamers will play upwards of 10,000 hours from when they start, to the age of 21. That’s the same as around 7 and a half years of going to school. However, when one picks up a controller and plays, I would argue these hours aren’t just disappearing from the face of the earth. Gamers are learning crucial skills. As Jane McGonigal put it in her TED Talk about how games can help the world, gamers are learning an essential trait when they play: “Urgent Optimism.”
When players sit down and play a game, most likely they will face a challenging level. They’ll have to overcome an obstacle that seems impossible to beat, but they keep trying anyway. Eventually, they finally beat it. This process of failing and success encourages the player to not be scared of hard challenges. Rather, they develop a love for solving problems and the confidence to take on new challenges. That is urgent optimism.
When Jane talked about this concept, I immediately understood why I feel very confident when taking on new challenges. Even as far back as pre-school, I’ve been working to beat different levels, and overcome new feats. I still remember playing the same level over and over again in Super Mario Bros when I was 5. Maybe it was because I was stubborn or perhaps it was me learning, but I didn’t quit for days until I finished. After reaching the flag, hearing the classic Mario win soundtrack, and the fireworks go off, I was beyond ecstatic and proud even though what I accomplished had seemingly no physical reward.
In hindsight, I now know there was a physical reward: developing a strong trust in myself to overcome challenges. This trust in myself still is growing today, but the seeds were planted over 15 years ago. Without this trust in myself being built up over time, I know I never would’ve taken the leap of faith in choosing to pursue games and explore the digital frontier instead of a traditionally safer career option in college.
Not only has this confidence changed my career path, but perhaps the biggest way it’s changed me is in my style of leadership. Recently, I was given the opportunity to lead the Valorant team at USC. Valorant is a team-based, competitive video game that requires disciplined coordination and proper communication. In my WP2, I talked about how my leading style centered around optimism. But I should also add that along with this optimism was a strong confidence in myself and the team as a whole. Saying “we’ll get them next time!” isn’t only optimistic. It puts faith, confidence, and trust in your teammates and yourself. It takes a belief that you will succeed after failure. But because of my experience losing and winning in video games, this is something I was ready to believe in. Playing games had shown me a hundred losses in a row could still lead to victory.
This confidence I developed made me a quick thinker as well. If I had an idea, we’d try it out with no regrets because as I said in the WP2 post, “Decisiveness wouldn’t always lead to victory, but indecisiveness would always result in losing.” Having this confident, optimistic nature even when we are losing has helped me win matches that seemed hopeless. And through the losses, I stand strong, because as a leader, I want to be someone who my teammates can not only trust, but also be inspired by.
Inspiration is something that not everyone is given as they grow up. Certain people have role models and things they can look to that’ll give them direction, but also, there are many people in the world that lack this privilege. I have always strived to be inspiring to others because I’ve struggled with a lack of inspiration myself. For much of my young childhood, my father wasn’t a big part of my life. This caused me to feel lost growing up because, while I had a loving mother, I didn’t have a definitive father figure. People often would ask me, “Who is your biggest role model?” or “Who is your biggest inspiration?” but I simply wouldn’t be able to give an answer.
As I grew up, playing games would help change this for me. I discovered people who had been innovating what it meant to play games and people who had formed massive communities around the things they loved. One of these people was Jeff Kaplan, the lead designer of Overwatch and someone who wasn’t afraid to dive straight into the amazing new frontier of video games.
Overwatch wasn’t like any of the other competitive 5v5 shooters at the time. Jeff Kaplan and the Overwatch design team took a risk and decided to completely revamp how players interact with the hero system. Each hero would be astonishingly unique and play like no other character. This, of course, made it troublesome to balance the game competitively. Imagine if every position in football or basketball had different abilities and rules they played by. Of course, there would be problems. But regardless of these challenges, Jeff Kaplan and the Overwatch design team pushed through and made a game that’s still being enjoyed today and has brought millions of fans from diverse backgrounds together.
Not only did he work to make a new, fun, unique game, but he also innovated on the competitive eSports front. With the launch of Overwatch came the launch of what was known as The Overwatch League. Currently, The Overwatch League is a global esports league comprising over 20 city-based teams and featuring some of the best Overwatch players in the world. These teams face off head to head against one another similar to how the NFL runs their league. This league existed in stark contrast to other eSports leagues. Most other eSports leagues were heavily decentralized and each had its own rules. The Overwatch League would change this all and help make eSports into something easily digestible for a normal audience.
One article by Hotspawn on the impact of The Overwatch League read,
“It’s helped bring esports closer to becoming mainstream. This is after a handful of big broadcasting deals that included ABC, Disney and ESPN brought in a ton of money to the esports scene… Now, more than ever, eSports are being taken more seriously and Overwatch League was a part of that.”
Overwatch as a whole continued to innovate and redefine what it meant to play games. Even though it isn’t the most popular game anymore, Overwatch and Jeff Kaplan left a lasting impression on myself and the gaming community. He showed me how gaming is a field that isn’t just about having fun, rather it’s about pushing boundaries. The Overwatch league turned gaming into a competitive global sport, and Overwatch itself redefined what it meant to work as a team. There isn’t any other way to describe him other than someone who is a frontiersman. He wasn’t afraid to take risks, explore the frontier, and redefine gaming. He inspired me to do more with the field I love, and work hard to come out to California and study at USC.
Moving out to LA has reshaped my whole perspective globally. To me, LA is like a hub of different cultures and ideas all in one giant melting pot. Just in the short time I’ve been here, I’ve seen thousands of unique people and identities. But one thing that stayed the same from my hometown of Boston was that communities of people from such diverse backgrounds would come together to play games. And that is what I believe the biggest value games can give to our society. They bring people together and allow them to communicate regardless of their location, gender, age, or any other identity. There is nothing else quite like it.
Along with concepts like “urgent optimism,” Jane McGonigal also talked about how powerful games were at creating communities. She noted one game in particular: World of Warcraft or WOW for short. In World of Warcraft, a massive, multiplayer, online, role-playing game (MMORPG), millions of people group up every day to complete adventures. Collectively, World of Warcraft players have spent over 5.93 million years in the game. With those years, players learned more about themselves and how to work together as a team. Players develop trust when they work hard to complete an objective. Much like when I play competitive shooters like Valorant and Overwatch, WOW players win as a team and also lose as a team.
A close friend here at USC mentioned that World of Warcraft actually helped her get through one of the toughest times in her life. She had gotten into a car accident and was totally bedridden. For that extended period of time, there weren’t many ways for her to communicate and socialize with her friends. That all changed when she picked up World of Warcraft. Not only did it give her a sense of purpose, but it also allowed her to meet her friends and new people online. Staying in touch with others was key to her recovery.
Communication is something that is extremely important to me. I believe that when people are able to communicate, there is a new opportunity to understand one another. And when I say to understand them, I mean to understand their humanity. So often do I feel disconnected from people across the world. The media regularly portrays people in different countries as completely different than me. However, as I’ve played more games, I’ve realized that in reality, people are very similar to one another.
Early in high school, I played a game called Rust. This game was an online, base-building, survival game. I loved to build bases and explore, so I spent hours collecting resources to create beautiful, strong, forts. Eventually, after playing solo for a while, I joined a big clan of players from around the world. Spending all day and all night on the game, I got to meet players from tons of different countries. As the American players started going to sleep, European and Asia-based players would log on to defend the forts. Now that I think back on it, it sounds totally crazy, but players from countries like the US, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, and China all came together to build.
When it comes to playing games, there isn’t a divide between people’s races or cultures. All that is seen is the player model that the player chose to create. I believe there is a certain beauty to having that choice, but surprisingly, it isn’t really seen anywhere else other than in games. Being able to choose who you are allows for very little stigmas on things like race, gender, or simply how you present yourself which opens the space for more dialogue between people. Common things that separate us break down in the digital world.
Many theorize this phenomenon of such open communication and collaboration occurs because games provide people with feelings that often the real world doesn’t fully supply: Connection, relaxation, and happiness. According to Pew Research Center, 52% of teens say playing online games helps them feel connected to the people they aren’t otherwise connected to, and an astounding 82% of teens say they feel relaxed and happy when they play. They feel this way because games intrinsically reward players for overcoming their fear of communication. In Rust and World of Warcraft, a player can only go so far alone. To complete the hardest quests, one needs to be able to work together. By collaborating, they feel connected in their goal to achieve their mission, and happier when they overcome struggles together. In a sense, games break down normal social stigmas and allow players to communicate in the most natural, instinctual way: unforced, without stress, and with a goal in mind.
As games continue to become more popular and accessible, our world is going to fundamentally change. Not only will people get better at communicating, but perhaps the common dividers that we subconsciously feel will begin to break down. Computers will get more accessible which will bring the globe closer together. It’ll be normal for people of all ages to interact with others from different countries, opening up the much-needed space for dialogue, inspiration, and learning. As of 2021, we’ve only skimmed the surface of the digital frontier, but I have the confidence in myself to be one of the explorers to dive right in.
For more info on the games mentioned above:
Valorant: https://playvalorant.com/en-us/
Overwatch: https://playoverwatch.com/en-us/
The Overwatch League: https://www.overwatchleague.com/en-us/
World of Warcraft: https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/
Works Cited
Adams, Samuel. “Valorant.” Medium, WP2 — Growing Up with Games, 8 Mar. 2021, medium.com/wp2-samuel-adams/valorant-920135f51d54.
Almughrabi, Zakaria, et al. “The History of the Overwatch League.” Hotspawn, 7 Jan. 2021, www.hotspawn.com/overwatch/guides/the-history-of-the-overwatch-league.
Lenhart, Amanda. “Video Games, Teen Boys and Building Social Skills and Friendships.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center, 31 Dec. 2019, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2015/08/06/chapter-3-video-games-are-key-elements-in-friendships-for-many-boys/.
Limelight Networks. Market Research: The State of Online Gaming — 2019, Limelight Networks, 15 Mar. 2019, www.limelight.com/resources/white-paper/state-of-online-gaming-2019/#:~:text=Video%20gamers%20spend%20an%20average,than%2012%20hours%20a%20week.
McGonigal, Jane, director. Gaming Can Make a Better World. TED, www.ted.com/talks/jane_mcgonigal_gaming_can_make_a_better_world/transcript?language=en#t-1154522.
“The Overwatch League — About.” The Overwatch League — Home, overwatchleague.com/en-us/about.
