Privilege the Video Game: Version 1.1

Among my e-mails, the other day, I found something from Julie Gillis with a link to this article about privilege. Basically it compares privilege (social inequality) to the difficulty setting of a video game. It acknowledges that other factors (such as individual personalities and abilities) influence what effect privilege has on a person’s life. In the case of the linked article, the other, personal factors are represented by ‘stats’ in video games. Basically the analogy is like this: difficulty setting (privilege) is about how the world perceives and interacts with your character, while the stats (personal circumstances) are about how well you are individually equipped to deal with the world.

Guild Wars 2: Beta Edition

Human Mesmer

I am a big nerd, from way back. From the moment I started reading Animorphs in 5^th grade and subsequently bought every single Animorphs book ever published, my future was sealed. Even so, it wasn’t until just a few years ago that I started to play MMOs. I just couldn’t ever get into the idea of playing a video game for very long. I started with the big one, World of Warcraft and I really liked it. It took a while, but eventually the shiny newness of WoW disappeared and I was left with a game I didn’t really like all that much. So I stopped playing. Then along comes the weekend beta event for Guild Wars 2 last weekend and I again found myself absorbed by an MMO.