GAM3R 7H30RY

My favorite passage on Gamer Theory by McKenzie Wark states:

"Ever get the feeling you are playing some vast and useless game to which you don’t know the goal, and can’t remember the rules? Ever get the fierce desire to quit, to resign, to forfeit, only to discover there’s no umpire, no referee, no regulator, to whom to announce your capitulation? Ever get the vague dread that while you have no choice but to play the game, you can’t win it, can’t even know the score, or who keeps it? Ever suspect that you don’t even know who your real opponent might be? Ever get mad over the obvious fact that the dice are loaded, the deck stacked, the table rigged, and the fix – in? Welcome to gamespace. It’s everywhere, this atopian arena, this speculation sport. No pain no gain. No guts no glory. Give it your best shot. There’s no second place. Winner take all. Here’s a heads up: In gamespace, even if you know the deal, consider yourself a player, and at least for this round have got game, you will notice, all the same, that the game has got you. Welcome to the thunderdome. Welcome to the terrordome. Welcome to the greatest game of all. Welcome to the playoffs, the big league, the masters, the only game in town. You are a gamer whether you like it or not, now that we all live in a gamespace that is everywhere and nowhere. As Microsoft says: Where do you want to go today? You can go anywhere you want in gamespace but never leave it."

It was slide # 24 in Agony.

I like the way Wark started the narrative with a hypothetical situation and made the reader identify as Gamer by the end. As I was reading the beginning of the passage, I kept thinking to myself that our lives are a game. Also prior to reading the article, I considered a gamer to someone who play Call of Duty and Halo 3 religiously. I like the relationship that Wark pointed out about the game ending by dying or losing all your points. In real life, you may lose all your points or your weapons, but you can't just quit the game. As a gamer, you might also feel this way. By dropping your weapon, or crashing your car you might have "lost" but as a gamer you continue on to complete the game.