A lot of what Wark said was very reminiscent of Baudrillards theories of the simulacra and simulations, in that this gamespace we live in can at times be indistinguishable from games we play all the time. Also in the slow encroachment of this space over our reality. “THE GAME has not just colonized reality, it is also the sole remaining ideal.” this is strikingly reminiscent of the image of the tattered map becoming indistinguishable from the desert, the birth of the simulacra.
Also, a lot of what he discussed reminded me of a concept that I learned of in Alexandrina Agloro’s class last semester “Gaming of the Oppressed” called gamification, or the constant infiltration of game mechanics into every day life, as a tool of consumerism. Wark explains that our lives are made up of these gamespaces, “The computer games that the gamer finds there are the ruins not of a lost past but of an impossible future. – p15” Is gamification societies collective push towards this unattainable “game” future?
One thing that I disagree with, or at least do not fully understand, is exemplified here: “You trifle with the game to discover in what way gamespace falls short of its self-proclaimed perfection.” I have not experienced this gamespace of ours to have been self-proclaiming itself as perfect. If anything, I have experienced the opposite, everyone who is inhabiting this space reinforcing that it is quite an imperfect and unfair space.