What Mafia Wars Has Taught Me...

Jack AKA Doorman Priest likes to rib me about playing these Facebook games. He often feels the need to remind me to get a life. I in turn remind him that unlike most other American households, I do not have television. So rather than spending countless hours watching so called "reality" shows, I spend some time every day playing Mafia Wars, FarmVille, and a couple other Facebook games.

What I've realized though is that playing these games has had an impact in my life. At first glance they are simply silly busy-work kind of activities - really just a short level up from playing solitaire. They do have the added feature of interactivity through gifting and assisting on "jobs" etc. However, in reality they really are variations on moving a pile of rocks across the prison yard and then being instructed to move it back.

That said, I have found what I think is an unintended benefit of these games.

We live in a culture of instant gratification - feel uncomfortable, take a pill; feel hungry, drive through garbage; feeling horny, cyber porn. When my mom gets frustrated with the speed of her computer, I remind her of an old Joan Rivers joke..."Elizabeth Taylor is so fat she stands in front of the microwave and yells 'Faster! Faster!'" Instant gratification...you want something, buy it on credit. Out of credit? Here's more credit. We are not encouraged to wait for anything anymore.

Concepts such as "lay away" would be unheard of nowadays for most people.

So what has this to do with Mafia Wars et al.? These games have taught me patience. They have reintroduced the concept of achievement by baby steps. They have showed me the pleasure of working for something over time and then relishing the payoff.

The irony here is that the makers of these games hope to hook you and tap into that instant gratification need and spend real currency to purchase pretend game currency. They probably have a name for players like me - something akin to "deadbeat." By the way, the banks to big to fail now consider credit card holders who always pay of their balances and always on time "deadbeats." That's how broken our capitalist/consumerist economy really is.

Their strategy has not worked on players like me. I think the idea of spending money for pretend money so I can have pretend "good" and extra game points now is patently ridiculous--call it a bridge too far. As a result, the unintended benefit is a rather important life lesson in patience and hard work as I chip away on the various tasks the different games offer their players.

Are they otherwise silly and mindless games? Absolutely. There is much in this life that is frivolous. This frivolity (for me) comes at no real cost. Peace.