Gaming Illiteracy

Okay, so, for an assignment, I need to read a chapter of a book and post a summary (I think?) here. So...
I read the 1st chapter (because it was the shortest, and getting 12+ reading assignments every week makes me less than thrilled to read more than the bare minimum by the time Friday evening rolls around... Friday evening when I could have gone to an ACDC concert for free with my friends but decided not to go on account of having to be a DD, Homework, and not liking ACDC that much)...

So the chapter was titled: Gaming Literacy: Game Design as a Model for Literacy in the Twenty-First Century. And it was written by Eric Zimmerman (Who also sent a telegraph to Mexico that started a World War... at least that's the only other place I've heard the name Zimmerman).

So... he talks about Game Literacy. And he goes on and on about using games more and more in literary theory and practice and vice versa. (and I'm seriously considering leaving my typos in this post at this point, because my mind is so drained right now, I can hardly stay focused on this assignment. When's it due? Tonight? Ahh well... I'll get through it.) First, he talks a little bit about the magic circle. The magic circle, unfortunately, has nothing to do with magic, or circles- unlike the warcraft map you could be making right now. The magic circle is instead a literary tool used to describe the very sandbox application of gaming systems. It's simple: the game rules and symbols work inside of the game, or inside the 'circle' and not outside. Why? Magic! Hence "Magic Circle." After setting up this background for us, we intercept Zimmerman's message that he is in fact using it as an example of exactly not what he wants us to think about, which starts the war in your head about whether or not your brain is functioning on a high enough level to comprehend the complex key terms and counter examples and analogies that the piece is going to throw at you- not unlike the enemies would attack some unwitting heroes in the warcraft map you want to continue making. No, he actually means the verb gaming when he says "Gaming Literacy." Because we are 'gaming' literacy. And it makes perfect sense.

He then eventually goes on to talk about 3 major aspects that go into Gaming Literacy- coincidentally the same number as the game with the map you want to work on. First, he talks about the system! The big scary system that game functions in. Simple enough concept. The second is the "play," where he discusses how the player plays the game and it changes and shakes things up a bit, because the player and his play experience is unique. He also talks briefly on mods and communities, where-wouldn't ya know it- Warcraft is cited as an example. The last piece of the discussion is design. Design sort of wraps it all together in a nice little package. Short and simple: Design is what gives the game it's meaning.

Zimmerman concludes his brief article-now-chapter-in-a-book by giving the reader a little bit of insight into his vision for the future of Gaming Literacy, and what it means for society, and how society is looking to go.

So now that I'm done with this, I'm going to check facebook, and then go waste some time designing a warcraft map that my friends probably won't ever play because they have no respect what-so-ever for amount of time and effort it takes to actually make even a warcraft custom map... why should I expect them to? Seriously? What am I thinking... they have no problem leaking other peoples' games, why would they have a problem with taking my effort and tossing it aside as a pointless waste of time? Maybe I should just keep them as TV watching, drinking buddies, and just stick to our D&D games which are a lot easier and faster to set up, because despite the couple of fun LAN parties we've had, I think they're totally gaming illiteracy.