Genre: Augmented Reality, Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing
Website: https://www.ingress.com/
Shane:
- Platform: Android
- Hours logged: 6.0
- Playthroughs: --
- Rating: --/10
- Shane (3/25/2014): This freaking game... I love it so much, but I hate what it does to people.
I started playing this when it popped open in Beta. I didn't know any of the people so the storyline gave me the guide to which faction I wanted to join. The green side is the Enlightened. The Enlightened have been influenced by aliens and think on a higher level... or some shit like that. The blue side is the Resistance. They... resist. Turns out I am more interested in fighting the power so to the Resistance I went.
My first day playing the game I was wandering around downtown and the comm showed some blue teammates talking. I stopped for a slice of pizza and made a new friend. I posted my location and one of my new team came to tell me about the game. OK... pretty cool so far.
I hacked some portals and got some gear. I tried to use some of that gear and found out I was pretty much useless at lvl 1. Disappointing. In fact it took 3 more levels before I really became effective at changing the game world around me. Pretty soon I found myself taking extra trips to go hack local parks. I would detour 3 miles out of my normal path on the way home to hit a portal cluster behind a shopping mall. I would leave for work early so that I could retake the portal at the flag pole or the fire station.
I would meet more people on both teams. I knew some of them from before the game, which was pretty awesome. Google+ groups started popping up for local coordination. Meetups were scheduled to take control of swaths of land. I made lvl 6, then 7, getting more powerful, influencing the land more. I spent HOURS walking in circles through parks and empty lots. I met cops and security guards and had to explain myself. I bought a backup battery pack for my phone (it turns out running the GPS on these buggers really sucks the power down). I made it to lvl 8... Then I started to notice a new problem...
The game had already taken over my life. I was used to that. Other activities had done that, but never had I been involved in something that brought me together with others in my community in this way. That is one of the real strengths in this game model. You are doing something really UNUSUAL. The ties within my faction were fairly strong but the relationship with the OTHER faction became combative. Instead of all ingress players feeling a sense of community, celebrating this fantastic and odd hobby I saw anger and contempt. Allegations of cheating arose and people were reported to game management for poor sportsmanship. Threats escalated. The idea was floated that we should blow up someones car because they weren't playing in a way that was appreciated. Things got kind of dark...
And I walked away.
Ingress, I really wanted to like you. I still do! The way you change the basic interactions with the world around me is a thrill. The part that I was not able to handle was that this game took my community (geeks, nerds, tech lovers) and turned them against each other on the basis of which side they chose when they started the game. Blue or Green ended up more than pixels on a screen. It was Bloods v. Crips and I was in the middle of it.
Cut to the weekend of March 23rd, 2014. Niantic, the division of Google responsible for Ingress has started hosting regional competitions. I got a message from my old faction, asking for me to come back and participate for a weekend. I threw it on the calendar (after begging for the time from the wife) and charged up my battery pack.
I had a really good time. Blue and Green were set loose on Boise, broken up into 4 different sections. We had someone from out of town acting as command and control. I went out of my way to be friendly with the other team. I ran MILES through the Treefort Music Fest filled streets and laughed at the confused hipsters staring at the dozens of nerds intensely staring at their phones.
All in all, I still love you Ingress. I will come back to you when another of these events happen. Until then, my life is better with you on the horizon, not on my hard drive.
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