MetaGame

| Tags: book, fiction, sci-fi, game

I read “MetaGame” by Sam Landstrom the first time more than 5 years ago, but somehow didn’t get around to write about it. When I don’t write about a book within two weeks after finishing it, I usually don’t write about it at all, because by that time I’m already immersed in the next book.

After reading “Ready Player One” I remembered “MetaGame” again and that back then I thought it was the coolest gaming themed book I had ever read. So I read it again and it still is the coolest gaming themed book I’ve ever read.

Usually gamers in those game related books use some kind of more or less advanced virtual reality system. They either have some VR goggles or they get the VR environment somehow projected on their eyes. They then use some kind of special gloves or jumpsuit to enable them to move around in the virtual reality.

“MetaGame” is different. The whole world and the entire life is gamified. There are no jobs as we know them nowadays. It’s all games and you need to play games to earn points which you can use to buy stuff. The somewhat tedious games like law enforcement and programming are called grinder games. You play them because they provide more points. The games played for fun are spank games.

Through a kind of nanobots which attach themselves to every surface — living or dead — the whole world is mapped by the computers. Depending on the game a player currently plays, the surfaces look different to them.

There are no more separate nations on earth and bio engineering is quite advanced. Aging has been removed from the human genom and immortality is possible but not available to everyone. You need to play to gain the privilege to become immortal.

As bio engineering is quite advanced products which have a DNA that resembles the human DNA up to 96.3 % are created. They are always build for a specific job and with an ingrained desire to do that job as good as possible. So if you buy a product that is build to keep your house clean it will happily do just that.

As to be expected this produces some philosophical and ethical issues and the author plays them out quite well.

I liked “MetaGame” five years ago and now again for it’s grandiose ideas, good story and a somewhat critical contemplation on the issues such a world would bring.

There’s actually a story there in that book. I haven’t said anything about it here except that I liked it. It’s good. It encompasses all those elements I’ve talked about here and some more. It’s about a special kind of game a group of players play. You might have guessed it, it’s a meta game. You’ll have to find out more about it yourselves, though.