Farewell assessment,

Subject 8791, Pod 7702,

It took the threat of total annihilation to stop the first Cold War.

It took a computer game to stop the second.

Russia and Europe were on the verge of nuclear annihilation. America had gone dark since enforcing its neutrality wall. Fingers were hovered over buttons that would begin the war to end humanity. But as always, humans found hope.

No country really wanted to start the war, but they were between a rock and a hard place. Their citizens needed a focus, and war focused the mind like nothing else. The people weren’t really to blame.

Thirty years after the financial sector had left Britain, and the country had fallen because of its greed, seven young computer programmers pushed the button on their own dream.

The HOPE engine loaded onto servers around the globe. Disparity was gone. The rich rubbed shoulders with the poor as if they were old friends. Nationality became a thing of the past. America gave up on its self imposed retreat from the world. The first ever global law was founded and enforced – every person, regardless of the colour of their skin, the god they worshipped, the number in their bank account, or anything else that used to matter, had to have a VR headset with a mobile connection to HOPE.

It was a game based in a fantasy world that one of the developers dreamed up. It wasn’t the most unique or innovative, and it didn’t have the best graphics or gameplay, but it had luck. Of course, luck is just when preparation meets opportunity. The world needed something to unify them and HOPE gamified people’s lives while providing a built in translator.

That was all it took. Give people a goal and remove the communication barrier.

But HOPE has moved on since its first release. Now it does have the best graphics, and the best gameplay, and the best everything.

The developers realised that games went in cycles. Games used to be hard, then with the invention of mobile phones, they became easy. They became too easy. They were non-games, just blinking happy sounds at the user with no mental input. Without stakes, people couldn’t engage with anything. But with stakes, came motivation, came teamwork, came fulfillment and happiness.

HOPE isn’t the only game engine, but it’s the only one that matters.