StarPower

The class on February 1st had us examine how we could change the game StarPower, a game with social tiers that idealizes the class differentiation in today's society. Although we didn't play it, we read descriptions of the game and what usually happens. With the squares being the highest tier and being able to the make the rules, they start to create rules that create a greater wealth disparity between them vs. the circles and triangles.

While I see this application in the real world since money and power are such a real-world thing and people are almost hypnotized by it, it's hard to see how in a class setting it would happen. The stakes are just so much lower that I don't see any incentive to put my other peers down. This is one of the issues I struggled with as I tried to put myself as a participant in the game. But it's hard to say since we actually didn't play the game. Furthermore, since the Occupy Wall Street movement, social inequality has been at the forefront of political and social discussions. If I were to play, I would feel sympathetic towards the lower tiers (if I was a square) and make it a point to not bully them around with rules and sanctions.

We were given the assignment of thinking about the flaws of StarPower and how our guild could go about fixing it. We thought a major flaw was that there had to be three tiers, and it becomes very difficult for people at lower tiers to move up. We came up with a few changes that could possibly be made to improve the game for the better.

1. Squares have to take at least one suggestion from the other groups

2. Opportunity to succeed should be reduced once you are at a higher level

3. People from bottom group randomly get upward mobility, not competing with within the groups

4. People from top offer up the ability to raise someone up, but it's randomly selected so there are no favorites

5. If squares refuse/are unable to raise person up, they are punished

6. If squares can raise enough people up, there is another level (diamond perhaps) where squares strive to be

I think about that 4th tier as the "Warren Buffett" tier. People would strive to help others out and be rewarded with a higher level. Obviously our rules aren't comprehensive and there would need to be more clarification. But that's what we came up with during our discussion. It would be very interesting to play StarPower with some of the suggestions others came up with.