Monthly Archives: June 2006

Griefers

15 June 2006

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The Guardian has a great article on griefers and the evolving community counter measures to tackle them.

I think it’s interesting how the journalist brings up 2 examples of ‘griefing’ that have caused the debate about gaming ethics (although it’s a discussion that’s been going on forever – at least since the LambdaMoo days).
The first is the EVE Online incident where a group calling themselves the Guiding Hand Social Club, cunningly infiltrated the Ubiqua Seraph corporation and basically ruined them! They worked on this for over a year! I first heard about this after watching one of the State of Play III debates, where Dr. Kjartan Pierre Emilsson brought this up as an example of how sometimes developers just have to shrug and say “Hey! It’s all part of the gameplay!”. I remember being so amused and uttering a little ‘Yay!’. The debate harrowed in the community, however.
The second example, is ofcourse when World Of Warcraft mourners (mourning the death of a real life player in WoW) were completely ambushed by a rival guild. Which was ofcourse seen as disrespectful and awful.
But these two examples are not griefing incidents, in my opinion! And we can’t start punishing players for how they’re playing the game. I mean most of these outcries are like children screaming “BUT IT’S SOOOO UNFAIR!”. It reminds me a lot about my life at the moment. I’m moaning and groaning about my thesis and my friends and family are hitting back with “For crying out loud, Linn! Will you please just get over yourself and finish the goddamn thing! Stop taking yourself so bloody seriously!” – the analogy here is me being the screaming child and my friends being the ‘griefers’! My point is….thank God for ‘griefers’!!!! Sometimes it’s good to have players come along and take the piss of those taking the game way too seriously! Which, in my opinion, doesn’t make them griefers at all!!! So what are griefers? I would call advanced players living off of stealing and hassling new players, griefers – but why? They’re still playing the game, are they not? I’m rambling here, sorry about that – it’s just that I feel we really need to define what griefing is before we start making executive decisions about who’s playing the game the right way and who’s not. I don’t believe that anyone should be punished for these two ‘griefing’ examples, but others may disagree.
So who gets to decide what griefing is and what actions are offensive enough to merit punishment? Who should decide? Game masters or democraticly organised groups? Community or an authoritative power?

I’m gonna leave you with these questions which have so often been thrust at you in this blog – and promise to come back with some reflections on what works and why tomorrow! It’s about time, right?!!

Great news!

12 June 2006

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Too often do I blog about things I want to follow-up and instead I just forget them entirely! But alas! Today at least one of these cases can be closed!!

In March, Brian Kopp filed a lawsuit against Blizzard for blocking his ability to sell his book “The Ultimate World of Warcraft Leveling & Gold Guide” because they felt it violated their intellectual property rights.

And the case has now been settled! Blizzard is now dropping its ‘claims of copyright and trademark infringement’ as long as he keeps his disclaimer of not being an official guide! Isn’t that lovely!!! Way to go Blizzard!!!

For more – The Public Citizen!

McDonalds Interactive

9 June 2006

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I’m not completely certain of what to make of this. But there’s been a UK Serious Games event (link not working as I’m writing this – EXTREMELY annoying) and among the participants have been Nokia, BP and McDonalds Interactive – that turns out to be a hoax, which to be honest infuriorated me to begin with. I’m a believer of serious games and I didn’t like anyone taking the piss out of the event. But after further review, I have to say that I’m overwhelmingly impressed and I also can’t think of a better way to actually promote Serious Games.

Andrew Shimery-Wolf (ehm…), Director of McDonalds’s Interactive gave a presentation which he entitled “The Most Serious Game”. And I truely believe the clue lies in one of his opening remarks about what McDonalds was doing to improve:

“…we undertook to become a more visibly responsible company, and adopted a platform of Corporate Social Responsibility, or CSR – just like Nokia and BP, who are also represented at this conference.
Much as Nokia have pledged not to exploit Far East workers, and BP are exploring alternative fuels, so we responded to various critics by looking “beyond beef” on our menus, trying new packaging, and even experimenting with environment-friendly refrigeration.” (links added by me)

So he ends up presenting a game which was a simulation of the fast-food marketplace.

“This is the game that resulted. Players adopt the avatar of a fast-food company, and make business decisions in highly accelerated time. The game calculates the effects of those decisions on the overall market, collates them with other players’ decisions and rewards the best players with profits.”

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Surveillance and invasion of privacy in MMOs

8 June 2006

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Select Parks has a questionnaire going about surveilance in MMOs. It’s an interesting dilemma. You quickly forget that your every action is being watched and recorded while playing. But I’m wondering if christo might have misunderstood something – if not, I certainly have. In the comments about ‘Game administrators monitoring players’ christo writes:

“The ability of MMO game administrators to monitor and record player
interactions out-strips any type of surveillance occurring within the
real-world. All movements, actions and conversations can be permanently
recorded and archived for later retrieval. Some MMOs use this data to help
suspend player accounts when end user license agreements are broken. For
example, if one player continually harasses another, administrators can sift
through conversation and proximity data to prove an offence has taken
place. Game companies also mine user data to help review and enhance the
game’s structure and playability”

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Christian Games

4 June 2006

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Greg Howson at Guardian Games Blog reported on The Bible Game earlier this week – and my initial thought was “Well ofcourse! The Bible must have plenty of great gaming scenarios in it! Why the hell not?!” – but ofcourse this was a quiz game which seems blah and boring.

So I couldn’t help having a good chuckle this morning when I read Ian Hardy’s “Spiritual challenge for gamers”. There’s so many weird utterenses in this article I just couldn’t let it pass by without commenting! The most reasonable comment:

“Troy Lyndon of Left Behind Games said: “There is warfare, the Bible is full of warfare, so are all the other great games that are on the market.””

Too right! He’s commenting on a new game they’re releasing called Eternal Forces which is “an action packed story set in a New York landscape where soldiers take on demons”. But then I start to chuckle:

“There’s no blood and a no cursing rule – curse and your energy level drops.”

Umh…oh there’s just so much to say about this sentence. Firstly, I’ve never really understood the moral dilemma of having the visualisation of blood, surely the issue is ‘the killing’. But I’m no expert on what corrupts children and I honestly don’t care if there’s blood or not, I’ve just never understood what the big deal is. And then there’s the cursing. He he! Seriously? Is there some form of monitor keeping track of the words coming out of the kids’ mouth while play? And if it’s an online game with communication channels – I’m so sorry to break it to you – but kids are way too smart to let censorship stop them from using unfavourable words. But you know, thinking about it – it’s a great marketing line! I’m sure parents will feel so much more comfortable buying a computer game that has “NO CURSING ALLOWED” in big red letters on the cover!
The rest of the article is kinda bizarre if you ask me. There’s something about how the Christian game developers can learn from the Christian music and movie industry and the examples mentioned are Gospel Music, Passion of the Christ and The Da Vinci Code (really?). But I also had a little – huh? moment with the last sentences:

“A Christian video game typically costs about $1m (£530,000) to produce, about five times less than a video game aimed at the mass market”

Huh?!!! Why is it cheaper to produce a Christian computer game? I don’t understand. Someone please explain this to me!! Is it because the developers are volunteers hoping to spread the word of God? Or is there some special funding involved when you call yourself a Christian organisation?

Street Wars!

3 June 2006

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I just love this stuff and I really wish I had the guts, energy and time to organise something like this in Bergen!!

In London this June – Street Wars! Assassin with water guns!! Oh what fun!!!!


At the start of the game you will receive a manila envelope containing the following:

* A picture of your intended target(s)
* The home address of your intended target(s)
* The work address of your intended target(s)
* The name of your intended target(s)
* Contact information of your intended target(s)

Upon receipt of these items, your (or your team’s) mission is to find and kill (by way of water gun, water balloon or super soaker) your target(s).

 

And Oslo is organising a “Capture the flag” event on June 17th! Yay!!! Meet up at 2 pm at Schous Plass infront of the library – maps and props will be handed out for free! More info via Underskog! Thanks to i1277 for pointing it out to me!

Avatar-Based Marketing

1 June 2006

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I know anybody who’s anybody has blogged about this already, but Paul Hemp’s Harvard Business Review article is actually sooooooo good it deserves another mention! This is a perfect example of good journalism we would like to see on virtual worlds, well researched and without ‘OMG, but it’s not real’ hype. I mean – it just includes everything!!
As the title implies, it’s about marketing in virtual worlds. From the McDonald’s stands in The Sims Online to the Coca Cola vending machines in Anarchy Online. And he even (and I applaud him specifically for this) mentions how Second Life clothes designers have been approached by real world clothing companies and links to Objects of Virtual Desire – yay! (Hey guys in case you’re egosurfing – what’s new? Update your site and let us know if you’ve sold something or made something new!!!)
So we know that there have been a few flukes when it comes to real world marketing in virtual worlds – like Subway in CounterStrike, and McDonald’s in The Sims Online – but is there still a chance?
Although Paul Hemp is a great journalist, I might be a really bad reader, because I’m not sure if the following statement is from him or Wagner James Au (they’re both brilliant either way):

“The potential of marketing directly to avatars doesn’t disappear after
they accompany their creators – tucked in their creators’ psyches – back to the
real world. A company might, for instance, create a real-world advertising
campaign aimed at a particular avatar “segment” – wizards, say, or
furries. Or you might offer in real-world stores a distinctive clothing
line available only to people whose avatars had, through achievements in an
online world, earned their creators the right to wear the gear, thus giving
people credibility in the real world based on their avatars’ virtual-world
status.”

Y
eah!!!!! I love this idea!!!! I mean, we’re pretty much evolving into a society that forms social groups on the basis of shared interest and tags (not that there’s anything new with that but – you know what I mean!) on the internett – why not bring that tag system to fashion? I think it would be brilliant if I had some sort of accessory that told the story of, ooops I mean represented, who I am in Anarchy Online! And I don’t mean the geeky t-shirt, I want something nice! And if I saw someone else wearing a piece I recognised to represent something I understood, I actually think I’d strike up a conversation with them!

Anyways! I just think it’s a great idea! Whether it’s Wu’s or Hemp’s! There’s a lot of potential in an idea like this – I’m not sure you could make millions yet….but I’m certain it has potential!