I’m a big fan of the BBC! Here’s a nice little segment on how and why virtual currency in WoW has become so popular. I really like it because it gets to the heart of the matter and doesn’t dwell on the dramatic realization that people are using real money to buy virtual things. It’s really to the point – and I’m so glad that they included a Blizzard representative that could voice their concerns with RMT. Thanks sis for sending it to me!
Tag Archives: politics
"Synthetic Worlds and Public Policy"
Ludium II at Indiana University will focus on what ‘synthetic worlds and public policy’ this year.Great!
I hope that a good and healthy array of people will be present. I, for example, would like to see some public policy enforcers present – see what they have to say on the subject. These are difficult questions – and the more diversity discussing them – the more I think they can come up with an adequate proposal. I cannot stress enough how dangerous it is to bring ‘actual’ laws into gaming worlds – and yet I do believe avatars have rights too. But should it be controlled by consumer laws?
I think it is in the best interests of the synthetic world makers to have adequate laws and procedures – but there are limits to the responsibilities that can be enforced on them. I also think that in such debates you cannot dismiss the dilemma of defining what is a gaming world and what is a virtual (synthetic) world.Either way, it looks like Castronova and his bunch have created a great Ludium in the best possible form this year again!
I think it is in the best interests of the synthetic world makers to have adequate laws and procedures – but there are limits to the responsibilities that can be enforced on them. I also think that in such debates you cannot dismiss the dilemma of defining what is a gaming world and what is a virtual (synthetic) world.Either way, it looks like Castronova and his bunch have created a great Ludium in the best possible form this year again!
Ludium II will bring together experts on virtual worlds from academia, industry, and government to play a live-action political game leading to an extremely serious, timely, and important contribution: a consensus Platform of 10 Statements answering the question “What policies should real world governments have with regards to synthetic worlds?” The hope is that this Platform will provide answers when legislatures and administrators wonder what to do in response to the critical public issues that will be raised by these unique social technologies.
Good luck!!!
MMORPG professionals
Raph Koster writes about a new group that calls themselves “The Virtual Citizenship Association”. It’s a new group advocating virtual citizen ehm ‘rights’. In his blogpost he points out the relevant problems with their social contract – which I completely agree with – so I’m not going to bother repeating it all in my own words here – you should just read it – I can’t do his words justice here!
But entering the site – I was quite intrigued by how they define themselves:
“We’re a group of MMORPG professionals, people who enjoy playing in online universes in general and people who advocate the use of Free Software.”
I find that interesting. When I think of ‘MMORPG proffesionals’ I think of game operators and designers – not players, but it’s a relevant point! Why shouldn’t players be labeled as MMORPG professionals? I kinda like it – it tickled me!
As for what they’re advocating, I agree with Koster when he writes:
“I’d prefer any such social contract to focus more on how operators have to treat players, than on forcing particular business models on operators.”
Too right!
And in case you don’t have the time to read the comments, I have to paste glorious Mr. Bartle’s comment – where would this industry be without his precious sense of humor?
“Why is it that these “players’ rights” advocates always target the virtual world developers and never the people who run guilds?
Richard
PS: Wouldn’t it be amusing if a virtual world developer banned membership of such organisations under its EULA?”
State of Play – New York Law School
So they’ve had a State of Play conference in New York and Mark Wallace does a wonderful job of summing up the whole thing – bless him! Looks like they’ve really been critical of themselves and looking to see what could be done in future research – which I think is good!
One thing that surprised me however was Jesper Juul’s post on the discussion of ‘games have rules’. I’ve accepted that ages ago, and I really don’t understand what the problem is in acknowledging that games have rules and most importantly NEED rules – but apparently, they still can’t agree on that. Juul breaks the discussion down to two positions – pro-rules vs. anti-rules.
“Pro-rules people generally make pragmatic descriptions of the gameplaying activity, and anti-rules people commonly apply a general poststructuralist skapticism towards descriptions of structure.”
I’m baffled that this is still disagreed upon. In my thesis (which I’d love to write all over again) I broke everything down to two issues – gameplay and societal -> rules and identity. Just because some players choose to defy some of these rules doesn’t mean that they’re not complying with them. Rather acknowledging them to then defy them. The gameplay rules are what makes the world a game – and we mustn’t forget that worlds like, Second Life are NOT games – so we should stop using them as examples. The societal rules are something that is considered by your gameplay method and social communication. Um – maybe I’m not ready to talk about this yet.
Bush Backrub
This is a cute little semi-political statement game, or satire – I’m not even sure it’s a game, really. Huh…do points and scores automatically make something a game? Is it a sign that you’ve really lost your mind when you can’t even recognise what a game is anymore?! Anyway…just a minute or two of humor! Enjoy!!!
Surveillance and invasion of privacy in MMOs
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”
"Girl things" in games
Granted, I really don’t have time to focus on blogging at the moment, so excuse me if I’ve misunderstood this completely! I just….I just couldn’t let this pass by without adding some comments. I’m confused, terrified and well…just a tad insulted, to be honest.
Edward Castronova’s latest Terra Nova post examines one of the ‘theories’ introduced at Ludium 1. Uhm…from what I can gather The Koithuo team proposed a way of looking at ‘the evolutionary theory of human gender differences’ and implementing this as a test into games, using Steen’s ‘girl game modes’ which say “that women will be interested in a) games about rating men’s prowess (The Yenta Game”), choosing men to connect with (“The Marriage Game”), and getting men to stay committed to them (“The Newlywed Game”).”
Now…it seems the crew at A Tale in the Desert have implemented a game in their world to test these theories. Which I completely concur with Castronova when he writes that:
“Regardless of whether you agree with Steen’s theories or not, the exciting thing here is that we get to see them tested, at the level of an entire society. It’s not just a theoretical/political debate any more. We’re getting some information.”
Public Diplomacy Through Games
The University of Southern California has come up with the novel idea of hosting a competition to create a game promoting public diplomacy. I’ve been eagerly awaiting the results for months now!
The finalists’ presenations are now available and the winner is to be announced today.
Looking at these, I was searching for something creative and fun. As much as I adore and admire simulations such as Peacemaker – I was hoping something less ‘obvious’ would make the finalist list as well. I’ve often thought that the trick to learning in computer games is to hide the ‘message’ behind humor and absurdity. For a game to be truely successful in teaching something like the promotion of diplomacy, I feel it has to lure those who just want to go and have a great gaming time as well. I know of very few who play to learn something and having played my fair share of dreary simulation games for the jobs from my past (I’ll have to tell you about those some day! ) they usually don’t work (at least I can’t remember what I was supposed to learn).
I truely love the idea behind Hydro Hijinks, it actually made me think about Myst and the game of consequence.
The others are brilliant as well! Ambitious but lovely! I would however, love to see more fun and absurdity!
Anyways it’s a great initiative and a big ‘yay!’ to Second Life for making them all possible!
Venting thoughts!
Otherwise my Easter has been spent lying on the couch ignoring social circles because ‘I’ve got so much work to do’ and watching tv and letting my eyes wander warily over to my computer with a passionate hatred!
I’ve kinda gotten myself into a sticky situation, which I’m either overthinking or I just need to drop it all together. Let me share it with you! I’m trying to explain the attachment we feel to our virtual assets in MMORPGs and I thought I’d found the perfect example. Now, let me point out that I want to go on to explain the distrust of the coding authorities (excellent word, Castronova!) to rectify such situations. So let me just vent out here:
Madelaine, a player in The Sims Online (TSO) loves to build houses! One time she had spent a lot of time, love and effort on a house which was fabulous! A friend of hers was constantly hassling her with wishes to buy it. Madelaine was flattered and in the end gave in! A few days later Madelaine came to me quite distraught. She had just found out that her friend had copied the house from Alphaville to Blazing Falls (another virtual city in TSO) and was passing it off as her own design. Madelaine was quite distraught, and rightly so in my opinion. So this is where I get into trouble! I don’t understand Intellectual Property Law! I thought this was a perfect example of that, and the more I think about it, the more I think it has to do with copyright.
Remember What The Dormouse Said 
