Critical Studies in New Media: Synthetic Worlds

Posted at Jan 30/2006 05:21PM:
Meg: I guess I'll start -- here's just some things I think are worth discussing:

1) How do we feel about conduct agreements in synthetic worlds (p. 31)?

2) I'm not really into the MMORPGs, but I guess I don't have much interest in interacting with people online, at least yet. Perhaps I've been interacting with the wrong people. It may be a time thing -- if I have only a little free time, I certainly go online sometimes, but I have other online priorities.

3) Synthetic worlds, for the most part, show a striking lack of creativity. Why are there so many with elves and Romans? I do think I could get into a pirate synthetic world (p. 68). And perhaps if I were building things, Second Life would be more interesting.

4) Actually, I think I'd rather "go" places online that I can't go in real life -- like a synthetic world of Antarctica. Or would that be a virtual Antarctica? I don't know, but if someone went through the jungle or Antarctica or the desert and mapped/videoed/captured the terrain, I'd find that interesting to explore. I love IMAX movies, and I think I'd like, in essence, an interactive, explorable IMAX experience online.

Online art galleries sound interesting too.

5) pg. 72 -- I understand the Explorer type, I do not identify with the Socializers, the Achievers, or the Controllers. Who in the group fits into the other categories? Why do you like performing these roles?

6) I created a character on Second Life. The first thing I did was make her look like myself. The second thing I did was put some more modest clothes on myself. How odd, but I didn't want to walk around that world with my midriff showing. Perhaps I can identify with a virtual me more than I think. Have other people created characters?

7) I think we should talk about portable reputations -- pg. 92. What happens when you spend time developing a reputation? Do you become proud of it? Should you be allowed to transport it? Would people rather have multiple reputations? Would it make these worlds more "real" to have portable reputations?

8) I talked with my 16-year old brother about MMORPGs. He doesn't really like them, but he knows a great deal about them. He agreed with me that most of these games, while graphically interesting, don't really constitute particularly creative worlds. I love Tolkien and all, but enough with the elves and spooky forests. Also, we talked about what happened when you win a game in a synthetic world. When you create a character and you win, there's not much more for you to do. A cap on ambition. What does that do to you? He says that many people just start over.

Posted at Jan 31/2006 04:57PM:
Henry Lowood: Meg, since you asked ...

Why are there so many with elves and Romans? Elves yes, Romans no. The point: fantasy, many; historical simulation, not many (though there is World War II Online, and there are a couple of academic projects). I think Castronova's answer to your question would be, "because that's where people would rather be." I think one of the issues we should discuss Friday is whether that is a sufficient answer, or whether it's begging other questions.

Who in the group fits into the other categories? Why do you like performing these roles? Actually, I fit into a category for which I don't like the label: controller. That is, most of my online play is competitive play (and most of that not in MMOs). In MMOs, I'm partly an explorer, partly an achiever, partly a controller. This reference to Bartle's scheme touches on a problematic aspect of the book. It's a scheme that is second nature in game studies; everybody knows what Bartle has done and about his categorization. But it is very difficult to evaluate its utility, if you are not inside game studies (or a gamer). I wonder if there is an inside/outside problem in game studies, reflected in this book by movements back and forth between explaining basic aspects of play behavior, technology, game design, etc. and trying to deliver a cogent critical analysis. Does the mix work for you all?

Have other people created characters? Not in Second Life, but in most other MMOs. (And I'm not particularly an MMO player.) By the way, your experience with clothing fits into the SL business model: wouldn't you like to buy some nice clothing? It makes a lot of sense to approach synthetic world commerce that way, an alternative to the subscription model.

Portable reputations? This is a very interesting set of questions. For now, I'd like to add another question: Isn't this an issue that extends far beyond game worlds? The difference being that the use of "handles" is the norm in game spaces, as opposed to real names. But there are other realms (music, discussion groups) that use handles. In light of the identification of in-game reputations with handles rather than real names ("real" identities?) are you satisfied with Castronova's discussion? What are the implications if you can instantly shed one identity and take on another? I think yes, in synthetic worlds players would rather have multiple identities, but with some important exceptions (griefers, TKers), other kinds of online game worlds are less difficult to generalize. For example, if you are a top Warcraft (not World of Warcraft) player, you want other players to know it -- that's you as a performer. I am writing a lot about high-performance play (competition, performance, mastery of technology), and it's important to recognize a dimension of celebrity (not just identity) that goes with being a top player/performer.

Posted at Feb 02/2006 01:24PM:
dkreiss: Some thoughts...I have been speedily jumping around the book (so these statements come with a disclaimer), but Meg's first question has been running around my head throughout. At one point, Castronova writes "Designers and the user community are in an endless tug of war about what the rules actually are." (101)

While on the one hand the tech and social/economic structures of MMORPG's seem to have a high degree of interpretive flexibility, there is a strongly implied sense throughout that it is ultimately a market tug of war within which all of these issues will be played out.

So I was hoping that tomorrow we could think about the assumptions that Castronova is making, about the organziation (social, economic, and political) of RL and synthetic worlds, and, perhaps most importantly for this book, human nature (which seems to be located for Castronova in desire, fun, and purpose).

Second, I think it is interesting, but understandable, that there are no Romans. The realm of fantasy/purpose is really interesting...why do people play the games that they do? And why is there one common element to 'who do you want to be' that I read throughout? Libertarianism seems to be the running cultural/political/economic theme of these worlds (at least in the early chapters of the book) that gets expressed in their language: 'frontiers', galaxys and worlds to be 'explored', 'conquered'. The lack of 'Romans' becomes significant. On pg 140, in talking about the economic functioning of synthetic worlds as club goods in terms of them functioning as local monopolies, Castronova says "there are no grounds here for government intervention or oversight." The prospect of RL government intervention (in things like the market) is a big concern to Castronova, as is (as I read it) a general fear of bureaucracy (ie: the rationalized society). Evidently, given that there are no Romans, people share the same concerns.

I wanted to also ask about Castronova's take on democracy, inside and outside. I still can't shake the feeling that synthetic worlds are a cultural way of teaching us how to live in a world of multinational capital, free from the nation state (a mirror, perhaps, of global capital flows.)

Last point I pulled out (and, not surprisingly, I asked the same question of "Virtual Communities, Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier.") The relationship of RL race, class, and gender to the synthetic world, or the permeability of the 'membrane' with respect to these lived identities and constructs. Castronova seems to have an understanding of 'choice' (as in 'choice of synthetic worlds and experiences') that is torn away from RL social/economic/political relations. Yet, if social spaces on-line are any indication, it is quite clear that we are not all making some decontextualized choice in terms of the experiences we want to have on-line. Cultures retain some consistency inside/outside the membrane (culture is another interesting concept that deserves more attention.)

Posted at Feb 02/2006 05:00PM:
Henry Lowood: "I wanted to also ask about Castronova's take on democracy, inside and outside. I still can't shake the feeling that synthetic worlds are a cultural way of teaching us how to live in a world of multinational capital, free from the nation state (a mirror, perhaps, of global capital flows.)"

Daniel, this is a great topic, and I think it might lead to a point about methodology, as well. One issue I have with the book is a disciplinary one; as a historian, I wish there was more reference to documented "events" in this synthetic worlds, to their histories.

So, your point leads me to ask, are synthetic worlds constructed to teach us about a multinational (non-factionalized in the sense of nation states) world? If so, does this emerge from gameplay, or is it something built in by the developers, by the rules or institutions built into the game? I would argue that this is in fact a contested issue, one in which players are constantly wrestling with the developer's vision of a historical (narrative) world. For example, in World of Warcraft you have a world whose story is entirely one of factions, divisions, warfare between states and races, etc. But many of the players seek to undermine restrictions this model puts on players (e.g., faction and horde players are not supposed to talk to each other). Players respond with transgressive play, fan fiction, movies, etc. to express an alternative vision or undermine the historical fiction underpinning the world. Or at least some do.

Anyway, if there is interest, I can easily walk through an example of how these issues have played out in, say, World of Warcraft (population: 5.5 million, as of last figures, Jan. 2006).

Posted at Feb 02/2006 07:23PM:
dkreiss: "One issue I have with the book is a disciplinary one; as a historian, I wish there was more reference to documented "events" in this synthetic worlds, to their histories."

--Very much agreed. I was actually thinking in terms of an ethnography of synthetic worlds (there have been some of MUD's, like Frank Schaap's "The Words That Took Us There", but the question of democracy/agency is quite different in a collaborative, non-profit space.)

Great question about where these structures emerge from. I looked at a similar issue in the context of a religious chatroom and found, as you suggest, that the framework (code), formal rules, and enforcement of those rules are very much contested. I would like to locate the source of this "transgressive play". Is it that users , coming from the context of democratic norms in RL, import these same ideals into the synthetic space? (Thus, is there a 'political identity' that negotiates with and contests the 'fantasy identity'?) One of the things that I noticed in this religious chatroom is that the political idenities of users were constantly appealed to in order to create an alternative communicative space. Perhaps what is at issue here is that the political understandings of users (a language of rights) both cannot be left behind the 'membrane', and can be used to claim more agency in the game space.

As an aside, a fun, speculative other take. Perhaps we can ask whether we should even expect to see democracy in synthetic worlds. A materialist reading would say that if (as Castronova implies) the synthetic world can be seen as a model of RL, then the economies in synthetic worlds should give rise to its political organization. The economic organization of these worlds seems decidedly pre-industrial (labor-intensive, small scale trade, some emerging division of labor in guilds, and no real capital.) Perhaps as this economy develops, a corresponding political development in the direction of market democracy will take place.

Posted at Feb 02/2006 07:52PM:
Henry Lowood: "As an aside, a fun, speculative other take. Perhaps we can ask whether we should even expect to see democracy in synthetic worlds. A materialist reading would say that if (as Castronova implies) the synthetic world can be seen as a model of RL, then the economies in synthetic worlds should give rise to its political organization. The economic organization of these worlds seems decidedly pre-industrial (labor-intensive, small scale trade, some emerging division of labor in guilds, and no real capital.) Perhaps as this economy develops, a corresponding political development in the direction of market democracy will take place."

I couldn't agree more with this as a reasonable expectation. I think there might be an interesting push-pull here. On the one hand, the force you outlined, maybe a sort of historical development in the direction of market democracy, as you say. But on the other hand, aren't the players (as Castronova says) choosing to reside in this medieval, pre-capitalist world, living in feudal, personal clans, acquiring craft skills, etc.? So maybe we end up with a kind of equilibrium between a synthetic world that evolves according to its own "historical" dynamics and the choice players make to live in a world that rejects this movement to something like their own world, that is, to live in a fantasy world unlike their RL. Perhaps one way to discuss this is to think about whether the "membrane" metaphor does justice to this tension?

Posted at Feb 02/2006 10:58PM:
Leila: Just putting out a few related and new strings for discussion...

First, some thoughts on this text:

There is a distinctly dualist belief system that underlies discussions of being judged by the mind alone, not the body (258) and rejecting the world we are born into for virtual ones (77) as though our experience of presence had to do with minds alone. Though he writes at length about the physical machines that support these virtual worlds, I wish that there was more about the physical human bodies that are *not* separate from massively networked "worlds of imagination" (259). On a relevant note, many people suffer motion sickness when immersing themselves in these virtual worlds because their eyes are telling them that they're moving about while their vestibular systems are telling them that they're sitting quite still.

MMORPGs (and VR in general) are the exact things that Mark Weiser's ubiquitous computing pushed against. This is why he used the term "embodied virtuality," emphasizing sprinkling computation in our world, directly opposing bringing people into a virtual world. The motivations for this arose from the problems of "real world" relationships (256) mentioned by Castronova. Maybe Meemaw would like visiting her family from a distance through a networked pair of dark glasses, but wouldn't she rather visit them in person? Maybe email is a nice, convenient way to keep in touch with distant loved ones, but wouldn't you rather receive a handwritten letter?

Second, some relevant outside conversations and studies to mention:

My good friend of mine and his father ran BayMOO, which was a text-based MUD with primarily SF members. Even when the graphical interfaces became a possibility, they made the very purposeful decision of sticking with text-based interaction because they believed that visual representations would take away from the community, leaving less up to the imagination. Their users were highly adept at literary creations of the BayMOO world.

Byron Reeves ran an upper division Comm course in which we did group projects, exploring there.com (just before it was bought out by the military). In beginning to address Dan's concerns, there was one team that looked at the ways that a "chocolate" avatar was treated in relation to how a "vanilla" avatar was treated (given the exact same communicative content from the avatar). I do not remember the exact details of their results, but they were disturbingly similar to the racial prejudices prevalent in the "real" world.

Posted at Feb 03/2006 02:08AM:
Ralph Maurer:

In defense of Meg's "Romans" comment...I think she's talking about games like Rome: Total War, Civilization and other non-MMO games. There is a little bit of a fixation on Rome in this genre (RTS). And, not surprisingly, there is a Rome-based MMORPG in late beta right now.

My thoughts for the moment:

I don't think we should ever forget that the online game experience depends entirely on the existance of a 'real world' existance. 'Real world' existance, however, does not depend in any fundamental way on the life lived in these worlds. This will likely be the case until human consciousness can be seperated from the bounds of human flesh. Why is this important? It's important to keep in mind because these games and environments will always be (at least for the forseeable future) either a form of escapism or an accessory to non-online existence. The games cannot be, by their very nature, substitutes in the strictest sense of the word.

As for the economy in these games. There are quite a few economists (largely of the behavioral variety) paying attention to these games. These economicsts are, by and large, quite flumoxxed by the almost utterly arbitrary nature of "value" at work. Utility seems to be purely social or purely entertainment-oriented. Some of the more sophisticated theories generally account for the economy as (see above) just a part of the 'real world' economy; utility in the game can't be considered seperately from utility outside the game.

Posted at Feb 03/2006 08:43AM:
Henry Lowood:

Rome: Total War. RTS as a genre is quite different from MMO. It emerged from historical simulations (boardgames and turn-based strategy), so yes, absolutely, it's a legitimate and popular sort of play. But still very different from what Castronova is writing about. So far, the MMO genre is dominated by fantasy play, and the few history-based (commercial) games have not done well.

Gods & Heroes, the Rome game (I think that's probably the one you mean) definitely will be interesting to watch. It is departing a bit from standard MMO fare to account for the Roman style of warfare, introducing some strategy elements and diffusing the direct identification of character and player a bit. I think, for example, that each player will be in charge of a small unit, or at least they will be able to build up to one eventually, controlling several soldiers in a "party" style of game. If this game is successful, then I would hope to see more efforts at historical simulation in this space.

Posted at Feb 03/2006 09:10AM:
James: I am interested in the ways Castronova is talking about creating characters, and implicitly perhaps character given emotional investments and senses of virtues like justice (45). I don't see, however, many opportunities for cultivating different ideas about these concepts; only limited opportunities for a particular sort of survival and success. Could one use synthetic worlds and selves to spend time and effort at repairing, at tending to yourself (a twist on the avatar after-life, 39).

If the codes are being updated regularly (30), what about making space for people who might be interested in this dynamic. If they are not drinking magic ale, battling rats, and strategizing for world domination, can gamers be allowed to develop as characters and perhaps to influence other people in this synthetic space with the express interest of developing as characters in those everyday interactions that are not directly mediated by the synthetic domain?

Could there be a commerce of this as much as there is in the burgeoning self-help industry?

Posted at Feb 03/2006 09:58AM:
Seeta Peña Gangadharan: The policy issues that Castronova poses here seem on the one hand completely implausible (how could we implement governance in the neoliberal, or pre-industrial acc. to Dan, synthetic world) and on the other quite provocative (we *should* be thinking about policy implications and moral/ethical environment of emergent synethetic worlds)? While the real-virtual (co)dependence angle is interesting in this book, I find it more compelling for the policy implications--including those beyond considerations of how to construct democratic synethic worlds.

Posted at Feb 05/2006 01:57AM:
matteo: Regarding the lack of good storytelling in games (we briefly mentioned this topic at the end of our conversation), I like what Steven Johnson wrote in his recent book, Everything bad is good for you': "Games are not novels, and the ways in which they harbor novelistic aspirations are invariably the least interesting thing about them (...) Games are good at novelistic storytelling the way Michael Jordan was good at baseball. Both could probably make a living at it, but their world class talents lie elsewhere" (p. 21)

Posted at Feb 05/2006 09:17PM:
Norman M. Klein: Spent way too much time yesterday trying to figure out how to play Dungeon Siege II. Considered doing it in multiplayer mode, and realized that the thought of an actual human being lurking behind the avatar made me uncomfortable. Something about being depended upon, on the one hand, and somehow being mistreated indirectly through my effigy, on the other. A matter of pride, in a way - does an injury upon your virtual self constitute an injury? Of the characters available, considered being a dryad (the utopian affinity to nature was attractive), although apparently there are no male dryads, so I decided against it. I'm wondering about this, whether it's some sort of discomfort/uneasiness with my masculinity. Perhaps the membrane is flimsy enough that I feel implicated in this avatar. I myself, the real human being, can be decoded through it. Uncomfortable again -- of course I'm implicated in the avatar. It is me, after all. End up deciding to be an elf with white hair. The giant and the human did not seem like my style. Never been into the brutish thing. Anyway, there I am, Alkenor the Elf (I considered the name Jacob, but preferred to get into the spirit of the game), making my way through some jungle in search of some sharpening stones. As I got more and more into the game, realized I'm too impatient to be the explorer type, too irresponsible to be the controller type, too shy/uncomfortable to be the socializing type. I guess that makes me an achiever. Hmmm. Wondering about the actual synthetic world, lifted almost verbatim out of Tolkien, I'm thinking there might be some sort of regressive comfort in it -- having read Tolkien as a kid, I'm transported to lazy childhood afternoons, breathless excitement at what would happen next, all somehow changed since it's now I, Frodo, who walks through Mordor. Sorry, Alkenor. As I played on, I couldn't help but recall an article by Bill Viola on the experience of watching the television screen ("Fade to Black" I think it's called), where he discusses the phenomenon of losing your body while engrossed in the television. I become immaterial, in a sense, lost in the screen -- my body comes to mind only briefly, when my wrist and then my back begin to hurt. The effect of disembodiment is somehow soothing. It's fun not to have to worry about Thucydides for a while (a curse on his head!). Realize it's been 3-4 hours. I have completed two quests, built my avatar self into quite the fighter. Come back to the question: what of it? What was the point? Right now, I think my answer would oscillate somewhere between the disembodiment, the escapism, the regression. Toxic immersion, perhaps? Realize I'm being cynical -- understandable, since I'm writing for others. The act of self-representation through the act of self-representation through the avatar. Borges would approve. Anyway, perhaps the spirit of self-vigilance/self-reflection was not the best for an endeavor of this kind. For some bizarre reason, I decided to pick up Dostoievsky's "Notes from the Underground" yesterday also, and was struck by his assertion that too much consciousness (self-vigilance? self-reflection?) is a curse. Sometimes I think it might be. Of course, I'm being cynical again.

Posted at Feb 05/2006 11:16PM:
matteo: We ought not to forget the importance of the spatial nature of these “games”. After all, they are worlds. As Nick Yee mentioned before [link], the term “game” is very misleading, since MMOG are just environments where the user might also perform some kind of ludic activity, but that’s just part of it. Castronova uses the term “membrane” in his book, but I prefer “enclave”, or “an enclosed territory that is culturally distinct from the foreign territory that surrounds it” or “A country or part of a country lying wholly within the boundaries of another.” (That’s why Ralph is absolutely correct when he writes that “I don't think we should ever forget that the online game experience depends entirely on the existance of a 'real world' existance. “). Anyway, we do not simply “play” ‘’World of Warcraft’’, we ‘’visit’’ its (not-so) virgin lands. I would recommend Betsy Book’s brilliant 2003 paper on virtual tourism – I think she perfectly grasped the nature of these non-places (actually, hyper-places) Link: “Traveling through Cyberspace: Tourism and Photography in Virtual Worlds [link]”. Tourism is a very recent phenomenon – and virtual tourism is its most advanced incarnation. At first, only modern day aristocrats could afford to travel for pure fun. Later on in the 20th century, tourism became a mass activity. Analogously, the ‘’freaks and geeks’’ that are spending insane amount of times in synthetic worlds – including myself– might be just the precursors. What is niche today eventually becomes mainstream tomorrow. The recurrent theme of Castronova’s book is that we’re witnessing the first steps of a massive exodus – note the biblical subtext. Actually, Henry Jenkins and Mary Fueller argued before that games are the new playgrounds (see “Complete Freedom of Movement"[link]. Finally, what is considered 'toxic' today, might become perfectly natural tomorrow. The definition of “natural” is always cultural.

Posted at Feb 06/2006 11:07AM:
Matteo: For those of you interested in the social aspects of MMORPGs and MMOGs I would suggest cheking out PlayOn [link], an investigation into the social dimensions of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) and virtual worlds - extensive, persistent 3D environments that are populated by thousands of players at any given moment - that is being done at the Palo Alto Research Center. Also, T.L. Taylor's new book, "Play Between Worlds Exploring Online Game Culture" focuses on the social components of online games. More info here: [link] - she will be giving a lecture on March 22 at the upcoming Games Developers Conference in San Jose' [link]

Posted at Feb 07/2006 12:26AM:
Anthony F. Blunt: This is What I Would Look Like

Posted at Feb 09/2006 11:34AM:
Alfredo González-Ruibal: A few points on space and ritual:

-There are many things in on-line gaming that recall premodern ritual: it is all about immersion and inversion. That is the idea behind medieval carnivals and Roman Saturnalia - truly virtual worlds, where you can play the role you wish for a while: the aristocrat can be a slave and the slave an aristocrat. The difference is that we can be immersed 30 hours a week now, instead of 30 hours a year.

-The idea of immersion itself is very premodern. Castronova points out that you don't need high-tech gadgets to feel that you are in another world. The same with traditional rituals - and especially rites of passage - in non-industrial societies: you wear a mask and you are a devil from the underworld or an ancestor-hero. And you actually think you are: it is a play, but it is much more than that. You are in another space, maybe in another time, and you don't need many special effects.

-The membrane that separates the virtual world and the real world in pre-modern societies is thin and permeable: it is continuously crossed (e.g. in dreams and apparitions).

-Why do people play online games? We have never been modern. Ritual inversion and immersion have been effaced from our society but we need them. Durkheim and his idea of anomy are pertinent here ("anomy arises from the solidary organs not being in sufficient contact or sufficiently prolonged"): people need social embeddedness, if they don't have it in real life, they may have it in a virtual world.

-What are the political risks of "toxic immersion"? Is online gaming the next "opium of the people"? It could well be. Internet can be a tool of resistance or compliance. Writing in a blog against human rights violations or trying to mobilize people against war are ways of using internet as a space of resistance; playing online games 30 hours a week may imply a renounce to revolt: "the world is awful, let's play EverQuest". Virtual spaces in premodern state societies had a clear ideological function (keep people appeased). What about now?

Posted at Feb 13/2006 01:50PM:
matteo: Religion and MMOG: "Many MMOGs have within them some nod toward religion, some degree of religious trappings at least. Priestly characters are common, as are holy warriors (paladins). To say nothing of demons and angels based loosely on Christian archetypes, the former of which make regular appearances in online games" (Mikle Sellers, Terra Nova) - follow the discussion here: [link]