On Online Worlds

I've been writing a presentation on the nature of Massive Online Multiplayer worlds... but I think I may have gone beyond the scope of what is required... I didn't want to waste all that thinking, so here it is.

-----------

(to frame it, I started the presentation as a response to two articles:

The Lessons of Lucasfilm's Habitat
by Chip Morningstar and F. Randall Farmer

The Psychology of Massively Multi-User Online Role-Playing Games:
Motivations, Emotional Investment, Relationships and Problematic Usage
by Nicholas Yee

I dont directly refer to them in this, however, so you'll excuse me for not fully citing... this is mostly just my brain threading this stuff together over several coffees... that said, if you want copies of the articles, hit me up and I shall provide post-haste.

Anyway

-------

If the scope of interaction in MMO worlds such as the Sims online extends to activities which are traditionally not interpreted as ‘games’- such as decorating an environment (presumably without some sort of point allocation based on Feng-shui…)- are these worlds, or the worlds of more traditional MMOs, indeed games? Or are they something else? How about worlds like Star Wars Galaxies or EVE online, where interactions and collaboration scenarios can become complex and routine to such a point as for users to describe their activities as ‘a second job’?

I wish to propose two different perspectives which I came to on the nature of these worlds, and whether or not they are in fact games.

1)

These ‘places’ may not inherently be “games”, rather they are systems in which games might exist. For example, Second Life has no inherent ‘goals’. Actors are not necessarily ‘players’, rather they are simply individuals existing within a space, whose activities and interactions may or may not be related to pre-constructed or emergent gameplay. Like individuals in the ‘real world’ they can choose whether or not to involve themselves in traditional gameplay- such as playing soccer- however this is neither required nor intrinsic to one’s existence within the world.

2)

I could also propose that these worlds are indeed games; though they may be hidden behind the artifice of a make-believe reality, a constructed conception of open-ended complexity- the belief that the scope of action and interaction within the world is limitless, impacting and meaningful. These worlds are not open-ended but rather a form of faux-reality. Their rules of interaction are fixed and are formed towards the purposes of level progression and user retention. The purpose of these systems’ creation is not the function of the system, but rather the function of interaction as a means facilitate and prolong entertainment and/or enjoyment which might be derived from successfully negotiating a system.

An example being the economy within a world which does not exist in order to facilitate the production and dissemination of products and materials in exchange for wealth, but rather one which exists in order to facilitate the actualization of a demographics' fantasies of financial success in response to their probable inability to realize these fantasies in the real world. This model could be applied to social grouping systems, combat systems, property construction and/or maintence. Regardless, these systems are artificial and they are products designed to keep you paying a subscription (or increasingly, keep you making micro-transactions) by making you feel joy, or excitement, or a sense of achievement or fulfillment for having completed some arbitrary activity within the world.

These worlds are games which would have you believe that what they are is something more important than a game, something worth spending 40+ hours a week in, something worth investing emotion and effort in- and more importantly, something worth investing money in. Simply because they might obfuscate these goals, and naturalize them by representing them in terms of real world systems does not mean that they do not exist. To me, this is the same reason why people reject existence in the ‘The Matrix’…. But this perhaps goes beyond the question of whether these worlds constitute games and towards validating existence within these worlds.

This train of thought unfortunately has the effect of sounding like a value statement, both on the nature of MMOs and the nature of Games. It is not a bad thing to me if a MMO is a game, but the widespread obsession with MMOs such as World of Warcraft and Secondlife seem to be indicitive of, what is to me, a problematic convergence (obviously the gap is no danger of closing shut...) of social perceptions of worth regarding commoditized digital existence and real world existence.

-----

This is a topic which I think needs more thought... so check here in future for more on the topic.

p.s. again this is something of a 'first thoughts' release... so don't attack me too hard if I'm completely off the mark.