The Four Worlds Theory
Here’s a broad theory for people to shoot holes in.
I think we need a slightly better way to categorise virtual worlds when having discussions about their legalities and related matters. I propose that we categorise virtual worlds into three kinds:
- ludic-worlds (aka game-worlds)
- social-worlds
- civil-worlds
With our geographic world being a forth, a common context in which these sit (so it’s the Three World Theory with the geographic one tacked on).
I am not suggesting that this categorisation is a universal way of understanding virtual worlds. I suggest only that it maybe useful when we are talking about legal, perhaps moral and possibly other contexts.
The key axis that I have based this delineation on is that of identity. More specifically the degree of fixity of relationship between physical world identity and in-world identity that is necessary to achieve the purposes of that world; related to this are all kinds of issues to do with rights and limits of action.
One inspiration behind this is that idea from political philosophy that in a state of nature we have certain freedoms and that it is only rational to give up some of those freedoms in order that we gain benefits e.g. we give up total freedom of action to rule of law in order to live in a more peaceful society.
And so it is the case with virtual worlds. In some we give up much in order to gain certain goods. In others it would not be rational or justifiable to give up certain rights but this also confers duties upon us and others.
The balance is different in each and every virtual world, but we can draw broad categories. These, I propose are as follows:
Ludic-worlds
In a ludic-world we give certain things up to the fiction of the world, the rules of the game and the enforcement of these rules. We do this in order to gain goods from that world including all kinds of pleasures, psychological goods etc.
The mechanism by which this occurs is the EULA and it tends to be cast in terms of property. I’m not suggesting that this is perfect ro even the best way to do it. Indeed there may well be regimes that give wider freedom to play and recognise players as co-creators, but the asymmetry of power that it reflects between the individual player and the game does, in general terms, seem to be necessary to sustain the goods that are product by ones participation in the game.
One particular point is that of identity. Identity play seems a valid form of play within these spaces as a general type. Anonymity, pseudonymity, shifting identity are all games that people should be allowed to pay in some form or other. Though this does not say that RMT trade in accounts is valid as that may serve to undercut the value structure of the game, this depends on the given game.
In gaining these rights of play individuals may give up much. Developers rule these spaces. In-world: rights of free speech may not exits, rights of privacy may not exist, we may go further and suggest that for the good of a given game all kinds of rights that exist in the physical worlds must be waved and that acts that would normally contravene such rights are fine in this context (take hitting people in a boxing ring as a physical analogue).
Social-worlds
Social-worlds are ones where the primary good of the world is its social value to those within the world community. Specifically, the primary value that is accrued is that of Social Currency, while there may be other goods (even and in-world economy), this social capital is what is precious most of all to the community.
Social-worlds differ from ludic-worlds at least in respect of identity play. It certainly has a place, but for people in the community to really generate social capital the community must have a degree of stability. Key to that stability is stability of identity. It is important to trust that the identity token with which you interact today references the same person as it does tomorrow.
Moreover this good comes at the cost of identity shifting. That is there is a social one might say moral duty not to switch identities, this will reduce group cohesion, reduce general social capital and result in lower these forms of good for all (if it were allowed the world would become a ludic-world).
Further ‘owners’ of social-words must be mindful of their rights and duties. The social value in these worlds is not their property, the identities there are not their property, if they are anyone’s ‘property’ then they are owned by the community, though here the notion of ownership looses most shreds of meaning. This should act as a restriction on the acts of those that run the systems that facilitate these communities. They do not have the moral right to remove individuals as they see fit. They do not have the right to interfere as they see fit.
Moreover it is arguable that in these worlds speech and privacy rights should exist and should apply to community members and developers alike.
Civil-worlds
Civil-worlds may or may not exist at present. Civil-worlds are those who’s value and integration with the geographical world is to such a scale and degree that they are merely another way in which we transact our civil life.
If there were a virtual world that had all the properties of the social-world but where I could also transact with my bank, interact with my government, vote etc. Then this would most certainly be a civil-world. This is not the internet. As in the internet I do not have a single presence and identity, the internet is, in this respect, just a way of getting to a place like this.
In this kind of world I would expect every civil right that I have which has a meaningful analogue in this world to be respected and protected. I would expect speech rights and privacy, and I would expect these to be secured not by contract but by the laws and sanctions of civil society.
Such places may only have meaning if they are located in and are acceded form a given legal jurisdiction, or looking ahead we might expect that all jurisdictions sigh up to the maintenance of basic rights like the UN Convention of Human rights in these spaces.
Conclusion
Well that’s the summary. You will find bits of this and things very like it in the work of many other writers: Greg (esp Planes of Power!) & Dan, S Crawford (esp Who's in Charge of Who I am), Ludlow, Balkin, Castronova etc etc (in fact when I do the book keeping there must be 50 or so papers, books and cases I need to reference to give this argument a philosophical basis and a legal foothold), and I’m not saying that what they have said is wrong or that I have not stolen bits from them wholesale. Rather, that I’m not sure that we have been using the right kind of distinctions thus far and I think we conflate arguments when try to apply generalities to spaces that have very different purposes and provide very different goods to people.
Posted by Ren Reynolds on August 28, 2005 | Permalink
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In the end, this may all be academic (people don't like losing their online identity, especially when they helped build a community). But the questions around identity may be something that teachers should start looking at as many students have rathe... [Read More]
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Comments
Why do we need these boxes?
What purpose do they serve?
All the divisions: the Four/Six/Eight/Whatever Player Types, the Three/Four/Whatever Worlds,
They are all arbitrary, since you can slice up the pie an infinite number of ways. They seem to me to all be attempts to force human complexity to fit into personal, idiosyncratic world-views.
Our entire culture is obssessed with dividing and labeling things into non-overlapping distinct categories, according to race, class, and worse, the polarized binary divisions of male/female, Left/Right, liberal/conservative, patriot/traitor, married/single, gay/straight, greed/non-greed, good/evil, capitalist/communist, My Religion/Wrong, etc etc.
All these divisions do is trap our thinking. They deceive us into simplistic models and we end up treating complex human beings with overlapping interests, interacting in a complex, multi-dimensional overlapping intertwined culture, as if they were descrete things with sharp edges that fit nicely into little boxes.
Even when there are truly binary choices, such as male/female or gay/straight, focusing on them obscures the complexity and fuzziness of the boundaries: it leads to artificial distinctions such as "boy-games and girl-games" or "chick-flicks and guy-movies", as if no man ever cries and no woman ever fixes an engine.
The value of any analysis, in my opinion, is in the illumination it provides, the new understanding it yields.
Other than a basis for dissertations, what actual constructive purpose is served by these artificial
"world" divisions?
Does it help us design worlds any better?
I think not. It gives us convenient lines within which to color, and it gets us thinking in terms of what kind of world are we going to make our players player in, rather than thinking in terms of what kind of tools can we provide to empower our players to play their own games.
No offense intended, since you are merely following in a long tradition of divide-and-conquer. I am not criticizing your particular division, rather the whole need to divide in the first place. Designers are better served by an interdisciplinary, holistic approach, in my opinion.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 4:58:29 PM | link
Ren>
I suggest only that it maybe useful when we are talking about legal, perhaps moral and possibly other contexts.
galiel>
I am not criticizing your particular division, rather the whole need to divide in the first place. Designers are better served by an interdisciplinary, holistic approach
I sense you are both right. But let me ask. Ren - why do you think this taxonomy is useful per contexts Id'd? Galiel - can you tell us why an interdisciplinary, holistic approach is best (beyond the intuition I sense many of us probably agree with)?
As for my personal 0.02, I think taxonomies are useful. But I also appreciate the criticism that they can obfuscate if misapplied. The question is always a min-max one. Is the trade-off to insight worth it.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 5:16:07 PM | link
Nate>
(beyond the intuition I sense many of us probably agree with)
Just to clarify. I empathize with the intuition, but worry it sounds too fuzzy to be useful (the crux of my question to galiel above). Are we back to taxonomies?
Posted Aug 28, 2005 5:26:52 PM | link
why an interdisciplinary, holistic approach is best
1) people are interdisciplinary and holistic. If you design for people, it makes sense to design for how people really are.
2) It trains you to avoid simplistic answers and exposes unconscious assumptions.
3) It avoids the fallacy that you are designing for a fixed system, rather than a fluid one; the latter requires a more anticipatory, facilitative design approach, rather than a dictatorial, rigid one.
4) because experience shows us that, once we adopt these taxonomies, they tend to limit and shape our thinking. Often, they become real only because we culturally treat an artifice as if it were a natural law. In otherwords, one of the greatest reasons not to adopt rigid taxonomies in design, is because they are inevitably abused.
5) It broadens your potential market. I know it is tantamount to holy scripture that we must design for a specific, preferably narrow, demographic, whether we are tailoring a marketing message, a political platform, or a game narrative; I also think that that emperor has no clothes, to mix metaphors.
The most lasting human endeavors, in all fields and media, are those which transcend demographics and narrow appeals to lowest common denominators, and instead appeal to that which is essentially human in all of us.
The greatest aspiration of a world-designer, in my opinion, should be to create universal truths, those being experiences that are enjoyed across traditional market-segment boundaries.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 5:29:00 PM | link
I'm lucky to be working with Ren on an identity workshop for SOPIII.
I emailed him some questions and he suggested that I post them here, so here they are:
I'd like to imagine a metaverse that is all these things. So are you thinking there would be separate domains that have different identity functions within that metaverse?
Jack Balkin has tried to define these different kinds of worlds, and I'm not completely persuaded. How can you know, before you start, what kind of world you've got? Won't the nature of any given world change over time? Won't norms emerge that suit the players?
Doesn't governance (which we could define as "how change happens") end up being the most interesting question, rather than what rules should be applied in the first place?
Another vector: There may be an overlap between social worlds online (which you define as a world) and the geographic world. Nodes and networks are imposed (virtually, invisibly) on the terrestrial world. Offline, how could anyone "own" a social world in the same way a ludic world is controlled?
Social worlds exist terrestrially as well, after all -- social networks are the way the world works. It may be worth noting that within the geographic world all these virtual worlds exist, invisibly.
As far as identity goes, "universal truths" seem tricky. But I'm all ears.
Susan
Posted Aug 28, 2005 5:38:34 PM | link
I think its useful because I read and write about virtual worlds and law. When doing this, there is a tendency to be particular or very general. What I wanted to do was come up with a taxonomy that could add a level of nuance to these discussions. As I note, this taxonomy is not universal, it use specific. It may have more uses than the one I have outlined it may not.
Or look at it like this. One might ask the question: should there be free speech in virtual worlds. In fact quite a few people do ask that question. So we can either talk about, say WoW. Or ‘virtual worlds’. I thought that categories and reasons for those categories might move things forward.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 5:43:58 PM | link
In the context of a free speech discussion, the only relevant taxonomy I can see is commercial vs. non-commercial vs. peer-to-peer open-source worlds.
Just as we allow corporations to substantially suspend our civil liberties between 9:00AM and 5:00PM, discussions about "free speech" in commercial MMOs serve only to obscure the nature of these worlds, and to give the developers some illusions of nobility.
In non-commercial controlled worlds, the degree of free speech is still subject to the whim of the developer, but at least there is the potential.
Only in a peer production, p2p-hosted, open-source environment, where there would free speech have any substance or power. At the moment there are no examples of such worlds, at least not at a level to compete with the commercial worlds, but that is about to change.
Just as "free speech" is bullshit on a Microsoft support forum, so "free speech" is bullshit in Everquest.
But free speech is most definitely not bullshit.
The question, however, is not "should there be free speech in virtual worlds", but rather "should there be virtual worlds free of corporate or private control". There should, and there will be.
This is a case where categories and labels are useful, just as there is a utility to differentiating between a team sport and a solo sport. But, if we were having this conversation five or more years ago, we'd have missed the third category, and thought only about commercial vs. amateur. The emergence of peer production as a third way is instructive as to the danger of these categories.
The further danger is when we start to slice things along axes that don't correspond to any physical limitation.
When we categorize a player as "Griefer", we limit not only our interaction with them but their playing possibilities as well. When we categorize a world as "ludic", we discount the value of social responsibility.
If each choice limits us and perpetuates assumptions, I suggest proceeding with caution.
Again, I did not reject your particular division in favor of another, nor do I reject all taxonomy on some kind of emotional or abstract principle.
I just think we should look at whether a particular set of labels help us develop better world, or understand existing worlds better.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 6:12:10 PM | link
In defense of theory that generates categories. I would say that to essentialize the project of generating useful categories for the purpose of understanding a complex system as an exercise that leads to essentialist relations that obfuscate complexity is well kind… ironic no? It’s kind of the glass is half full vs. the glass is half empty. The purpose of theory is to create manageable models for complex realities, with the implicit understanding that all models are, by nature of the flaws of human representation, rough approximation and thus incomplete. A model that accommodates complexity to an extent that renders it meaningless as a tool to understand coherent and consistent relations between actors in a system is as epistemologically flawed as one that simplifies a social system into caricatures. Categories and their relationships ,such as those Ren presented, are useful as a starting point (yes even dichotomies). They make simple a complex set of relations…from there we can begin looking into the complexities of the system. I would rather have a rough road map than a road map that needs a road map that needs a road map…I understand the problem of framing and construction but one can be mindful of these.
In virtual spaces inalienable rights are exchanged for play freedoms...identity shifting for example…Now, would it not be better to think of these categories as nested…that is….in a civil world no right is exchanged because all are observed (it seem almost a utopia since the laws would adhere to all rights and assumes that none might be mutually exclusive…are some? if so how could such a world be?) In a social world one doesn’t give up rights as much as freedoms…if we are to stick to the jargon of political philosophy…in exchange we get liberty…thus the freedom of identity shifting is exchanged for the liberty that say economic stability can bring…and in ludic worlds freedoms and rights lose meaning since they are all alienable (well exchangeable anyway) for the purposes of play? The nested part comes when I think that a ludic world could not exist without at least the existence of a social world. So these two are related in this manner.
A theme in Ren’s three categories is Identity and how one comes to “own” it and control it …It seems that in Ludic worlds we give up other “rights” so as to be able to do with identity what we please, in social worlds the incentives to maintain stable identity are the preservation of other rights or privileges that would be withheld were we to choose to make identity unstable So, ludic worlds are governed by EULA’s, social worlds by norms, and civil worlds by enlightened law…it seems that ludic worlds are worlds of interminable alienability (again exchangeability) whose governance is structured by a EULA…my question is at what point does one say a EULA does not have authority (in the political sense…where general Will would not hold one accountable to it, or it is not in the Common Good, or not for the greatest good, choose your favorite philosopher)?
Posted Aug 28, 2005 6:29:54 PM | link
The greatest aspiration of a world-designer, in my opinion, should be to create universal truths, those being experiences that are enjoyed across traditional market-segment boundaries.
I cannot express how deeply I admire and agree with that statement.
This stated, I think a compromise can be had (even though Ren hasn't actually responded to galiel yet!). And it's pretty simple.
Ren declared, in his initial post, the presence of an Axis of Identity, along which he defined his theory. galiel asks for a more holistic and interdisciplinary approach, which, while it seems less cogent, is nonetheless Right.
So instead of creating three or four boxes and dropping worlds into them, why not start out with precisely that Axis of Identity Ren spoke of?
All virtual worlds, by Bartle's definition, retain some form of Avatar. The closeness of static relationship between this Avatar and the Player would move a virtual world along this axis. So, in a Civic-World, you'd have an extremely close relationship, whereas in a Ludic-World, you'd have an extremely distant relationship.
I retain the usage of Ren's terminology mostly because there doesn't exist a Civic-World that we know of, and I don't feel capable of stating the extent to which player identity meshes wish avatar identity in games I haven't played, like WoW and EQ.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 7:00:51 PM | link
Ren,
While I empathize with the urge to catgorize, I seems like you're going to run into at least two classes of problems. The first is that worlds of one type may fully contain worlds of another type -- for example, the geographic world currently contains many ludic worlds or mmorpgs build within Second Life. The second is the tension between the world defined by the designers/creators and the world defined by the players/residents -- eg, Sims shadow government in TSO, political debate in ludic games, etc.
I think that your free speech question is particularly difficult in light of these problems (as we've previously kicked around with Professor Balkin). Also, beware the siren's song of identity somehow being less important in Ludic worlds . . .
c
Posted Aug 28, 2005 7:05:52 PM | link
Two more points. (And since I posted, I noticed I posted after a couple other people... damn forgetting to refresh.)
Does it help us design worlds any better?
The thing about Terra Nova is that it is, in no way, interested in actually building a world. It is a forum for the discussion of virtual worlds, and it promotes academic discourse.
I think someone else said it, too, but this might not help us DESIGN better, but it sure might help us TALK better, that is to say, more intelligibly.
I forgot my other point.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 7:11:00 PM | link
One alternative to chopping up descrete chunks along an axis is to think in terms of a continuum.
De Bono would contrast this:
|....|.....|.....|.....|.....|
With this:
X X X X X
<----------------------------->
Or, even better (two-dimensions are always dangerous), with this:
|> X |>
| |
| X X |
| | X
X X X
(supposed to represent a couple of flagpoles, with positions scattered around them. If it were simpler in ASCII, I would have drawn several flagpoles).
This way, a world can have a strong ludic focus with social elements and a touch of civics....
Posted Aug 28, 2005 7:21:21 PM | link
OK, that didn't work and I didn't preview, my bad. I'll try again in a minute.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 7:21:57 PM | link
This:
|_______|_______|_______|_______|
Vs.
<--X--------X----------------X-->
(For the third option, can't figure out how to represent flagpoles in a 2D field with various targets interpreted in terms of each one's relationship to all of the flagpoles. img tag doesn't seem to work here or I'd upload a gif.)
Posted Aug 28, 2005 7:43:39 PM | link
Try [pre] tag, galiel. I think [code] works, too.
In any case, this is what I'm seeing:
Ren's "civil world" is a world with a identities that are static and immalleable on player whim. You are who you are and you can't pretend to be someone else. A "ludic world" is a world where identities can be (nearly) as dynamic as the player chooses, where you can have different genders, races, economic backgrounds, attributes, etc.
There are other axes you might play with, like "freedom/tyranny" and "democratic/dictatorial". Then you can say a particular virtual world demonstrates "dynamic identity, freedom, and dictatorial" characteristics, or another one has "somewhat static, freedom, and republic" characteristics.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 8:15:22 PM | link
Try [pre] tag, galiel. I think [code] works, too.
Brain cramp. Of course, pre...
One of the biggest problems I have with categorization in reference to virtual worlds is that the current spectrum of offerings is sooo limited;
I worry that we will narrow our forward visions by defining the range of possibilities by what we have so far (the danger of labels...)
Posted Aug 28, 2005 8:27:33 PM | link
In other words, when new, truly innovative things come out, we will strain to force them into our existing taxonomy.
Virtual worlds are not fossils.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 8:28:43 PM | link
Michael:
The thing about Terra Nova is that it is, in no way, interested in actually building a world. It is a forum for the discussion of virtual worlds, and it promotes academic discourse.
Ah, here we go with limiting taxonomies :-)
Terra Nova is a mix of world-studiers and world-builders, is it not?
There may even be those among us who do both.
As well, discussion about virtual worlds does not have to be contrained to looking at how they work now, but pondering how they might work differently.
Finally, as I have rather crudely illustrated, there are more ways to identify things than to put them in descrete boxes. There are more fluid, analog ways of viewing the world.
N'est pas?
Posted Aug 28, 2005 8:37:04 PM | link
It might be worth reading Ren's section on "Civil-worlds" then.
They don't exist, as of right now, and it's in his taxonomy.
Posted Aug 28, 2005 9:44:30 PM | link
Nate > As for my personal 0.02, I think taxonomies are useful. But I also appreciate the criticism that they can obfuscate if misapplied. The question is always a min-max one. Is the trade-off to insight worth it.
Indeed and if this one hides more than it reveals then it’s not a good one.
The reason I went with the split along identity lines is that it seemed to me that the ability to identify people seems to be core to much of the practice law and ethics, identities are things that right, duties, freedoms and responsibilities attach to. It also seems that playing with identity is something that is more than just trivially good - hence the scale.
I think the real use will come in the book keeping of the detail. That is when we are asking questions about things like speech in a given virtual world I think that these considerations are useful frames in which to look at the context and the law and assumptions that may or may not pertain.
One outcome might be that the world-frame or specific context has a bundle of rights and duties, or possible goods and harms that don’t fit into pre-existing categories. But then I’ve long argued that trying to fit virtual stuff into our current framework might be a practical way of going about things but probably missed the uniqueness and the value of the circumstance.
Also, I’ve been alluding to pretty much this same argument for about 3 or so years, so I thought I would just write it down for once.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 4:55:27 AM | link
Nate > As for my personal 0.02, I think taxonomies are useful. But I also appreciate the criticism that they can obfuscate if misapplied. The question is always a min-max one. Is the trade-off to insight worth it.
Indeed and if this one hides more than it reveals then it’s not a good one.
The reason I went with the split along identity lines is that it seemed to me that the ability to identify people seems to be core to much of the practice law and ethics, identities are things that right, duties, freedoms and responsibilities attach to. It also seems that playing with identity is something that is more than just trivially good - hence the scale.
I think the real use will come in the book keeping of the detail. That is when we are asking questions about things like speech in a given virtual world I think that these considerations are useful frames in which to look at the context and the law and assumptions that may or may not pertain.
One outcome might be that the world-frame or specific context has a bundle of rights and duties, or possible goods and harms that don’t fit into pre-existing categories. But then I’ve long argued that trying to fit virtual stuff into our current framework might be a practical way of going about things but probably missed the uniqueness and the value of the circumstance.
Also, I’ve been alluding to pretty much this same argument for about 3 or so years, so I thought I would just write it down for once.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 5:12:54 AM | link
Susan > I'd like to imagine a metaverse that is all these things. So are you thinking there would be separate domains that have different identity functions within that metaverse?
Yes.
>How can you know, before you start, what kind of world you've got?
The code, context and services. Ludic-worlds have a fiction that serves the game, they have game features coded into them e.g. characters have levels, there are quests etc.
>Won't the nature of any given world change over time?
Probably, I’m not sure how to handle change, though I mentioned in the orignoal post that I could see a social-world becoming a game-one, I can see it happening the other way round.
>Won't norms emerge that suit the players?
In an in-world sense, yes. Virtual spaces are very norming. However I’m looking at a wider sense about the role of things like the developer, the right of privacy etc., I’m not sure I see these things developing in the same way or at least not at an adequate pace.
> Doesn't governance (which we could define as "how change happens") end up being the most interesting question, rather than what rules should be applied in the first place?
In terms of interest of question I personally think that most interesting one is a philosophical one about what identity is in a digital age; but that’s just me. The important practical question is about governance, yes.
>Another vector: There may be an overlap between social worlds online (which you define as a world) and the geographic world. Nodes and networks are imposed (virtually, invisibly) on the terrestrial world. Offline, how could anyone "own" a social world in the same way a ludic world is controlled?
Professional sports bodies tend to own things in a similar way to ludic-world owners. A bunch of people especially TNs Greg have written about MMOs in relation to sports regulation.
>Social worlds exist terrestrially as well, after all -- social networks are the way the world works. It may be worth noting that within the geographic world all these virtual worlds exist, invisibly.
Noted, but what conclusion does this lead to?
>As far as identity goes, "universal truths" seem tricky. But I'm all ears.
Oh it’s all contingent thus far.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 5:13:43 AM | link
Hector > at what point does one say a EULA does not have authority (in the political sense…where general Will would not hold one accountable to it, or it is not in the Common Good, or not for the greatest good, choose your favorite philosopher)?
Hmmm,thinks,,, I’ll have to get back to you on that one. It’s a very interesting question.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 5:14:41 AM | link
Cory >The first is that worlds of one type may fully contain worlds of another type -- for example, the geographic world currently contains many ludic worlds or mmorpgs build within Second Life.
I’m trying not to talk about Second Life for the moment. The reason being that it is a very interesting case, but, this time I’d like to deal with the general a bit more before the particular.
In short I think that one type of world can exist within another, and I tend to think of this order physical > civil > social > ludic, just in case the structure of both can be maintained, that is if I am in a civil world and I want to play within in, in a ludic-world (of the type I define) then I must be afforded the ability to maintain fixity of identity with relation to civic matters and fluidity with respect to ludic ones. If not then one starts to slide into the other. You can play chess very well in civic worlds as you would trust that the player you were playing against was the same person, as we move along the scale this might become less certain c.f. deep blue at this point.
>The second is the tension between the world defined by the designers/creators and the world defined by the players/residents -- eg, Sims shadow government in TSO, political debate in ludic games, etc.
Yes, this is a big topic. I’m guilty of really not looking into it with respect to these categories.
>I think that your free speech question is particularly difficult in light of these problems (as we've previously kicked around with Professor Balkin).
Yes, which is why I like it as a test case. I think that privacy is even harder which is why I’m working on that in particular.
>Also, beware the siren's song of identity somehow being less important in Ludic worlds . . .
I don’t think it’s less important, it think it’s differently important.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 5:15:45 AM | link
galiel>Why do we need these boxes?
If nothing else, so we can limit what we have to put in our "other worlds" sidebar...
>What purpose do they serve?
These particular proposals of Ren's seem to be proposing a vocabulary that we can use to distinguish between virtual worlds for different purposes. Any new research field needs to develop its own terms in order that researchers can communicate with one another succinctly and less ambiguously. In the olde days, we had "game worlds" and "social worlds"; these still work as terms, but they only work for virtual worlds in which the magic circle holds. Ren is proposing that we need some way of referring to the virtual worlds in which the magic circle doesn't hold, or at least holds to a lesser degree.
>All the divisions: the Four/Six/Eight/Whatever Player Types, the Three/Four/Whatever Worlds, They are all arbitrary, since you can slice up the pie an infinite number of ways.
I can slice up your thoughts an infinite number of ways: does this make them arbitrary?
>They seem to me to all be attempts to force human complexity to fit into personal, idiosyncratic world-views.
The same can be said of generalisations such as the one above.
If you are against categorisation as a concept, you've lost the battle already. Words are categorisations for concepts, therefore applying them to argue against categorisation is to argue against yourself.
What you can argue against is bad categorisation or useless categorisation. If my player types theory split people into types depending on what letters their names began with, that would be a useless categorisation (at least in game design terms; psychologists might make something of it). If my theory were to split people by the absolute level of their main character, that would be a bad categorisation because different virtual worlds have different advancement structures (although it could be OK if it referred to a single virtual world).
What's not going to work is your attack on categorisation itself as a valid tool for investingating virtual worlds.
>Our entire culture is obssessed with dividing and labeling things into non-overlapping distinct categories
Whereas you'd prefer to have it supplanted by one that is obsessed with wild generalisations (such as the one above, again)?
>All these divisions do is trap our thinking.
Well, to be fair, that's not all they do. They also enable us to talk about related concepts in a cogent and well-understood way. Sure, some people without a great deal of intelligence might be unable to think outside these categories, but I feel that in general members of the human race are somewhat brighter than that.
>Even when there are truly binary choices, such as male/female or gay/straight
Huh, the one time you concede that there are sometimes truly binary choices, you give examples that aren't truly binary...
>The value of any analysis, in my opinion, is in the illumination it provides, the new understanding it yields.
So can I take it that you're actually in favour of Ren's categorisation, then, given that it does actually illuminate the current way that virtual worlds are viewed and does yield new understanding?
>Other than a basis for dissertations, what actual constructive purpose is served by these artificial "world" divisions?
Other than getting it off your chest, what actual constructive purpose is served by posting to Terra Nova on this subject? Are people going to think, "Gee, galiel is right, from now on no more categorisations! Spread the word, friends, and let us overthrow this tyrrany!"? No, they're not. They're going to continue to use categorisations that work because, wouldn't you know it, they work.
>Does it help us design worlds any better?
For some categorisations, yes. I don't think Ren's is particularly aimed at that - it's more to do with discussing the way that people use virtual worlds - but my own player types theory does indeed help people design worlds better (leastwise, better than a "let's treat everyone as individuals with deep and meaningful emotional and intellectual needs" approach does).
>rather than thinking in terms of what kind of tools can we provide to empower our players to play their own games.
Isn't your use of the phrase "what kind of tools" an implicit recognition that there are different kinds of tasks that need to be done? And that people therefore have different kinds of needs? And therefore that there are different kinds of people?
You're arguing for player categories, you're just coming at it from a different angle. Tell us what kinds of tools you want, and you'll tell us what kinds of behaviours you're addressing - whether you want to tell us that or not.
I'm happy with the idea that it may be better to describe players in terms of what tools they use to empower themselves, and that players may use multiple tools so they don't all fit in convenient boxes, but presumably this still wouldn't satisfy you because "All these divisions do is trap our thinking"...
>No offense intended, since you are merely following in a long tradition of divide-and-conquer. I am not criticizing your particular division, rather the whole need to divide in the first place.
Well here's the neat thing: this isn't an either/or situation. It's possible for multiple theories to exist at the same time. You can reject the atomistic approach if you want and leave it to we misguided fools who think there may be some value in it. Create your own workable alternative, and watch as people flock to use it.
>Designers are better served by an interdisciplinary, holistic approach, in my opinion.
Which interdisciplinary, holistic appraoch would this be, then?
Richard
Posted Aug 29, 2005 5:27:53 AM | link
Richard, all your points are well taken - as is your taking me to task for a rather sloppy initial rant.
However, much of your critique seems rooted in a theoretical notion that assumes the best and noblest of world developers (an ironic stance given that most commercial worlds are developed from an assumption of the worst and most venal behavior on the part of the players). It is just more of the "benevolent dictator" model which so dominates MMO design these days.
In reality, I see your player type categorization abused all the times in both design and, in particular, maintenance and customer support in commercial worlds, and I see these worlds trapped within assumptions about market demographics, "type" of world, "good" or "bad" gameplay, etc.
I have similar fears with regard to this taxonomy.
I agree with you that general humanity is smarter than that.
In my experience, however, commercial game developers are mostly not. Judging from the actual games produced.
As for "which interdisciplinary, holistic approach," a) I have talked about this often in various Terra Nova discussions, b) the question assumes that there is one correct answer, and that I think I possess it. This is still a top-down, benevolent dictator model, one to which I don't subscribe.
So, practically speaking, where do we start? We start with a basic faith in democracy and a trust in the collective wisdom of crowds (as distinct from a naive and disarmed trust in individuals)--and, to use your assumption, the basic intelligence of general humanity, at least in aggregate.
Since the nearly universal model of reality among game developers is the benign dictatorship model, where the smart developers create mazes for the dumb rats to run through, and where the smart developers smack down any rat that tries to bypass the approved path or even raise its head above the walls and look around, there is little point in a discussion about the actual implementation of a system today's developers don't even acknowledge as legitimate--despite the fact that there are examples of its success all over the place, online and off, just not in commercial games.
If one starts out designing worlds with as negative a view of both human nature and the prospects for democracy as is universally the case in today's commercial MMO companies, is it really any surprise that categories are abused as descrete shortcuts rather than as illuminating ways to look at tendencies and overlapping trends?
(incidentally, failed experiments such as the LambdaMOO independent phase, which are inevitably pointed to to "prove" how impossible it is to trust the players, are instead demonstrations of how even the most brilliant and insightful technical whizes are often clueless about social design and management. That is not a criticism, it is a recognition of the most common fallacy in the tech world, that engineers can do anything--including even design a better society--which is a symptom of the belief that "the art of design" is largely a sham art, which can be reduced to formulas and algorithms, which any engineer can tackle.
In fact, social architecture/anticipatory design are legitimate disciplines that attempt to apply an empirical, pragmatic approach to design and governance. Democracy just works better with people. And, for all the lectures about how different MMOs are, the players are still (mostly) people.
And, since free societies rely more on consensus and intrinsic rewards, while dictatorships, benevolent or not, rely more on enforcement and punishment, it seems to be common sense that in MMOs--where the ability to apply real sanctions and reliable enforcement are weakened by anonymity, pseudonymity, lack of accountability and all those other "problems" developers moan about when they justify the inability to "control" the players--a democratic, empowering approach is cheaper, more sustainable, and "better" from every perspective except, perhaps, developer ego.
I made a point, in subsequent posts to the initial rant, to say that I do NOT oppose all categorization on principle. I merely look at the real world, in particular the real world of commercial game design, and see taxonomies widely abused.
Is that not a legitimate concern, or are we to sublimate all empirical observations in favor of utopian theory?
Posted Aug 29, 2005 7:17:14 AM | link
galiel,
One of the main problems in discussing this field is precisely what has been mentioned over and over again: as an academic field, it is extraordinarily young.
We have the luxury, in other fields today, of breaking out of the older and now dated models that trap our thinking. But the reason we can do this is precisely because we've used those models to the point at which we realize what their limits are, so we know what more can be done, because we've done everything within the constraints.
Consider the field of art. There is art creation, and art criticism. Similarly, there is virtual world creation, and virtual world criticism. The issues are exponentially more complex, but this basic model is correct.
Artists in training are taught art history, they are taught common techniques, and they are taught principles. For instance, the principle of color. Similarly, virtual worlds have history, common things like immersive environments (whether textual description, graphical illustration, or VR experience), and principles. The problem is mainly that we have no useful core to work with. You can't look up Virtual Worlds and come back with a basic set of principles outside of a few paragraphs in the first chapter of Bartle's book.
But I think one of the most unquestionable principles, which IS, as I said, mentioned in Bartle's Five, is that of identity. Thus, it SHOULD be possible to rate virtual worlds with respect to their interpretation of the concept of identity, just as it's possible to rate artwork on its interpretation of the concept of color. Just as we have everything from black/white, monochrome, dichrome, all the way up to photographic detail, we can have virtual worlds that enforce absolutely no constraints on identity choice all the way to virtual worlds that enforce an complete constraint on identity choice.
It does constrain virtual worlds to be conceived of as constructs with identities. And yet, this constraint is part of the current working definition of virtual worlds.
Aristotle was almost certainly wrong about how the universe worked. That didn't make his model useless, just inaccurate. And future thinkers, from Newton to Mach to Einstein continued to rework this model, changing it to fit the new revelations. Wasn't it Newton that invoked the image of "shoulders of giants"?
We can't build a holistic approach from where we stand. A holistic approach, especially now, would constrain us far more than a categorical one, because there would be the implicit conception that that's all there is. A categorical model allows for the possibility of yet another category. You can't build top-down unless you're at the top; we can't come up with a unified theory of everything, because we haven't seen everything.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 7:45:57 AM | link
Okay, yet again, I really should've refreshed. *sighs* Let's try this again. My last post isn't invalid so much as... it feels more irrelevant now.
Okay. galiel, =)
In my experience, the average human being is ignorant and not worth listening to after you realize he is average. I think this is something that can change, but for the present, is true.
Your beliefs appear to be perpendicular to the discussion. That is to say, you don't have any actual problem with Ren's model, but you have a problem with the potential to abuse it, which you expect.
Be fair: intelligent people are far more likely to abuse. The very intelligent people are usually the ones to apply it properly. And they are rare.
Any model can and will be used incorrectly. The result may or may not turn out favorably. But an anti-corporate argument simply does not hold water. So people will use it to turn a profit. People use their knowledge of mathematics to turn a profit all the time. Few people in their right mind would argue against the teaching of mathematics! (This comes from someone sitting here wearing a t-shirt with a proof that supposedly shows 2=1. =)
Science needs to achieve and accomplish despite what has been done with it. We dropped a nuclear bomb and now we're afraid of utilizing the nuclear solution to the oil problem, even though France has done just fine. Correct usage is the job of the law-maker and law-enforcer. The job of the scientist is to figure out the truth, by theory, conjecture, and experimentation.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 8:07:47 AM | link
Fair: intelligence is directly proportional to ethics?
?????
And I enjoy the comparison to nuclear power. I'm no expert, but i have seen some preetty scary statistics on cancer rates around plants and waste disposal areas. I guess you would be the type of person to discount the minority of people who would be unsatisfied in a virtual world because of the constraints on their interactions.
I'm glad there's someone reacting strongly against the idea of this type of categorization, whether the categorization proves useful to discussion or not. I think any discussion of categorization should include arguments against it.
Also, the only thing needed for a virtual world to become technically inclusive of all the types ren layed out, is for WoW to make a virtual general store interface linked to Ebay or something. And how fun would that be, to go shopping in-character with your guild. Personally, I would perfer as much overlap of those different types of interactions as possible.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 10:55:57 AM | link
So like, maybe just call it the 4-Interactions Theory or something.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 11:14:47 AM | link
I'll grant you your points, Michael, as long as you don't try to pretend that there is anything "scientific" about this process.
1. A general theory requires a valid sample. One cannot create a valid model of human behavior just from watching wrestling shows on television, nor can one create a valid theory of evolution solely from studying mules (or a theory of human psychology merely from studying its pathology, which is why so many of Freud's conclusions have been discredited).
2. A theory of actual phenomena requires valid empirical methodology. A hypothesis should have criteria by which it can be confirmed or invalidated. It should have data points that are open for review by all, not proprietary data. Can you honestly say that that characterizes the mainstream of MMO study these days?
3. If today's commercial MMOs are the equivalent of the experimental conditions within which one seeks to collect data and gain understanding, then one should acknowledge that they are deliberately, drastically, and, some would say, pathologically skewed social environments.
4. It is all well and good to maintain an ivory tower isolationist stance, but one should recognize that today's commercial game development industry does not function with a culture of peer review, tolerance of dissent, respect for challenge, and skepticism about sacred cows. It doesn't even have the basic self-preservation of the customer-driven sensibilities common to most corporate fields of endeavor.
Lawrence Lessig currently has Hilary Rosen as a guest blogger. Hilary Rosen! Anyone who knows anything about copyright issues knows that Rosen is practically the Antichrist to folks who follow Lessig. Yet there she is, and a fairly civilized discussion is taking place.
Can anyone here imagine a game developer's forum where, say, a researcher with findings demonstrating a link between violence and videogameplaying would be welcome, let alone given the reins for a few weeks?! Sure, the GDC loves Henry Jenkins. But just look at the tirades and shitstorms by Greg's bitching session at the last GDC, where he dared - Gasp! - to invite Brenda Laurel (who happens to have cofounded the damn thing, be one of the first game programmers at Atari, and be a genuine major figure in the development of VR, BTW, not to mention someone who reaches her conclusions about game design based on, you know, actual *scientific research* rather than Randian cant). The ridicule, hostility and shouting down of dissent within the developer community has been deafening--despite the fact that several people actually attending that session stated that the audience greeted Prof.Laurel's comments with affirmation.
Just look at a representative selection of the recent assertions here by prominent names in the game development community--ALL of which went unchallenged by other prominent developers--let alone "scientists" who should know at least to inject a modicum of skepticism into the discussions:
"There is the old saying "A benevolent dictatorship is the best form of government.""
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"The fantasy of wealth is one of the most powerful human motivators"
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"And if you think it is purely cultural concensus and not the power that issues from the barrel of a gun that maintains civilized behaviour, I suspect you have never seen firsthand what happens when that threat is removed on a significant scale."
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" If we gave everyone alive today enough food to eat, wouldn't they just have more babies until they had a shortage again? " (the commenter actually uses as a source of inspiration and profundity a bit of fiction from a 70's RPG.)
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"Overall, people will exploit each other exactly as much as they think they can get away with. "
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"...if forced, explain my views on resolving the (Iraqi) insurgency (taking a leaf from the Romans and reducing cities to funereal pyres and salting the earth so that nothing else grows there again)."
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"the third biggest mistake is not realizing that designing for online is grossly different than designing, say, a real-life government. Concepts like anonymity change all the rules."
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"As someone who runs a blog, I spend a significant amount of time each day dealing with blog spam, from people who take advantage of the complete lack of a persistent identity. I also have had to ban IPs from jerks, verify the identities of people who were particularly snarky, delete completely inappropriate content and send stern warnings to people who go too far into the realm of personal attacks. And I have a relatively small, entirely polite little community on my site." (An MMO designer who *manually* polices his own blog, lecturing about how the solutions to misbehavior are purely technical!)"
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"This is ultimately a lot closer to the fascist worldview of how virtual worlds should be supported, but in my honest opinion, is the best way to run these things."
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Now, this would be less critical were it countered by differing views within the industry. Hell, many of these assertions might even be defensible on the evidence. But don't talk about "scientific approaches to game study" when you let stuff like this ride unchallenged.
Understand who you are dealing with here. The only academics who get any bandwidth in this industry are ones who reinforce existing beliefs. Everything bad is good for you, etc. Increasingly, the only academics who get any bandwidth in this industry also happen to come from a particular ideological standpoint.
At least here in the US, we live in a society where the academy is increasingly exploited, subverted and converted for reactionary ends.
As such, it is important to have some consciousness about and responsibility for the way your examination of game worlds is framed.
Any categorization that ignores the commercial, corporate nature of the worlds the vast majority of players play in, is not "scientifically pure", it is willfully misleading. The abstract discussions about "free speech in MMOs" are a joke as long as they pretend that MMOs are any more free than corporate offices. Hey, you can always walk out of a corporate job if you don't like losing your freedoms. Yeah, but mostly your alternative is other jobs with similar loss of liberty, just as the alternative in MMOs today is yet another corporate-run MMO.
History teaches us that it is not as simple as "scientists discover truth, politicians use it".
Darwinism was scientific, social Darwinism was not--yet it had, and continues to have, a powerful effect on human history.
(Before the "its just a game!" crowd blows a gasket--- the same crowd that sells its games to advertisers and the military as powerfully influential cultural artifacts, and to corporate trainers and educators as powerful tools for learnging, while simultaneously laughing off any research documenting the effects of our games on our kids---virtual worlds won't be "just a game" for too much longer. How we choose to build them matters, and how we choose to explain them will influence how we choose to build them. This is not theory about how we might, this is based on how we already have.)
Posted Aug 29, 2005 11:20:16 AM | link
I'm not really sure how reposting my attempting to shut down your completely ridiculous attempt to drag the Iraq insurgency into another discussion of design theory by posting my Genghis Khan-esque take on counterinsurgency is relevant.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 12:31:04 PM | link
Understand who you are dealing with here. The only academics who get any bandwidth in this industry are ones who reinforce existing beliefs. Everything bad is good for you, etc. Increasingly, the only academics who get any bandwidth in this industry also happen to come from a particular ideological standpoint.
At least here in the US, we live in a society where the academy is increasingly exploited, subverted and converted for reactionary ends.
Oh, that's why it's relevant. Carry on. Let me know when you succeed in throwing down the shackles of counter-revolutionary oppression that bind academia to capitalism's iron will!
Posted Aug 29, 2005 12:34:36 PM | link
(My last subject-breaking comment on this thread, promise.)
Amusingly, I've found that most game designers are actually liberal in political orientation if not hard core left-wing. Portraying the game design community as a bastion of the right wing is amusing, but wildly off-base. Unless you come from so far off in the left wing that everyone is to the right of you!
Posted Aug 29, 2005 12:37:06 PM | link
Back on subject.
Yes, "free speech" in MMOs is nonexistent. Much the same way as "free speech" in my living room is nonexistent. If someone came to my living room and proceeded to harangue me about how I was stifling free thought because I didn't let them rifle through my wine cabinet at the top of his or her lungs, I'd ask them to leave. My theoretical visitor does not have a constitutional right to yell at me in my own home.
"Free speech" implies that you have the right to make your own speech. You have the right to go in your OWN living room and hold forth however you wish. In MMG terms, if you wanted to make a p2p-hosted Freenet where anything goes in terms of conflict resolution, nothing's stopping you legally.
You still have to actually do the grunt work of making the thing work, and most people don't want to do that. They'd rather visit other people's homes and hold forth there. Which is fine to a point - just because I live in a house doesn't mean I particularly want to build it myself.
As for Ren's original post: it's a good way to describe sub-games, but as almost everyone has said, one of the strength of MMOs is how they can encompass many styles of gameplay. It's still effective in describing, say, the ludic-style game systems of a game and how they can contrast with the social-style game systems, and which styles individual games encourage vs. ignore through benign neglect.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 12:45:15 PM | link
as almost everyone has said, one of the strength of MMOs is how they can encompass many styles of gameplay
Your ideological rants blind you to the fact that you often agree with my essential points :-)
Posted Aug 29, 2005 12:57:29 PM | link
Sure. You can't be a wacky leftist ALL the time!
Posted Aug 29, 2005 1:03:03 PM | link
Scott Jennings > As for Ren's original post: it's a good way to describe sub-games, but as almost everyone has said, one of the strength of MMOs is how they can encompass many styles of gameplay. It's still effective in describing, say, the ludic-style game systems of a game and how they can contrast with the social-style game systems, and which styles individual games encourage vs. ignore through benign neglect.
What I was trying to do was characterise types of virtual space, virtual world if you will; rather than types of MMO or game system. The 3 virtual types I tired to characterise all share some characteristics: the things that make them virtual – being online etc., and worlds – persistence etc. In Prof B’s types there are socialisers; and I think that these always represent a proportion of players in those type of worlds, but they do not make them social-worlds by there mere presence.
But what I’m getting to in this split is the overall purpose of the world – whether this is by design or by consent is an interesting topic. While people may play games in social-worlds that does not necessarily make them game-worlds. Same goes for civil-worlds.
Analogies are dangerous, but here goes anyway. We might play tag in a bank or city hall, they have the physical structure to enable this, but it’s not their purpose and it’s not the rules space are there to facilitate let alone the norms. I don't want the rules of the bank or indeed the banking system to be game-like in the ludic sense of an MMO I want them to be, well, bank like.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 1:48:56 PM | link
I like taxonomies, particularly ones that offer axes where there's lots of open space. Identifying what's been done often prompts recognition of what has NOT been done.
I think using identity play as an axis is not all that useful. It appears too frequently in all the contexts.
And I think that I am growing too jaded with certain discussions to toss in more than these sorts of statements. ;)
Posted Aug 29, 2005 2:28:24 PM | link
I was surprised, on a search of Terra Nova, to find no reference to Schubert's Triangle, with Simulation, Gameplay and Community at the apexes.
Raph, do you still consider that a useful way of evaluating MMOs? It certainly is an example of the "flag-pole" thinking I was talking about, rather than boxes of categories.
I have found it useful, I'm curious if others do - and if Damion still sees it as a valid lens for understanding MMOs, of if the triangle has become another polygon or has a new item/s at an apex/es?
Talk about open space--there is a ton in that sweet spot in the middle...
Posted Aug 29, 2005 4:04:49 PM | link
Galiel>1) people are interdisciplinary and holistic. If you design for people, it makes sense to design for how people really are.<
That seems a bit simplistic itself. Individual humans can be viewed as coherent, holistic entities. But they can also usefully be viewed as a collection of semi-independent sub entities the compete and cooperate to produce behaviour. In some contexts, one subsystem dominates, and in other contexts another. So dividing virtual worlds by which sub systems are likely to dominate seems useful to me. Always modeling humans as a holistic system can be misleading in itself.
Often when discussing Virtual worlds, we are discussing group behaviour, and group behaviour can be quite predictable where individual behaviour isn't. Looking at a group behaviour from the point of view of an individual can I think be misleading. For example, individual Americans have the freedom to vote for whoever they want for Congress. But in practice, the great majority of congressional seats have a predictable result, because the boundaries are gerrymandered to produce a predictable result. In as sense, most American voters are "disenfranchised" at the group level because of the way the voting system is structured. Each individual has a vote, but the system structure ensures changing that vote has probably no effect. Hence the overall election result is determined by “swing” states and districts, and most of the party effort is directed there.
To my mind, a big common thread in TN discussions is “What system structures predictably promote what behaviours?”. This is where Ren’s proposed world types could be useful. And I do like the categorization by identity, it does seem to be a feature that modifies group behaviour. So I would rate it as potentially useful.
I’m very much in agreement with the idea that our society missuses categories. I think it comes from a basic brain feature that attempts to chop any situation into “fight or flight”. Very useful when we were faced with problems that gave us a split second to jump to an answer. But dysfunctional when discussion the complex, probabilistic problems of our modern society. English seems to lack to tools to talk quantitatively about the degree to which categories overlap, or apply to a particular case. There isn't an agreed metric for defining how much a ludic world is also a social world, to use an example from Ren’s categories. But that is a much more general problem than VW discussions. In the meantime, I do think I got something from holding Ren’s template up to my own world design efforts.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 4:19:05 PM | link
There isn't an agreed metric for defining how much a ludic world is also a social world, to use an example from Ren’s categories.
There would be, if we thought in terms of non-exclusive characteristics, and then evaluated a virtual world in terms of its position relative to all of them, as in Schubert's Triangle or in my flag-pole example.
No one seems to have taken up that part of the discussion, rather than the "Categories: Thumbs Up Or Thumbs Down" simplification.
There may be a way to enjoy the benefits of taxonomy without the drawbacks of segmentation. I suggested one, I'm sure there are others.
It is always interesting to me how much more traffic the binary discussions draw vs. the holistic discussions. There is such a strong bias for "OR" rather than "AND".
Posted Aug 29, 2005 4:32:27 PM | link
galiel>much of your critique seems rooted in a theoretical notion that assumes the best and noblest of world developers
Well yes. That's because I don't have a theory of world developers, so I go with the ideal.
>It is just more of the "benevolent dictator" model which so dominates MMO design these days.
So? You say that as if it were a bad thing?
>In reality, I see your player type categorization abused all the times
Yes, so do I. However, except in the case of a really high-class designer who knows exactly what they want and how to get it, I think the results of using the theory (even badly) means we get better virtual worlds than we would if we didn't use them at all. Remember that before this player types model came along, the default was for designers to design virtual worlds for themselves, ie. ones that they would like to play (irrespective of whether anyone else would).
>I have similar fears with regard to this taxonomy.
How come? It looks fairly benign to me, and it isn't aimed at designers anyway.
>As for "which interdisciplinary, holistic approach," a) I have talked about this often in various Terra Nova discussions
Can you point me at some? Google doesn't able to find your use of the word holistic on Terra Nova outside this thread.
>b) the question assumes that there is one correct answer, and that I think I possess it.
Well, it assumes that there is a correct answer, and it encourages you to suggest what it might be rather than merely posit its existence.
>This is still a top-down, benevolent dictator model, one to which I don't subscribe.
Uh? No it's not. I was asking you to outline an interdisciplinary, holistic approach; I wasn't asking you to implement one. Merely describing how such an approach might work doesn't place you in the role of benevolent dictator.
>So, practically speaking, where do we start? We start with a basic faith in democracy and a trust in the collective wisdom of crowds
From there, we rapidly become tyrannical in our defence of democracy in the face of concerted attacks from people who want to ruin our virtual world just for the hell of it, and we transfer our basic faith in the wisdom of crowds to a basic faith in the wisdom of the opinion-formers who rabble-rouse those crowds.
The problem is, we don't have an army. In the real world, if people abuse a democracy then ultimately we can stop them doing so because we have an army and they don't. Within a virtual world, we have better than an army, but outside of it we have to rely on someone else's army to stop people from abusing our in-world democracy. The worst we can ever do to someone is ban them, and keep banning them when they come back with a different credit card until eventually they grow tired and find some other virtual world to spoil instead.
I thought I was idealistic about virtual worlds!
>there is little point in a discussion about the actual implementation of a system today's developers don't even acknowledge as legitimate
They don't acknowledge it as legitimate now, but that isn't to say they wouldn't acknowledge it as legitimate if they saw the arguments. Thus, there is a point in dicussing it.
>despite the fact that there are examples of its success all over the place, online and off, just not in commercial games.
Are there examples of it in any game-like situations? Could it be that there is something about games that make it untenable, or at least more difficult to maintain?
>If one starts out designing worlds with as negative a view of both human nature and the prospects for democracy as is universally the case in today's commercial MMO companies, is it really any surprise that categories are abused as descrete shortcuts rather than as illuminating ways to look at tendencies and overlapping trends?
It's not a surprise, no. However, we didn't reach this point by starting out that way: we started out viewing virtual worlds as places where like-minded people could play together in a shared, imaginary world. It was only through long, hard, painful experience that we got to where we are today, human nature having demonstrated a sufficiently negative side to itself to thwart most of our early idealistic hopes. I think it's still possible to have a virtual world of the kind you envisage, but only by keeping each instantiation of it relatively small and by imposing draconian constraints on anyone who undermines the principles upon which it is founded.
Virtual world developers are dictators (benevolent or otherwise) because they have no choice. They are de facto gods of their virtual worlds whether they like it or not, and any attempt to shift power to the players is only going to last so long as the players behave in a manner that the gods find acceptable.
>even the most brilliant and insightful technical whizes are often clueless about social design and management.
I agree. Then again, even the most brilliant and insightful social scientists are often clueless about how to implement their ideas, or how to react if those ideas are subverted.
>In fact, social architecture/anticipatory design are legitimate disciplines that attempt to apply an empirical, pragmatic approach to design and governance.
They're legitimate, but that doesn't mean you'll get decent virtual worlds as a result. It doesn't mean you won't, of course, but the pain of getting to the ideal, planned community mitigates against them.
>Democracy just works better with people.
It doesn't work better with art, though. A book by a single, accomplished author is always going to be better than a book that emerges from the interactions of ten thousand readers. Virtual worlds design is art, and as with books I would indeed say that one accomplished designer can create a better world than ten thousand players. Now it may be that the designer is designing some open-ended, emerging-content world that will empower players and enable them to fulfil their true potential etc., but that world still has to be designed, and the people who own the hardware are still deities for it.
>a democratic, empowering approach is cheaper, more sustainable, and "better" from every perspective except, perhaps, developer ego.
It's just too easy to take down from within. An organised group of players of sufficient size can seize democratic control and use whatever "empowerments" you've given them to make life a misery for everyone else. What's more, they'll do it for fun. How are you going to stop them? Wave social norms at them and embarrass them into going away?
Richard
Posted Aug 29, 2005 4:33:26 PM | link
Scott Jennings> I've found that most game designers are actually liberal in political orientation if not hard core left-wing.
Heh. I said the same thing in the Diversity Among Designers thread here on TN a while back, but I don't think I persuaded anyone.
Raph> I like taxonomies, particularly ones that offer axes where there's lots of open space. Identifying what's been done often prompts recognition of what has NOT been done.
Drat -- I was just about to say exactly that. Should have known Raph would beat me to it. *g*
So instead let me add: This is why we create taxonomies. Not because we truly believe that some division perfectly describes reality, but because it can be a useful way to identify which spaces are underexplored.
There's room for both reductionism and holism in the process of understanding systems.
Breaking down complex systems down into key functional groups of parts can illuminate what works well and what doesn't. Whether it's a clockwork or a car or a mind or a virtual world, trying to understand it by reducing it to its core components can be an effective approach. The fact that a bad reduction can be misleading doesn't mean that reductionism is always fatally flawed -- it means you have to be careful in how you categorize, in how you group systems, to choose as your axes those subsystems that exercise the most control over the whole system.
But of course there's a place for holistic thinking, too -- sometimes a thing really is something more than just the sum of its parts. Just banging together a bunch of gears won't create a clockwork, any more than banging together a bunch of neurons will generate a mind or banging together a bunch of words will produce a Hamlet. Trying to understand a whole thing requires more than just looking at its parts. For a sufficiently complex system, no amount of studing a collection of parts will allow you to know the behavior of the whole thing in action. Why didn't we get people out of Hurricane Katrina's way sooner? Because complex systems can't be understood solely by understanding their subunits.
As finite, fallible humans, we desperately need both reductionism and holism as processes for trying to understand our world. It's important to recognize the value of both of these approaches, to appreciate their advantages when used well and their dangers when misapplied, and then employ both as appropriate.
In this case, it takes nothing away from a holistic understanding of virtual worlds (especially with respect to their interactions with real-world law) to propose a reductionistic model for study. As long we know to try both ways of looking at these complex systems, each approach will benefit from what we learn through the other approach. The conclusions we draw from using ren's proposed taxonomy (and from beating it like a rented mule to see if maybe there's a better taxonomy) will give us more information that we can use to better understand virtual worlds and legal codes as two complex systems that interact as parts of a yet larger system of human expression.
--Bart
Posted Aug 29, 2005 4:40:47 PM | link
I've found that most game designers are actually liberal in political orientation if not hard core left-wing.
Yeah, and the media are all bleeding-heart liberals, too. Right?
Posted Aug 29, 2005 4:54:24 PM | link
Beats me. I don't go to lunch with the media. I only commented on what I know personally!
Posted Aug 29, 2005 6:38:21 PM | link
i am a strong proponent of classifications. if you can't differentiate, you will never be able to take any actions, make any decisions...
boxes may be contrived, but facilitate mental manipulation of large concepts. clear examples of artificial, but necessary, boxes include the boxes for "freedom," "blue," and "FPS," for example.
the four worlds theory could work, but from what i gather, i see it more as a path of world evolution. one axis. the sliding scales commented earlier make sense. lots of fuzzy gray areas between one stage to the next, just like the fuzzy stages between hunter-gatherer, agrarian, and industrial societies...
and as for the "interdisciplinary, holistic approach is best," "universal truths... enjoyed across traditional market-segment boundaries" philosophy:
without rebutting each bullet point individually, the current market is proof that derivative works will win, because people want gradual evolution, not revolution, and that cross-market games will always fail.
unpopular revolutions will always fail, and "everything and the kitchen sink" design has only worked for the swiss army knife.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 7:32:53 PM | link
The problem is, we don't have an army. In the real world, if people abuse a democracy then ultimately we can stop them doing so because we have an army and they don't.
Sigh. More of the "civilization eminates from the barrel of a gun" doctrine. Since this has the force of dogma, it is immune to both logical and empirical refutation.
And then you compare virtual world design and governance to writing a book...
Posted Aug 29, 2005 7:58:53 PM | link
The current market is only proof of the current design.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 7:59:50 PM | link
Or, as Raph says, in the "Deflation in Wow" thread:
I tend to agree...that the greed is the central motivation explored by developers; the altruistic or communitarian behaviors tend not to get recognized by the game code and often not by the community team either.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 8:15:08 PM | link
Yes, I do still find Damion's triangle useful. Then again, I tend to see all taxonomies, including those usually considered to be truly binary, as actually defining points on a line, plane, or multidimensional space. :)
GNS theory (Gamist-Narrativist-Simulationist) from pen & paper RPGing is also a useful lens.
I also like (of course) the 9-way lens that I put into the book, but actually introduced in a MUD-Dev post years ago.
Mike Rozak's recent pyramid of motivations is also an interesting one.
All of these can be useful to designers, just as this model proposed here might be useful if the axes can be pinned down. One thing that usually bugs me about ersatz models is that they start by identifying an end goal for the model (here, world types) rather than identifying axes of variance first. This one feels like it started from the wrong end to some degree. The changes in value between the boxes seem to me to be on multiple dimensions at once. In model-building, to me, that's a no-no. Change one variable at a time. :)
Posted Aug 29, 2005 8:48:18 PM | link
Richard Bartle wrote:
"It doesn't work better with art, though. A book by a single, accomplished author is always going to be better than a book that emerges from the interactions of ten thousand readers."
Sure, but are games more comparable to novels (which are by and large the product of a single individual) or something like movies (collaborative works involving many, many people)?
"It's just too easy to take down from within. An organised group of players of sufficient size can seize democratic control and use whatever "empowerments" you've given them to make life a misery for everyone else. What's more, they'll do it for fun. How are you going to stop them? Wave social norms at them and embarrass them into going away?"
The question then is what motivates people in the real world to form democracies, as compared to dictatorships? I'm not sure what the answer would be, but surely virtual worlds are one of the arenas where that question could be explored in a more thorough fashion than mere thought experiments.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 8:48:31 PM | link
Mike Rozak's recent pyramid of motivations is also an interesting one.
This one was new to me. Thanks, Raph, as usual your short but pithy posts contain new food for thought.
------
Incidentally, all, I'd like to apologize for a rather, um, contentious tone of late. I'll try to be more constructive (and ignore the frequent bait...).
After all, I only post here, and read here (not in that order), because Terra Nova seeks to break new ground in our understanding of our field.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 9:14:21 PM | link
I don't find that constructing a taxonomy of virtual spaces by degrees of anonymity lends to a greater understanding in the discussion of online legalities; it may even complicate it.
Firstly, actual law trumps all, which is based on jurisdiction - local, provincial, national, and international. From this perspective, there is no such thing as anonymity in a virtual medium - only resolved and unresolved cases of illegal activity. For example, illegal activity, even in a so-called ludic world, can be acted upon by authority, whether public or private, from system administration to ISP to an actual law enforcement division regardless of the degree of _implied anonymity_.
Secondly, most of what is discussed is based on private, rather than public, forums regardless of the so-called type of world. In private forums there are obligations of access which are agreed to prior to access such as end-user license agreements.
With this, the end-user is bound by two legal systems - actual law and contractual obligations of access.
The only time the three-world categories would come into play is when attempting to describe _further_ restrictions on the user bases, patterns of structure in access contracts, or cultural norms qualified by the categories. Although, such restrictions may neither have anonymity as the only factor nor as a factor at all. I would more review such divisions as categories of function rather than anonymity. It may be the function which requires the degree of anonymity, rather than the other way around.
Discussions of rights, such as freedom of speech become moot in a private forum. There is no freedom of speech guaranteed in private forums. Even in public forums, free speech has many limitations. As private forums are deemed equivalent to properties, it is public law and the property owner that deems acceptable use.
If free speech is required in such private forums online, those rights should be enumerated contractually prior to access, regardless of degrees of anonymity. If it was essential, should it not be an essential market influence as well? That is, if consumers found that such essential rights were violated by the current market, would it not stand as a market opportunity? If it is not such a market opportunity, is it not essential?
Further, it is interesting you divide along lines of degrees of anonymity as you also place forward an example of freedom of speech, as those two particular subjects are related. Anonymity is a factor in freedom of speech which can affect how comfortable one may be exercising such freedoms regardless of the degree of freedom or functional domain because such exercise occurs in a public domain. For example, in the actual world, one may wear a mask when legally demonstrating, or place forth a realistic sounding but entirely fictional pseudonym in forums requiring a name. Such activity may not be illegal, but anonymity provides a firewall for leisure abuse of such rights. But, anonymity is also a factor which can hamper law enforcement; that is, committing a crime that is difficult to track to the criminal's identity. Thusly, true anonymity becomes a guarantor of both freedom and crime, both enumerated by law, but only because it provides the opportunity to operate both beyond the law, and beyond cultural norms. In this way, anonymity is a special condition of law, but not central to divisions in law, as your taxonomy implies.
Finally, in all categories, there can exist multiple and simultaneous identities, and the main factor becomes privacy or functional anonymity (e.g. character identities) in particular domains. For example, access to a forum may require a verifiable identity, whereas activity within the forum could allow for absolute anonymity; absolute only within the forum. This same property can exist within all categories. In Ludic, one can be known to the operators of the forum, but anonymous to the users of the forum. Even in the civil, as anonymous operating between enterprises, but having a particular unique verifiable identity within each enterprise relationship. Thus, layers of varying identities can be established for each world, from anonymous to genuine.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 9:29:39 PM | link
Another useful taxonomy might be Yochai Benkler's in re: economic production.
The two traditional, profit-driven economic structures, originally identified by Coase:
1) Employees in hierarchies, following manager directions;
2) Individuals in markets, following price signals;
And a previously unaccounted, value-driven transaction medium:
3) Commons-based peer-production, fueled by a diversity of motivations and social signals.
The first two have obvious mappings in current MMO designs and governance. I'm not sure the third does, yet.
Posted Aug 29, 2005 10:05:20 PM | link
lwey>Sure, but are games more comparable to novels (which are by and large the product of a single individual) or something like movies (collaborative works involving many, many people)?
They're more like movies. That said, a movie directed by one accomplished individual is always going to be better than a movie directed by ten thousand movie critics.
>The question then is what motivates people in the real world to form democracies, as compared to dictatorships?
No, the question is how people who form such democracies defend their democratic ideals from those who wish to undermine them.
Democracy is a great organising principle for real-world countries (although we don't as yet have anything akin to "full" democracy, whereby every governmental decision was made by plebecite). I'm not complaining about democracy as a concept. What I'm complaining about is the inability of virtual worlds to defend themselves from anti-democratic players.
>I'm not sure what the answer would be, but surely virtual worlds are one of the arenas where that question could be explored in a more thorough fashion than mere thought experiments.
It certainly could. It has, as galiel alluded, been tried in one famous case (LambdaMOO) where it failed because of an inadequate "constitution" and the inability of the programmers to give up their world-altering powers even though they wanted to.
I presented a paper that touched on this topic at the Command Lines conference in Milwaukee in April, but they haven't published it yet. In it, I described four ways that virtual worlds have traditionally been ruled in the past, and outlined a fifth that has not yet been attempted on any large scale but which could conceivably work. Here it is:
5. Co-operative of gods. The players are the developers. The virtual world is run as a co-operative. Players vote for their gods (as opposed to voting against them by changing their allegiance to some other virtual world). Real-world contract law is used to frame the electoral system, its appeals procedures and so on, giving it an effective written constitution.
This approach isn't without its own problems, of course, but it could well succeed (more probably for social worlds rather than game-like worlds).
Richard
Posted Aug 30, 2005 2:18:39 AM | link
Raph > One thing that usually bugs me about ersatz models is that they start by identifying an end goal for the model (here, world types) rather than identifying axes of variance first.
Not sure that it’s useful but I can say what the origin of my model was. So, v quickly it was like this:
It started because some years ago I personally felt a simple property description of an avatar did adequately describe what I felt about it. I then started to think about what we mean by identity and dig back into the philosophy or it and the law of it (including laws about the body, organ donation and rights of publicity which concern the commoditisation of persona). So some t