Judging worlds
Both Alice and Cory happen to have noted the "review" of social worlds over at Second Life Games, so Onder is getting quite a lot of play over his view of significant social worlds. Leaving aside the odd choice of worlds that he chooses to discuss, I am weirded out by his criteria of assessment:
"Since these are entirely formed from my little brain, we’ll call them “Onder’s Big Three”. They are:
- Cash transactions must be easy and readily accommodated flowing both into and out from the system.
- Users must be able to create unique content and retain some form of ownership over it.
- The fabric of the world itself must be possible to affect. IE: land ownership, room decoration, or some other content that remains viable even when the player who created it is logged off. (”Pervasive” is the word I’m groping for here…)"
Since I've been in a bad mood for about the last 4 weeks, I hope that Onder will forgive me for suggesting that these three criteria are actually pulled from his arse and not his brain. Well, actually I don't care whether he forgives me or not, coz these are close to the stupidest criteria that I can conceive of to assess social worlds. I mean, why exactly should the ability to engage in cash transactions be a relevant criterion for success in VWs? Coz we think that more worlds should be just like Project Entropia? Yeah, that makes perfect sense. The requirement that the world have user-generated content makes a little more sense I guess, as long as you're a huge fan of poor design, sexual-content, and the tyranny of libertarianism in social spaces. Oh and I love the fact that the users have to have "ownership" of the stuff they create, because, well, private property in non-scarce resources is absolutely vital to its generation since human beings would never produce stuff except if they are given economic incentives to create (pace Wikipedia, ohmynews, open source software, blogs, game mods, etc etc). And I have no idea what Onder actually means by the last criterion. It seems to mean that VWs should be persistent; which, last time I checked, was a definitional requirement of them being worlds in the first place.
Anyway, so we've all just discovered that I'm in a pissy mood and maybe that Onder's criteria aren't exactly tremendously helpful at making any judgment about VWs. So my question is what would be interesting or useful criteria for judging social worlds? (Let's leave aside game/competitive worlds for a bit, coz they have special success conditions. And I promise to try to be less snarky in the comments field, although, I'll be honest, I'm not promising anything. I really am in a deeply shitty mood.)
Posted by Dan Hunter on March 9, 2007 | Permalink
« Next installment on virtual worlds history... | Main | Whither MMO? »
TrackBack
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.typepad.com/t/trackback/5074/16722326
Listed below are links to weblogs that reference Judging worlds:
» Customization and virtual worlds from Population of One
Following Dan Hunters snarky comments on Onder Skalls description of what constitutes a virtual world, or rather some of the comments responding to Dans criticism, and an article I read (oops, forgot where) in which the author desc... [Read More]
Tracked on Mar 15, 2007 8:25:59 AM
» Shopping For Virtual Worlds from The Meshverse Journal
Although Second Life clearly isnt fading away any time soon, corporate interest is broadening. Analysts such as Joe Laszlo of JupiterResearch predict virtual worlds are poised to become the next hot Web acquisitions for big media companies.Busin... [Read More]
Tracked on Jun 8, 2007 8:31:18 AM
Comments
Dan,
I agree with your criticism of Big Three point 1.
In fact, at a stretch, an internet banking account satisfies points 1, 2 and maybe even 3.
Hmm do you mean social worlds or virtual worlds or virtual social worlds (not exactly the same)? I note he does not give any criteria for the social..?
I'd have to ask though, do you want something descriptive or prescriptive? Ie a virtual world as one can clearly see from current examples? Or (I guess you mean this), the virtual worlds that really do *world*, ie in order to be virtual worlds, they have to satisfy x criteria?
Posted Mar 9, 2007 7:45:42 AM | link
Onder's Big Three equate to "VWs must be Second Life" from the look of it.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 8:45:06 AM | link
I'm not really all that interested in justifying myself here, to be honest. It's my blog, and my opinion. There's no pretense to anything else.
I slapped all this info together in my spare time. I didn't even proofread it. I didn't even draw a conclusion at the end.
The fact that you feel it's so important that it's worthy of discussion at Terra Nova is, in my opinion, a terrible shame. Why in the world isn't this kind of comparative review done on a regular basis?
I guess the only other comment I'd add is that I'm baffled by your dismissal of a real-world economy as something that makes Second Life unique. Real-world economies make it possible for entrepreneurs to work in that world. It means that people can work from home instead of going out and getting some lame job. It's a huge thing that changes the way people live. Why in the world would you dismiss that?
Also, I think you should ask Second Life's residents if they feel "ownership" is important. From the sounds of it, you might be a bit surprised.
Oh crap... I'm starting to try to justify myself. Exiting debate mode... *shudder*
Hope you feel better soon! :-)
Posted Mar 9, 2007 8:47:21 AM | link
Go, Onder!
Your "big three" were brilliant. They are *exactly* what everyone is looking for when they look for worlds, and they are exactly the right filter to use to look at some of these big new pretenders to the crown of Second Life clone out there now, like Outback and Sony's Home.
Home, for example, only has one of the three, changing their world and leaving behind something persistent in the form of rearranged company content and your uploaded clips. But it sounds like other than being able to upload movies or music, you can't put user-made PSP-type of content into that world, and there don't seem to be interactions to buy and sell and make an economy in the world.
I think the bastion of academe in general, which has a good deal of Marxism melded into it, and this one in particular, finds really, really distasteful, is that ordinary people really like economies involving buying and selling for a profit. That's why they work hard to get WoW gold or build up SL real estate empires. You can't seem to engineer that out of them, even though leftist game-gods and theorists would love to be able to do that and make people all play "serious games" and become socialist utopians.
Real people in the real world reject that kind of lunacy, and they want to play store, on a continuum of virtual to very real. It just can't be bred out of them. It's one of the rationalities of virtual worlds that helps them become less hopelessly virtual.
You also can't seem to engineer out of people the desire not to have the game-gods provide all the content, and tell them what to do. Oh, to be sure, there are people who want a pre-fabbed game with game-god content and instructions and rote skilling and questing. But even within that, people make an economy and drive toward user content in spite of the game-gods.
Is this a blanket, sweeping generalization about academics in general and in particular on this page? Oh, yes, that's indeed what it is, even if some, like Thomas Malaby, have tried to establish their credentials as critical of kneejerk Marxism. Is this an ad hominem attack? Um, so...this post by a credentialed member of TN isn't one??? It's really a very poor showing; it indicates that this collection of "associate professors" and such are willing to attack viciously anybody who begins to get a hearing outside their Ivory Tower.
I think a TN author hazing you like this, Onder, is proof of how unsettled and insecure they are that the big conversations about the Metaverse just aren't happening on their own pages; or at least sometimes happening, but without them winning the arguments, or even being the slightest bit persuasive (as they sure weren't on metrics to measure SL; on voice; on emergent gameplay; on any number of topics in the last year).
I've become more and more convinced of this -- and it's sad, really, because one expects a concentration of eggheads around the theme of games not to be hopelessly mired in games circa 1990 or earlier, but to step up and realize that their games are now very pervasive into real life everywhere in the forum of the emerging 3-D Internet. They were the first to glimpse this; why are they falling behind now in being willing to think and talk about this with far more open minds?
Perhaps you aren't an "expert" or a RL credentialed egghead, Onder, but your reviews of games in and out of SL has given you credibility and a following, and people around SL read your Herald contributions with interest. Don't let people worried about their tenture, real or imagined, RL or in synthetic worlds, get you down.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 9:06:27 AM | link
I only bothered to reaed up to "ordinary people really like economies involving buying and selling for a profit." because life's too damn short to wade through drivel (unless you're an academic, which i only do two days a month).
But really, it is drivel. And the "Big 3" is not any useful form of yardstick. The thing about WoW, Prok, is that far less than one million of those eight million ever cash out. And the thing about SL is that, as Randolfe showed, it's almost impossible to cash out on any scale even if you want to. Anshe Chung's virtual millions are just that - virtual. They can't become real.
While i respect Onder's right to his opinion and blog, commentary elsewhere is a part of blogs are for. Except for yours, of course, which is limited to SL cultists. I wish you'd post those these essays on my blog so i could edit them at my evil whim while my wife watches hospital dramas.
A communications medium does not need a currency. A communications medium does not need ownership of property or ideas beyond the name the users go by - or number in the case of telephone networks.
A Virtual World can only be defined by two things.
1. Is it virtual? If you switch it off, does it exist?
2. Does it meet the definitions of a "world" in any or every other sense?
If you believe that "worldiness" is defined by property, i'm very glad i don't know you.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 9:50:48 AM | link
The key words in the post are "Alternitives to Second Life", not "things that make great virtual worlds". In other words, Philip Linden keeps claiming that there are no real competitors to Second Life as of yet and the question might be phrased as "Is there somewhere else I would rather go for my Second Life-ish desires?" Judging the list and criteria by any other standard is silly.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 9:59:13 AM | link
Those three criteria were proposed by the author to be used for judging alternatives to Second Life. As someone who hasn't even played SL (I prefer gamey worlds), but read about it here (and there), those three standards did scream 'SL!' to me when I first read them, so I'd suggest that they're quite good for that purpose.
For generally judging virtual social worlds, I agree they lack a lot. But that doesn't seem to be what they were meant for?
Posted Mar 9, 2007 10:08:51 AM | link
Bad mood indeed! Granted the criteria Onder used does not represent a 'Turing' test for what constitutes a virtual world, but at the very least he has spawned a very intriguing discussion.
Whether any of the social worlds mentioned currently fit the bill or not is immaterial from my perspective. Similar to other technology paradigm shifts in the past, the best outcome we can hope to see from this is the proliferation (10 or more maybe?) of different social/virtual worlds battle for dominance and market share over the next 5 years. Then we will be left with a few top contenders who constantly try to one-up each other with technology enhancements.
My favored contender would always be the one with the open-sourced model. I hate to thank of a future where all content is produced by Sony and its affiliates.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 10:12:06 AM | link
For me, some useful yardsticks might be:
1. IDENTITY: How fine grained is your control over the appearance of your avatar, your digital representation of yourself?
2. INTERACTIVITY: In what forms can you interact with other players / residents? I.e. chat, IM, voice, hitting each other with blunt objects.
3. NETWORKING: Does the platform facilitate social networks, communities, small group interactions?
Posted Mar 9, 2007 10:15:34 AM | link
I'm pretty shocked by the immaturity of your post Dan.
Also, I think I counted that you used 'coz' a total of 3 times! Seriously, if I wanted to read something that looks and reads like the whinings of a pre-teen I would go to myspace.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 10:21:20 AM | link
Just thinking about those three, do ebay and amazon count as meeting all three criteria? Arguably they do, I think we are running into the same problem of definition that led to one of my favorite quotes from the online community days.
Though investigations of community computing are not common in HCI, the term ‘community’ has become a pervasive mantra.. . . I believe the popularity of the term reflects a desire on the part of many HCI professionals to participate in and contribute to more meaningful social interchange. The term is also clearly now just a buzzword: the collection of people who have recently ordered a pair of socks from the same web site is a rather impoverished example of community. (Carroll, 2001, p. 308)
There are dozens of examples of physical social worlds that do not involve the liquid exchange of capital. Participants spend hours in churches, sporting clubs, and volunteer groups. I'm not saying these three are not important. But I don't think you can really evaluate "social worlds" in any medium or context without looking at social networks, norms, and communities.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 10:37:04 AM | link
Profky Neva: Your "big three" were brilliant. They are *exactly* what everyone is looking for when they look for worlds, and they are exactly the right filter to use to look at some of these big new pretenders to the crown of Second Life clone out there now, like Outback and Sony's Home.
Everyone? I don't join online communities looking for a way to spend my rather scarce spare cash. I join online communities that provide positive support and communication with people who share similar interests.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 10:43:03 AM | link
To perceive the criteria for judging the efficacy of any on line world by only three criteria really exculdes a large number of people as well as worlds that offer many other kinds of opportunities. Some of these are social interaction, ease of use, technical support, cost to join, variety of play opportunites within the virtuality, levels of difficulty of front end-that is can one go deep within the front end to explore operations, open code, customer support etc. etc. etc.
I think if you just examine your choices using these three criteria you exclude the many other reasons and needs that people have which certainly do not condense down to capital exchange, longevity of effected change in the environment, or creation tools.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 11:27:02 AM | link
Elle Pollack, Indy - Thank you for making the point I had forgotten to make myself - that this was a comparison to SL, not WoW. The blog is called "Second Life Games".
KirkJobSluder – That is a fascinating comparison! I wonder what would happen if Amazon or eBay were to incorporate even more social tools - making public customer / vendor profiles more detailed and customizable, for instance, or having a chat window open next to every product. I can’t be the first one to ask that question though. Is there a place we can look to explore that idea more?
Prokofy Neva - That was really very nice of you, thank you. Academics have the same tendency as everybody else: they see things filtered through what they are currently interested in. This particular issue (Second Life, specifically) doesn't seem to interest him. Joke's on him though... putting up a big sign with an arrow pointing at something and saying: "This isn't interesting" doesn't always get the desired effect.
I won't take it personally but this is why I tend to avoid engaging in academia ... ugly, ugly stuff. No sense of wonder, no regard for desire, no yearning, no longing, just… analysis. It’s a useful perspective, but when involving human subjects always seems to be dissatisfactory (to me) on some level.
Still, Prok, I genuinely needed to hear something kind and you stepped up. Greatly appreciated; you seriously changed my whole day!
Posted Mar 9, 2007 11:38:55 AM | link
>I only bothered to reaed up to "ordinary people really like economies involving buying and selling for a profit." because life's too damn short to wade through drivel (unless you're an academic, which i only do two days a month).
Then perhaps you are a) a non-ordinary people, not one of the many normal people in the world who buy and sell in RL and expect it in games and worlds, too b) are a member of a tiny sect of Marxian or utopian academics. If you're something else, let's hear it!
>But really, it is drivel. And the "Big 3" is not any useful form of yardstick. The thing about WoW, Prok, is that far less than one million of those eight million ever cash out.
Who said economies have to involve RMT and cashing out? Duh. I said "buy and sell". They may be content to stay in the world and buy and sell. But every single major game in the universe now has currency, people hoarding it, people getting it to buy stuff that levels them up, people then even selling it on third-party sites. My God, doesn't that tell you everything? Or did you think everybody's supposed to play some UN-created game about water rights in the third-world? Good luck with that.
>And the thing about SL is that, as Randolfe showed, it's almost impossible to cash out on any scale even if you want to.
I cash out every month *shrugs*. It's very curious what he's done. He's made an accurate critique of SL as a place that is not a good investor if you are looking for *financial investment* i.e. a stock, a money-market, a hedge fund. Trying to play the LindEx is no better an "investment" than trying to buy, I dunno, the currency of Belarus.
But it is an economy where profit can be made and where people really enjoy making even a mere $15 US in gas money a month,or merely enough to pay for the Internet bill. And that's important, because it's growing and scaling.
>Anshe Chung's virtual millions are just that - virtual. They can't become real.
You haven't understood the basics of the economy or Anshe's business model if you think something silly like that. Each money, Anshe Chung takes out of the "game of Second Life" in hard, cold, real US cash AT LEAST the following amount: US $102,500 on PayPal, completely free of "virtual assets". Don't confuse the fact that virtual assets purchased stay in world with the fact that you can make a profit from renting, selling, or developing activities on that, then take the profit out and convert it legally through the Lindex to a PayPal deposit. Go and study up more on SL to get your story straight here.
>While i respect Onder's right to his opinion and blog, commentary elsewhere is a part of blogs are for.
Um, are you on drugs?! Seriously, this is totally messed up. This total asshole named Dan Hunter gets up on the wrong side of the bed, and takes a big long piss on Onder Skall completely unprovoked. Dan *raises Onder's blog here and its coverage -- what, Onder can't comment back, none of us can comment back, we have to just watch in puzzled amazement???
Onder *was* on his own blog DUH. He also happened to reprint in the Herald, and that got him more readership, and Alice and such picked it up and commented positively.
And that's why your pal Dan is jealous and out of sorts. He can't BEAR the fact that he didn't control, shape, or get in on this discussion about "how do you define virtual worlds." It happened without him, the train left the station. So he, unprovoked, did a smackdown of this guy who just printed a rather informal commentary to get a discussion going -- a *free and open and interesting discussion* UNLIKE WHAT TERRA NOVA HAS BECOME, hobbled by raving asstards and beligerent orthodox nigglers.
>Except for yours, of course, which is limited to SL cultists. I wish you'd post those these essays on my blog so i could edit them at my evil whim while my wife watches hospital dramas.
Do whatever on your blog, champ, hey, it's the Internet, the field is open.
>A communications medium does not need a currency. A communications medium does not need ownership of property or ideas beyond the name the users go by - or number in the case of telephone networks.
Oh? Well, um...who will pay for said communication media then? Internet sites have subscription and bandwidth fees they pay and they put things for sale on them. Marketing through the Internet of real-life perishable and non-perishable goods is part of what sustains the Internet.
Or do you imagine the Internet just to be a lot of geeks holding hands and singing Kumbayah while they program and code?
>A Virtual World can only be defined by two things.
Oh? Says who?
>1. Is it virtual? If you switch it off, does it exist?
But that's exactly what Onder has said by talking about persistence, and whether the stuff you make is still there when you log on again or whether it is swept away. People so want to make user content that their "emergent gameplay" in a fixed set of stuff like WoW will even do things like kill a character and leave him dead and un revived as a kind of "monument". There's even a dead "Prokofy Neva" WoW character that has been left on the plains of something-or-other which I didn't make, some kind of wierd commentary on me -- fun, eh?
>2. Does it meet the definitions of a "world" in any or every other sense?
Well, people argue a lot about what world means! And what basic argument is:
1. Should we have communism? Most vote "no" in real and virtual.
2. Should we have capitalism? Most vote "yes" and proceed to bring it about.
If you are in the sectarian minority of 1), well, make your own game and find a rich philanthropist to fund it?
>If you believe that "worldiness" is defined by property, i'm very glad i don't know you.
Well, know the millions of other people on the Internet and in games and worlds who want property?
Social sites may not have property; what could I get from a social site like Digg or Twitter except a t-shirt or a mug?
But worlds with continuity, persistence, virtuality are places where people want to BE. And wherever people want to BE, a market, buying and selling, and economy appears -- and that's ok.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 12:15:48 PM | link
>To perceive the criteria for judging the efficacy of any on line world by only three criteria really exculdes a large number of people as well as worlds that offer many other kinds of opportunities. Some of these are social interaction, ease of use, technical support, cost to join, variety of play opportunites within the virtuality, levels of difficulty of front end-that is can one go deep within the front end to explore operations, open code, customer support etc. etc. etc.
>I think if you just examine your choices using these three criteria you exclude the many other reasons and needs that people have which certainly do not condense down to capital exchange, longevity of effected change in the environment, or creation tools.
And then what you'll find is a handful of "serious games" designed to force-feed you propaganda about "OMGODZORZ oil companies are evil 1111" or games of intricate fantasy or skill that somehow don't even have a game currency.
Examples, please?
Capitalism makes the world go round. Socialism, especially communism, kills the world. We've got lots of examples of that from real life now. Virtual life, too.
Anybody up for a rousing game of umm....Sociolotron? they don't have user content or game currency and they're uh...so much fun! How about a really pippin' session in...uh...Restaurant? Hope you like Mouselook!
Posted Mar 9, 2007 12:19:01 PM | link
Academics have the same tendency as everybody else: they see things filtered through what they are currently interested in.
What's surprising is how you view SL to be the benchmark against which all should be compared, and then accuse Dan (and dissenters) of seeing things through filters ... I'm not saying they aren't approaching this from an academic standpoint (and they should be doing so) but you might want to take off your own blinders first. The question I would like to see you answer:
Why are all your criteria necessary?
Posted Mar 9, 2007 12:39:10 PM | link
Prokofy Nevka: Well, know the millions of other people on the Internet and in games and worlds who want property?
Social sites may not have property; what could I get from a social site like Digg or Twitter except a t-shirt or a mug?
Interestingly, the sites that offer little "property" beyond a profile and a place to leave your mark on the wall are not only larger than Second Life by a few orders of magnitude, they are growing faster than Second Life.
Capitalism makes the world go round. Socialism, especially communism, kills the world. We've got lots of examples of that from real life now. Virtual life, too.
Ohhh, for pete's sake. Social spaces and communications networks as a prerequisite for capitalism go back (at least) to seasonal neolithic gatherings. It's a rather impoverished conception of capitalism that sees it as incompatible with non-commercial social spaces.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 12:39:30 PM | link
And Prokofy, can we stop the ad hominem attacks? It's just childish.
Um, are you on drugs?! Seriously, this is totally messed up. This total asshole named Dan Hunter gets up on the wrong side of the bed, and takes a big long piss on Onder Skall completely unprovoked.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 12:40:56 PM | link
>Interestingly, the sites that offer little "property" beyond a profile and a place to leave your mark on the wall are not only larger than Second Life by a few orders of magnitude, they are growing faster than Second Life.
They are social networks, social media? They aren't words. Worlds? This is a discussion started by the reactionary Dan Hunter about *criteria for virtual worlds*.
And social worlds are rapidly -- right before our very eyes! Amazingly! -- leveling up to become *worlds*. Look at how Kaneva seems to be a MySpace with 3-D rooms and content being promised and even an exclusive beta and an elite developers' group made already. Look at how Home holds out the promise of more stuff coming down the line that will network and expand it out. It's going to be a place to show off content you upload -- at least music and videos. What, independent musicians and filmmakers are supposed to just slap Creative Commons licenses on everything, give it away for free, and put out tip jars, and will never sell some of this stuff as time goes on? The desire of a lot of people to live from home off the Internet is so great, that they won't wait for you to approve, or come around to it ideologically, they'll just go for it *shrugs*.
I said: Capitalism makes the world go round. Socialism, especially communism, kills the world. We've got lots of examples of that from real life now. Virtual life, too.
>Ohhh, for pete's sake. Social spaces and communications networks as a prerequisite for capitalism go back (at least) to seasonal neolithic gatherings. It's a rather impoverished conception of capitalism that sees it as incompatible with non-commercial social spaces.
The non-commercial social spaces aren't really the object of this discussion about virtual worlds; but I accept that your desire to trash capitalism as some sort of evil is so enormous, so overweening, that you wish to extend it backwards into another subject, and I accept that -- because my point is that social spaces are *well on their way to becoming* virtual worlds and it is happening rapidly, and it will monetarize.
Non-commercial social spaces, that are a kind of public utility, are the gateways to economies. Look at some of the prominent academics and non-profit people in Second Life who started out with these mantras about academic this and non-profit that but converted to for-profit metaversal services agencies within a year of arriving. And why shouldn't they? It's a gold rush, and why shouldn't they get in on it? At least be honest about it.
Social spaces will increasingly monetarize. How? Well, for one, people like Murdoch will buy them, and when they are done "listening to everyone" talk about their cat and their emo nervous breakdowns, they will figure out how to advertise to them, so that the space will have features of it being for sale at least to somebody, or they will figure out how to make it monetarize for people-- like Google ads or any ad system where you put up a space and permit a partner to have an ad on that space, maybe even adapting to your content.
Another way it will monetarize is with user content. And this won't be just user-created content from amateur or professional ability in range, but things like outsourcing or crowdsourcing or micropayments to people to find facts or perform chores or monitor trends or whatever needs doing.
I don't understand why you aren't looking into the future, because the future is arriving very fast.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 12:51:57 PM | link
I'll offer a few counter claims:
1: Any examination of why people engage in online social spaces including virtual social worlds needs to also look at the popularity of facebook, flickr, and livejournal as well.
2: A small minority of people are engaged in entrepreneurial activities online. I suspect the number of people who make enough to cover the costs of their bandwidth is even smaller. So the question is, why are most participants throwing away a large chunk of their free time and disposable income on participation in these online social spaces, or are willing to tolerate advertising as a cost of participation?
Posted Mar 9, 2007 12:55:57 PM | link
KirkjobSluder: So the question is, why are most participants throwing away a large chunk of their free time and disposable income on participation in these online social spaces
Because they are bored, single and lonely?
Posted Mar 9, 2007 1:02:59 PM | link
I wish I could say I was shocked by the OP. But it seems that some of the authors around here consider themselves so vastly enlightened that they need not bother to entertain alternate perspectives, analyses or even simple musings. After all, my own devil's work was dismissed as so ridiculous it wasn't even worth discussing, while at the same time criticized for not being a proofed, printed and bound dissertation.
Onder's opinions are no less deserving discussion than more pedantic diatribes one might find elsewhere. That Dan appears to not like capitalism and its implications, and takes such a reactionary position towards Onder's writing, tells me more about Dan Hunter than anything else.
At least Onder has had the courage to take a position. Since Dan appears to have a better ideas about how to structure and operate virtual world economies -- ideas that don't involve the evil tyranny of private property liberties and capitalist endeavors -- I'm all ears. Offer forth your prescriptive criteria, and allow us to have at it.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 1:12:01 PM | link
Ola Fosheim Grøstad: Because they are bored, single and lonely?
Or because they like a challenge. Or because beating the odds is always the ultimate game.
Anyway, you want to talk about social worlds? YouTube. I see no involved currency or ownership, except when people sue the site.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 1:17:09 PM | link
Prokofy Neva: They are social networks, social media? They aren't words. Worlds? This is a discussion started by the reactionary Dan Hunter about *criteria for virtual worlds*.
The more I participate in these discussions, and the more I read about these discussions, the less I'm seeing that this "world" distinction has much meaning behind it.
What, independent musicians and filmmakers are supposed to just slap Creative Commons licenses on everything, give it away for free, and put out tip jars, and will never sell some of this stuff as time goes on?
I've not addressed this. However, since you insist. I grew up in a very "bells and smells" church that had the good grace to attract professional musicians who would do ensemble performance just for the fun of it. The fact that Joshua Bell played gratis one Sunday certainly has not hurt his career as a professional recording artist.
I don't make money off of the thousands of words I post to the Internet. First, because there is no market for those kinds of writing, second, because that would suck the fun out of it. I do write professionally, but sometimes, I like writing for fun as well.
The non-commercial social spaces aren't really the object of this discussion about virtual worlds; but I accept that your desire to trash capitalism as some sort of evil is so enormous, so overweening, that you wish to extend it backwards into another subject, and I accept that -- because my point is that social spaces are *well on their way to becoming* virtual worlds and it is happening rapidly, and it will monetarize.
I wasn't aware that I was "trashing" capitalism. I go to a coffee shop and buy a snack. I go to a mini golf course and pay a fee. I go to a virtual world and buy a subscription. I go to Livejournal and see advertising. I go to a church and donate some money. I join a professional organization and pay a yearly fee. All of these are various forms of capitalism at work. And in all of these spaces, the customer accepts that "cost" as payment for...what???
In your posted view, "everyone" wants to get in on the gold rush (never mind that most people failed to profit from gold rushes). "Everyone" wants to "cash out" at some point.
In my contrarian view, I think most people are going to be content to be consumers. They will willingly pay money or accept advertising for the ability to engage in some form of social activity.
Of course, people investing in and building these spaces are going to find ways to pay the bills and make a profit. But that is a vastly different claim from what you said earlier which is that "everyone" participates in these spaces with the expectation of "cashing out" on a later basis.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 1:27:51 PM | link
I'd have to say my level of respect for Terra Nova has gone down a notch after reading this unprofessional post. All interesting discussion aside, the author failed to project any level of authority on his part.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 1:28:25 PM | link
Rick Bryant: Anyway, you want to talk about social worlds? YouTube.
Good point. Or Wikipedia. Or project Gutenberg. Or archive.org. People like to think of them selves as altruistic, and other people like people and systems they perceive as altruistic. Altruism doesn't threaten you identity. Those systems have a positive constructive cycle due to the lack of capitalism and competition. IMO, much more powerful than the capitalism of second life, which is a veeery american concept.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 1:31:56 PM | link
Ola Fosheim Grøstad: Because they are bored, single and lonely?
I think that's a large part of it. But I'd also say that there seems to be a human drive among many to expand their social networks beyond what is available locally.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 1:33:13 PM | link
YouTube is a place where aspiring film-makers post work eventually to get paying work. YouTube hosts many instructional, business-related, training, etc. videos and marketing videos as well, all part of *making money* which most people, in the normal world of real life, don't have any allergenic reaction to.
>Good point. Or Wikipedia. Or project Gutenberg. Or archive.org. People like to think of them selves as altruistic, and other people like people and systems they perceive as altruistic.
Well, that's not true. Do they? Some do; some don't. I loathe Wikipedia. It's biased, kooky, cranky, and anonymous and unaccountable. It's not a reliable source. Give me a decent encyclopedia or media company any day with a responsible editorial board with a line, so I can at least understand their tilt.
Hiding behind the guise of "the collective and endless correctives" the tiny sects that invade this or that topic on Wikipedia just tug and pull it to their own designs. Any topic where you have some expertise can be seen to suffer from this problem.
Altruism is the tekkie geeky clarion call. But...so often they can afford to be altruistic because:
o they are in college on their trust funds or scholarships
o they are working for giant IT companies that pay them young fortunes
o they are in universities where somebody else foots the bill and deprives them of contact with real life
These three factors conspire to make tekkies and academics surrounding the whole digital revolution often very out of touch with reality, out of touch with the general publics, and very much in entitlement mode, Marxist mode, or utopian mode. They ought not to be allowed to have the influence they do precisely because they are dangerously out of touch and not responsible in any way for real costs and accountability.
>Altruism doesn't threaten you identity. Those systems have a positive constructive cycle due to the lack of capitalism and competition.
This is about the most preposterious thing I've ever read on two legs. Who pays for Wikipedia? It has servers, it has data, it has workers. Some work for free; but the dude who opened it up, with his nutty Ayn Randian theories and such, is no doubt a wealthy fellow who bankrolled it and sustained its Internet hosting costs. My God, that ought to be obvious! The Internet doesn't just come out of the sky like manna; somebody, somewhere, is paying for broadband even if you aren't.
>IMO, much more powerful than the capitalism of second life, which is a veeery american concept.
Gosh, tell that to my Italian, British, Korean, Brazilian, Russian, and Japanese customers who are all working hard in creative or service businesses and making money. They are there to create content and sell it.
This silly notion that there is some Geekworld out there where everybody really does want to sit around and play Altruism in the Sandbox all day is hopelessly outmoded and hopelessly sectarian. It's a little sect that games and worlds like SL can tap into early on because geeks and IRC channelers love just coding for coding's sake and imagine themselves to be great Friends to Humanity and Altruistically Performing A Much-Needed Service.
But the more normal ones just sell stuff. They sell their scripts and gadgets and *gasp* make a profit *ungasp* which enables them to monetarize their time on line and pay costs, if nothing else.
My God, why do we have to be stuck in this goddamn 19th century SWAMP here of old thinking on Terra Nova? When will TN join the 21st century???????
Posted Mar 9, 2007 1:57:59 PM | link
Onder: KirkJobSluder – That is a fascinating comparison! I wonder what would happen if Amazon or eBay were to incorporate even more social tools - making public customer / vendor profiles more detailed and customizable, for instance, or having a chat window open next to every product. I can’t be the first one to ask that question though. Is there a place we can look to explore that idea more?
Well, from my point of view, the features are only a small part of what makes up sociability. The other parts involve things like social norms, language, and persistent networks over time. So I'd be reluctant to point to eBay and say, "that's a community," but I would say that comp.lang.lisp is a community, in spite of having a smaller population and fewer technical features.
And it's not because I think that eBay is commercial and comp.lang.lisp is usenet, it's because I don't see the same kinds of persistent social networks on eBay. (Obligatory mention that text-based muds have been sites for commercial activity in real dollars.)
Ola Fosheim Grøstad: Good point. Or Wikipedia. Or project Gutenberg. Or archive.org. People like to think of them selves as altruistic, and other people like people and systems they perceive as altruistic. Altruism doesn't threaten you identity. Those systems have a positive constructive cycle due to the lack of capitalism and competition. IMO, much more powerful than the capitalism of second life, which is a veeery american concept.
Well, I'm not certain that I entirely buy the notion of altruism. I think that a lot of people find amateur-level activity to be rewarding, and will do things with no expectation of reward beyond a "thank you" and a pat on the back. I don't see this as being "trashing capitalism" because amateurs are a huge market for goods and services.
One of the services most desired by amateurs is the opportunity to engage in a larger community of practice. So they are often willing to pony up money for subscriptions, user fees, tournament fees, workshops, conventions and meetups.
I certainly think that for some people, the opportunity to go professional and semi-professional is a big carrot. But I don't think this is what really drives most participants in online social spaces.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 2:12:26 PM | link
Well Prokofy, then I humbly suggest that you quit being altruistic yourself. Obviously, you don't get paid for writing on this blog? Why on earth would you participate in such a communist activity? *ponders* Of course, you could be one of those droids... I remember SGI paying people for spamming VRML mailinglists with propaganda ten years ago or so.
It didn't work. People didn't like it. People liked their mailinglists to be altruistic.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 2:15:43 PM | link
i think one factor that would put a dead end stop to most people that inhabit virtualities for profit would be the IRS. If and when, and I am sure there will be a when, they decide to begin to tap the profits received, more than likely many who have been using the virtualities as an under the table cash cow will run for cover for fear of audits. At the present time the lack of taxing intervention does tend to attract members who wish to capitalize off that freedom but you can bet your bottom dollar when the tax man starts coming around things will change radically.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 2:23:46 PM | link
Prokofy Neva: Gosh, tell that to my Italian, British, Korean, Brazilian, Russian, and Japanese customers who are all working hard in creative or service businesses and making money. They are there to create content and sell it.
Sell it to whom? And yes, I am one of those hard-working creative professionals who gives away unmarketable work (like this post) for free because I enjoy doing it.
And to ask the obvious question, who is paying you to post on TN, and how much are you getting per word? If you are not getting paid to do it, why are you spending so much time writing here?
It's a little sect that games and worlds like SL can tap into early on because geeks and IRC channelers love just coding for coding's sake and imagine themselves to be great Friends to Humanity and Altruistically Performing A Much-Needed Service.
Yes, for some projects, I don't mind writing or coding for fun. And if I can't make a living wage at it, I might just give it away. That is one of the liberties of capitalism. I'm not obligated to devote every minute of my waking day to a profit-making enterprise.
But the more normal ones just sell stuff. They sell their scripts and gadgets and *gasp* make a profit *ungasp* which enables them to monetarize their time on line and pay costs, if nothing else.
Nothing wrong with that. I'm willing to write off the time and costs as entertainment, I don't see anything wrong with that.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 2:30:26 PM | link
Prokofy Neva posted:
>And then what you'll find is a handful of "serious games" designed to force-feed you propaganda about "OMGODZORZ oil companies are evil 1111" or games of intricate fantasy or skill that somehow don't even have a game currency.
Examples, please?
I dont understand what you dont understand. Game currency is one motivating factor and only one. People inhabit on line virtualities for many other reasons and to think that it is just one of money is only perhaps your personal motivation.
People use vitural worlds to meet other people, to have imaginary play, to build perhaps, to drive a car they cant in real life, to fall down without getting bruised, to escape the boredom of their work a day world, to play games of chance, to have virtual sex, to expand their world of experience which may be limited due to phycical challenges. All of these factors and many many more are the things that motivate people to inhabit all kinds of virtual worlds. Money may be one motivating factor and perhaps your motivating factor but it certainly is not the single criteria or even perhaps the most popular one. If the world of experience could be reduced down to just three criteria for why people choose to play and do what they do on line and those three criteria could be considered the only important ones for evaluation of attractiveness of on line worlds then I think perhaps there would be quite a few less players within any of these worlds.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 2:34:58 PM | link
Disclosure: I'm the primary developer on the Interreality Project (VOS) which was mentioned in the original article.
What I find more interesting is not the importance of currency itself, but to what extent what goes on in the virtual world is relevant the real world. Making money, as it happens, has a concrete effect on your material wellbeing, i.e. by allowing you to pay the rent by "playing" a game instead of flipping burgers. However, this two-way interaction between the virtual world and RL shouldn't stop at currency transactions for in-game goods -- there's a rich ecosystem of internet applications (the web, email, IM systems, databases, etc) that are used for very real business, organizational and political purposes, from which virtual worlds have traditionally been mostly isolated.
I think Second Life straddles the fence in a very uncomfortable way, which is evident even in the name. They want the ability to have their own walled garden where they control the technology, the servers, the currency and the rights of the users while at the same time their marketing tries to potray SL as cool and relevant and the biggest thing to happen to the Internet since Mosaic. Indeed, the fact that people are expected to create alter egos and NOT represent themselves as who they are that leads to much of the sociopathic behavior that Prokofy often complains about.
Now, please correct me if I am wrong, but I believe that the primary value of holding L$ is to authorize the user to be able to create or modify objects in the simulation. As such, the fundamental purpose of L$ would be to ration scarce server resources, rather than as a general purpose currency -- which goes back to my question of whether SL as it is currently operated can really engage with the "real world" in a sensible way in the long term.
So I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I tend to agree that the issue of real money economic activity on a platform is a relevant criteria, but that it should be considered more a reflection of the overall goals, design and maturity of a platform rather than an end unto itself.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 2:37:01 PM | link
Kirk, yes. People are willing to spend large sums of money on their hobbies. Never denied that. Even hard-core communists do that.
Some people who create _substantial_ works would like to get paid for it for various reasons, one being that they would like to quit their job and turn their hobby into their profession or to get some compensation for the money they put into it (equipment and materials), or to measure how much people care about what they do.
Not really sure with what you are disagreeing. For non-substantial works I think most people feel better about sharing than charging. Though there are several examples of people feeling good about sharing massive works too: FSF, etc.
Btw: one should try to separate what some individuals would like to do and what is strengthening a community. I am sure that some people love tupperware home parties etc, but I guess most don't. We don't have this basic human need for doing business with our friends... ;-)
Posted Mar 9, 2007 2:39:55 PM | link
Ola Fosheim Grøstad: Oh, sorry, I wasn't really disagreeing with you.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 2:42:05 PM | link
Prokofy:
Yes, there's a certain amount of intellectual masturbation over the idea that geeks are particular "altruistic" for writing and releasing software (or editing wikipedia pages, or any of a hundred other things) that they would have done for fun anyway.
But, that shouldn't affect the value (or lack thereof) of the contribution.
I should point out here that most of what we're talking about in terms of "content" that people are paying for is entertainment. We're not talking about physics textbooks, or even news headlines, we're talking about something inherently subjective and difficult to attach a value to. If we're concerned with having a real-world economy in a virtual space, then we're going to contend with the rules of real-world markets.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 3:56:58 PM | link
>Well Prokofy, then I humbly suggest that you quit being altruistic yourself. Obviously, you don't get paid for writing on this blog? Why on earth would you participate in such a communist activity? *ponders* Of course, you could be one of those droids... I remember SGI paying people for spamming VRML mailinglists with propaganda ten years ago or so.
>It didn't work. People didn't like it. People liked their mailinglists to be altruistic.
Well, Ola, no need to play the fake humble altruistic blog poster here, I don't get paid to write except $3.70 US per Herald article, which isn't exactly a princely sum.
Don't be silly Ola, truly, it's ridiculous. Communists don't have a patent on being altruistic; I think some of the world's major religions like Christianity and Buddhism and such had a bead on altruism long before Marx and Lenin -- and their altruism was suspect because they always spoke in the name of "the people" when they didn't really represent them or listen to them.
But we're not talking about altruism as somehow not acceptable behaviour in a game or world; everyone knows the Inkeeper type and the Good Samaritan type who populate games and are the ones willing to help newbies or clean sandboxes. Altruism is a good thing; it just doesn't pay the bills, for the game company, or people. It's always easy to be altruistic when Uncle Sam is paying for it.
That's not the basis of an economy, however. It's simply not, as much as you wish it. It's not even the basis for some earnest and wholesome w'ur'al'd where you imagine men in tights who are consulting for a marketing company are having discussions about solar energy and American imperialism, in between dances with women in long silken gowns with Birkenstock sandals who have a novel out on Creative Commons and are working on a lifelogging film together. That sort of world pertains only when Daddy is paying the bills somewhere.
Time and again, we've seen that altruism -- of the geeky beta sort that we had in Second Life, where people just made stuff for "the good of the community" cannot last. It cannot pay the bills. It cannot sustain itself. People need compensation for their time. And it's more than fine if they get it. They want it. They come in, they make it, as soon as they are free to trade, value land, and value labour.
Spaces can have combinations of non-profit and for-profit, of course, as long as there is tolerance for pluralism, and not hysterical orthodoxy about commerce, money and land sullying the utopia. Haven't you ever seen these games with the go-gooders screaming about how the economy is being ripped off by gold-sellers and Chinese farmers? They *are* the economy and they come in because you cannot keep out the eagerness of people to work for money in any way they can. The idea that you can is utopian. Each brand-clean game tries it again, then gives up as their currency is devalued. Even getting that idealist philanthropist Pierre Omidyar to remove the ability to trade game stuff off ebay didn't stop people from wishing to trade stuff SOMEWHERE -- and they do now, with more risk.
There's a lot of hatred of people who injected commerce, money, and land into Second Life from the oldbie tekkies who first came to it and just wanted it to be a sandbox -- the altruistic types you imagine are the only ones who exist, and the only ones who will get to use social software "properly" and the only ones who "should" be in games or worlds. Wonder what Clay Shirkey will say about the small numbers of populations in set-ups like this!
No, it's not about only altruism or only capitalism; capitalists are among those who have the luxury of being altruistic, in fact. And to a certain extent, the attitude of dismay and suspicion about big corporations, which I share to some degree, grows out of that sense that the balance between altruism and profit is out of whack.
It's about *balance*. And you're just talking about it in the extreme, as if it is all one or the other.
So veeerrrry European! Eh? Two can play at that stereotyping and hating game.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 4:00:25 PM | link
Um, Gabriel, where were you when Dan Hunter pissed in Onder Skall's wheaties first? Hello? Where was your umbrage and civic disdain then about "ad hominem attacks"? It's SO selective. I mean seriously, I don't recall such a nasty and vicious attack on another person on a blog since the latest rabid fashionista dissed some other sim diva for having an ugly RL picture. Next thing we'll be seeing is Dan telling Onder to post tits.
No, I don't refrain from ad hominen attacks when I see them come here *first*. I see a persistent, growing, aggressive and surly attitude on TN that wasn't here a few years ago as *certain people* feel their privileged positions are challenged. And hell yeah, I will fight back when I see that happen.
What do you call this, if not an adhominen attack?
>I hope that Onder will forgive me for suggesting that these three criteria are actually pulled from his arse and not his brain.
>Well, actually I don't care whether he forgives me or not, coz these are close to the stupidest criteria that I can conceive of to assess social worlds.
Well?
Nobody has yet to point to a successful, thriving, growing social platform or world out there now, that doesn't have money, or else, doesn't have the potential for advertising by companies and individuals to make money very much welded into it.
Could you cite an example of these completely economy-free, money-free, advertising-free worlds or social spaces and then also indicate that it is thriving and growing and has a future? Oh. Wikipedia is all you can come up with? Well, that's not a source acceptable in many serious quarters and somebody has to pay for the servers even there!
Posted Mar 9, 2007 4:08:34 PM | link
Bernard,
>Game currency is one motivating factor and only one. People inhabit on line virtualities for many other reasons and to think that it is just one of money is only perhaps your personal motivation.
No, it comes from observing many people, on Second Life and WoW and the Sims Online. People need the game currency, or even RL money, to justify their time, their leveling up, and such. It would be very hard to get people to play a game that didn't involve collecting inventory, selling it, buying stuff to have potions or leveling, or providing other goods that have real money value. I don't think you can come up with one.
If you tell me some yarn about how people hanging out in WoW to have quests are just there for the thrill of the chase and the smell of Orc blood in the morning, and the lovely chats with their pals after killing the monsters, you have GOT to be kidding. If there were no pelts to collect; no game gold; no auction house, it would be hard to organize these worlds.
>People use vitural worlds to meet other people, to have imaginary play, to build perhaps, to drive a car they cant in real life, to fall down without getting bruised, to escape the boredom of their work a day world, to play games of chance, to have virtual sex, to expand their world of experience which may be limited due to phycical challenges. All of these factors and many many more are the things that motivate people to inhabit all kinds of virtual worlds.
But they participate in an economy. That economy is based on the concept of capitalism. Even if all they do in SL is come on and drop $100 US to buy skins, a house, and some land, they are part of the capitalist ethic. They aren't sitting there meditating in an ashram. Capitalism isn't only about selling and making a profit; it's about consuming, too! Isn't that evident?
>Money may be one motivating factor and perhaps your motivating factor but it certainly is not the single criteria or even perhaps the most popular one.
Bernard, you're taking the discussion off to another tangent, which a) false represents my position as somehow extrapolating from my own experience in wishing to ascribe the large majority of people the desire only to make money and b) somehow segregates profit-making off as a separate activity, when in fact it's an activity embedded in buying and selling and a free market in a capitalist system.
Go back to what Onder said, which was quoted by Dan. Onder didn't say, "Oh, only the ability to engage in profit-making and farming game gold or renting land can distinguish a world as a feature."
He said something different, and broader:
"Cash transactions must be easy and readily accommodated flowing both into and out from the system."
CASH TRANSACTIONS. That's all. The ability to buy and sell. Some will buy and sell at a loss or only flow in, others will cash out.
This is what I said in my first response to this post:
"Real people in the real world reject that kind of lunacy, and they want to play store,"
Play store! That means selling and also shopping.
>If the world of experience could be reduced down to just three criteria for why people choose to play and do what they do on line and those three criteria could be considered the only important ones for evaluation of attractiveness of on line worlds then I think perhaps there would be quite a few less players within any of these worlds.
No, if you boiled down the features of these worlds only to socializing and skilling up and performing skilled operations, with no economy, trade, farming, real estate encouraged or even allowed, they'd have a lot, lot less people in them. The whole reason WoW has 8 million people is precisely because of all of those features of an economy. That's the wave of the future.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 4:21:36 PM | link
Prokofy Neva says:
So veeerrrry European! Eh? Two can play at that stereotyping and hating game.
Aw, but Second Life _IS_ a manifestation of classic american ideology. The dream of the self-made (rich) man. How anyone can fail to see the connection is beyond me.
And no, WoW is not proving your point. In-game economies serve many purposes, one of them is "artificially" slowing down access to content in order to increase subscription lengths. They aren't designed to make players happy, but to make them stay. They are balanced to find the "pain threshold" of the players. If they quit, they are in pain, but the fun stops long before that. Economies can be fun too. Play-pretend is fun. Pretend. Play-pretend as reality is converging towards pathetic for most people.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 4:58:20 PM | link
Back to the original tantrum that started this thread:
It seems to mean that VWs should be persistent; which, last time I checked, was a definitional requirement of them being worlds in the first place.
Considering that no one can authoritatively define exactly what persistent means, I have no idea why Dan has no idea what Onder meant.
Dan, is persistent a binary categorization? Please show me any virtual world that is categorically persistent. Is persistence a complete, uniquely referenced representation of all states as time progresses, as with the real world (above quantum levels). Is persistence a memento pattern of storage and retrieval that algorithmically mimics states in time as if they've been fully dehydrated? Or is persistence just whatever Dan Hunter decided Onder didn't understand?
Posted Mar 9, 2007 5:46:08 PM | link
Prokofy: Spaces can have combinations of non-profit and for-profit, of course, as long as there is tolerance for pluralism, and not hysterical orthodoxy about commerce, money and land sullying the utopia.
As opposed to hysterical orthodoxy pulling red scare and saying everyone who disagrees with you hates capitalism?
Really, what do you expect? You pull out the absolute claim that everyone is participating and looking for the cash-out opportunity, then you flip right around and make an appeal to pluralism. It seems your orthodoxy changes from hour to hour.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 5:47:18 PM | link
Couple things. I originally read Onder's post on the pointer from BoingBoing and thought it was a bit odd, too. There have been many discussions -- not just here, but on lots of game/VW blogs -- about what makes for a good MMO/VW, and these three(?) criteria don't dip into many of the previous conversations.
To begin with, Onder's list of three things is actually, by my count, eight, burried in three:
1. Cash transactions must be easy.
2. Cash transactions must flow into the world.
3. Cash transactions mus flow out of the world.
4. Users must be able to create content
5. User content must be unique
6. Users must retain some form of ownership over content.
7. The world must be changeable by players.
8. Player changes must be pervasive.
He actually kinda breaks things down like that in his review. For example, re "The Sims Online," Onder says about Point 2: "You own everything you create, but you upload nothing and you can’t build from scratch." So, per my list, above, #4 = yes, #5 = no. Plus he's added another condition in that review... something about "Uploading." Which would add another item to the list, I guess:
5b: Users must be able to create content using tools from outside the game platform.
Which is, I admit, an interesting criteria. But one that isn't measured across the board.
I didn't find Onder's reviews particularly helpful, for the reason that, as I said, his criteria were confusedly ungranular, and mixedly applied.
On the other hand, I agree with the folks who have said that Dan's particular tone in the coverage of such is, well... snarky at best. Even when admitting snark, and appologizing for it... well. I would have preferred, I think, a post in which a proposed, better ranking alternative was provided.
Onder does make it clear that his is a list of things that make SL "irreplaceable at the moment." That's cool. It's a good bar. It removes from the discussion all talk of WoW, Puzzle Pirates, Wikipedia, MySpace, etc. etc. The discussion *CAN* be narrowed down to: What is it about SL that we really, really like/need (if we do), and how could those things be improved either in SL or in other platforms?
A follow-up question might be: What things about SL are so prevalent in other systems that we really don't need them in our VW's? Or, are they requirements of all social spaces?
If we get done calling names and going off into weirdo communism/blogolism land on this thread... I, for one, would value a post that actually poses those questions for serious discussion without all the rancor.
PS to Prok: I am confused. How is it that you are pro-capitalism when it comes to folks who are making money on the grid, selling their creations, etc. etc... but are against "corporations" and marketing/PR folks who want to do the same thing on a larger (or simply "different") scale? Where do you draw the line?
Posted Mar 9, 2007 5:55:08 PM | link
So, when I read the article I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes when I saw that he threw out the term Web 3.0. Web 2.0 is bad enough as a term, especially since it absolutely does not describe the evolution of the web as people use the term at least.
Still, if Onder's goal was to set up criteria for being like Second Life (rather than for being a social virtual world), they seem rather reasonable to me.
Prokofy wrote:
Um, are you on drugs?! Seriously, this is totally messed up. This total asshole
Wow. If there's ever been a case of the pot calling the kettle black, this is it.
Dan's post was a bit more acerbic than I'd prefer to see on SL but he was attacking Onder's ideas, not Onder himself.
And that's why your pal Dan is jealous and out of sorts. He can't BEAR the fact that he didn't control, shape, or get in on this discussion about "how do you define virtual worlds."
Yes, no doubt, you're privy to Dan's state of mind. Couldn't possibly be that he had a bad day (sounds like a REALLY bad day to me). Dan's really a pretty reasonable guy from the limited interaction I've had with him here and on an email list.
Incidentally, this isn't a discussion about how to define virtual worlds. It's about how to define the small corner of virtual worlds that are exemplified by Second Life. (If it were about how to define virtual worlds I'd hope we'd be talking about things that are a LOT more important to a real "world" than whether you can pull cash out of the system. Things like actual 3d, rather than the faked 3d of today's games/worlds, involving more than 2 of our senses in the world, and so on).
It happened without him, the train left the station.
So he, unprovoked, did a smackdown of this guy who just printed a rather informal commentary to get a discussion going
No, what he posted was a smackdown of the guy's ideas. I realize you're not going to see a difference, since you appear to be on a mission to take absolutely anything anyone ever says about Second Life as a personal insult or a personal challenge.
-- a *free and open and interesting discussion* UNLIKE WHAT TERRA NOVA HAS BECOME, hobbled by raving asstards and beligerent orthodox nigglers.
Can't we just ban children who make posts like this here?
--matt
Posted Mar 9, 2007 6:46:35 PM | link
Prokofy: Time and again, we've seen that altruism -- of the geeky beta sort that we had in Second Life, where people just made stuff for "the good of the community" cannot last. It cannot pay the bills. It cannot sustain itself. People need compensation for their time. And it's more than fine if they get it. They want it. They come in, they make it, as soon as they are free to trade, value land, and value labour.
And yet, time and time again we see communities pop in which people willingly share their time, expertise, and services with others. Many of these communities are larger and faster-growing than SL subscriptions.
In fact, I would argue that such "altruism" probably does as much, if not more to define a community than monetary economies. Some of us find the "grey" market of sharing content and services that are difficult to sell for hard currency to be quite satisfying.
No, it's not about only altruism or only capitalism; capitalists are among those who have the luxury of being altruistic, in fact. And to a certain extent, the attitude of dismay and suspicion about big corporations, which I share to some degree, grows out of that sense that the balance between altruism and profit is out of whack.
If it's really about "balance" then I think this is less an authentic disagreement, and more an authentic example of a pissing match.
Matt: So, when I read the article I had to stop myself from rolling my eyes when I saw that he threw out the term Web 3.0. Web 2.0 is bad enough as a term, especially since it absolutely does not describe the evolution of the web as people use the term at least.
I'm still profoundly convinced that Web 2/3.0 is little more than a rhetorical device that allows people to take credit for 20 years of work in building internet-mediated community systems.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 7:03:20 PM | link
@Randolfe_: Persistence as I understand it means that the effects of human action within a space, like an MMO, accumulate over time. There is no end condition, like a game reset or similar, where (nearly) all of the effects are effectively wiped away (perhaps surviving only in a system of scoring or the like). Admittedly, it's not airtight, since not only scoring and other rationalized systems of accounting of those effects might persist, but also the accumulated competencies of the players would persist as well (in their bodies), along with social capital, perhaps. But the specific array of such effects would in any event lose its moorings if the world did not have persistence.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 7:54:12 PM | link
>Dan's post was a bit more acerbic than I'd prefer to see on SL but he was attacking Onder's ideas, not Onder himself.
Um, telling somebody that they've pulled their ideas out of their ass -- especially when on the face of it there's nothing that wrong with the ideas even if you disagree with them -- IS attacking Onder himself. And your failure to see that is typical of what happens on a forums like this dominated by a certain arrogant type who imagines everyone else is on suffrance and they are entitled to behave in this outrageous fashion!
And that's why your pal Dan is jealous and out of sorts. He can't BEAR the fact that he didn't control, shape, or get in on this discussion about "how do you define virtual worlds."
>Yes, no doubt, you're privy to Dan's state of mind. Couldn't possibly be that he had a bad day (sounds like a REALLY bad day to me). Dan's really a pretty reasonable guy from the limited interaction I've had with him here and on an email list.
I can surely imagine the incredible state of arrogance that enables one to inflict a private bad mood or bad month on a public forum in that fashion.
His inner state is very easy to extrapolate. And it's an inner state pervading the permanent authors of this forums lately more and more. And that is their prickliness, irritability, and downright nastiness to people promoting, defending, or even sometimes merely discussing Second Life or other worlds like Project Entropia (which they loathe even more). The hatred and contempt is palpable; that's why I try to resist it, it just isn't right.
It's clear that by huffing that this Onder Skall guy even got mentioned in the all-sacred Cory Doctorow's boing-boing and the all-hail Wonderland, Dan was exuding the kind of indignation that people excude when they are jealous. How else to explain all the ruckus?
The other permanent members here should have stepped up and said the post wasn't appropriate, as some commenters did, and shouldn't have defended it.
Xander said it best, and randolfe analyzed the problem perfectly.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 8:52:13 PM | link
>Incidentally, this isn't a discussion about how to define virtual worlds. It's about how to define the small corner of virtual worlds that are exemplified by Second Life. (If it were about how to define virtual worlds I'd hope we'd be talking about things that are a LOT more important to a real "world" than whether you can pull cash out of the system. Things like actual 3d, rather than the faked 3d of today's games/worlds, involving more than 2 of our senses in the world, and so on).
I think this is the root of the problem here, Matt. You imagine that there is this vasty deep of virtual worlds out there, of which SL is only a tiny projectory, and not even really fully qualified because it's nothing like the worlds you know, not perfectly virtual, not virtual that way, too real, or not magic enough -- or something.
But the worlds you know are disappearing before our eyes; even the worlds I know; they are all being displaced by people who are only 12 now and will have a profound influence on shaping the Metaverse, just as Mark Wallace noted at the Metaverse Meet-up. That's an unsettling feeling, when all the worlds you know are disappearing. But they are. When MySpace can become Kaneva and and Xbox can have Home, it means the worlds you know with all their arcane quests and puzzles and names and creatures are all disappearing into the mist, replaced by non-games but aimless entertainment activity, "consuming media", people doing stuff that will seem really lame, in mass taste, and American to you, no doubt, like dancing to some clip on their suburban patio similitude in Home or Kaneva or Second Life. You wanted to have something so much more rich and cultural but it was not meant to be.
BTW, I wrote to you repeatedly with questions about your upcoming title to cover it in the Herald and you just ignored me.
>Can't we just ban children who make posts like this here?
We?
WTG Matt, you could sit still for literally hundreds of insanely gross and idiotic posts of real children and actual childish idiots in W-hat on those previous threads of the last weeks like "Emergent Gameplay", and not call for any banning of children. You were silent as those barbarians crashed the gates.
As soon as I make an astute and to-the-point about what's happening with the TN gamerz and lamerz right now getting behind the curve on virtual worlds, you get all freaked and start screaming about "children".
Thanks for putting yourself on the moral spectrum for me.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 9:01:08 PM | link
And yet, time and time again we see communities pop in which people willingly share their time, expertise, and services with others. Many of these communities are larger and faster-growing than SL subscriptions.
In fact, I would argue that such "altruism" probably does as much, if not more to define a community than monetary economies. Some of us find the "grey" market of sharing content and services that are difficult to sell for hard currency to be quite satisfying.
The cliche about capitalism and profit-making by sectarians on the left always involves Mr. Moneybags from the game of Monopoly with Depression-era graphics.
What most of the people trying to make a buck in Second Life are about is not Mr. Moneybags, but about just trying to pay for their game. Some have more ambitions; some have less; their buying and selling activity is primarily a form of sustenance so that they can maintain what is of most value to them, relationships and creativity.
Yet you cannot strip away those relationships and creativity and have them in some isolated altruistic and socialistic sphere where no money ever taints their hands. They wish to have an economy because *it's fun*.
The idea that capitalism is *fun* for most people buying and selling in SL escapes the dour socialist sectarians.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 9:09:46 PM | link
Prokofy: The cliche about capitalism and profit-making by sectarians on the left always involves Mr. Moneybags from the game of Monopoly with Depression-era graphics.
Which is the bigger myth in this discussion, Mr. Moneybags, or the socialist sectarian?
What is not a myth is that computer-mediated communities that don't have economies dwarf SL and WoW in participation and growth. Obviously, something other than the prospect of subsistence cottage industries is drawing people to communities supported primarily by user fees and advertising.
What most of the people trying to make a buck in Second Life are about is not Mr. Moneybags, but about just trying to pay for their game. Some have more ambitions; some have less; their buying and selling activity is primarily a form of sustenance so that they can maintain what is of most value to them, relationships and creativity.
I don't know where you get the idea of "Mr. Moneybags" from what I've posted here. After all, I'm just another creative professional currently living from contract to contract. I pay for my DSL $25 a month out of my own pocket, just like the majority of peons out there on the Internet. I make creative works to satisfy a particular market and need. And I make creative works as a form of recreational activity to share with a small audience.
Yet you cannot strip away those relationships and creativity and have them in some isolated altruistic and socialistic sphere where no money ever taints their hands. They wish to have an economy because *it's fun*.
Well, it seems that there is an element of a false dichotomy here. I'd estimate from my experience that most creative communities fall along the the 90-9-1 rule.
90% work on a strictly amateur basis sharing their work within supportive communities of amateurs.
9% sell their work or related services semi-professionally or part time.
1% make a living wage or better.
The 90% of amateurs are the "fans." We are the ones who do the word of mouth marketing, handhold novices into the community, provide alternative channels for technical support, and provide a supportive audience and feedback for amateur-level performance. We are also the ones who will spend our money on goods and services offered by semi-professional and professional practitioners.
The idea that capitalism is *fun* for most people buying and selling in SL escapes the dour socialist sectarians.
Well yes, I'm certain it is fun for those who do it. I don't know where I said or implied otherwise. I do the calculus of fun, effort, and profit in my head and conclude that selling some types of creative effort would be more trouble than it's worth. However, I'm more than willing to share them among a supportive audience of friends.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 11:24:53 PM | link
Prokofy: And as one last attempt at finding some common ground here. Would you agree or disagree with the observation that a healthy market for professional and semi-professional goods and services often depends on a rich community of amateurs who are willing to exchange goods and services on a voluntary basis?
Posted Mar 9, 2007 11:49:08 PM | link
@Thomas
Persistence is -- or at least was -- an open issue of quite some discussion here on TN.
My point is that Dan dismissed Onder, be it his ideas or him, on the premise that it was somehow silly to suggest persistence as an important attribute of definition. Dan implied that persistence is obvious.
I could equally make a statement that Dan's dismissal of persistence (as a technology-psychology interface) as an open attribute of debate is itself silly, or that he is for waving it away with such callousness.
And why the rush to defend this OP anyway? We've all had a moment of anger, weakness, insobriety where we made an email/blog/etc. faux pas. When I've done so, and it was pointed out to me, I apologized and moved on. That takes far more strength than circling the wagons and insisting on righteousness. I made a, upon reflection, terrible judgment at the end of my first article on the SL economy. Instead of defending my words, which I very easily could have done with a lot of conviction and hard to defeat logic, I instead publicly strike-tagged it out, and apologized. It's more fun to do that and then watch the real cowards attack you for having the audacity to be humanly fallible.
Posted Mar 9, 2007 11:55:13 PM | link
@randolfe_: All I was trying to do was answer the issue you raised about whether there is a consensus view of what counts as persistence with the one I work from. It was offered in the same gracious spirit with which I recall you concluded our first exchange on that other thread. Please don't assume that I was making any statement about the original post (which indeed seems to be the product of a VERY bad day), nor disagreeing with your suggestion that a working definition of persistence is an open issue.
Posted Mar 10, 2007 12:04:58 AM | link
>Prokofy: And as one last attempt at finding some common ground here. Would you agree or disagree with the observation that a healthy market for professional and semi-professional goods and services often depends on a rich community of amateurs who are willing to exchange goods and services on a voluntary basis?
It doesn't sound to me as if the sequencing is right in your premise. And...only in a game, Kirk. Because in RL, somebody's capital and labour is always back of the ability for people to have that leisure time to be altruistic. The wealth of the industrial giants of the 19th century persisted in stocks and businesses and foundations into the 20th century enable a vast non-profit world to emerge with universities, think-tanks, hospitals, associations...then new wealth was created in high technology and computer and Internet businesses...somebody is paying somewhere.
If a man can sit home at his computer and help newbs from 9 pm to midnight, it's because he doesn't have to do freelance work or work a night shift or take care of kids or elderly parents, he has a job that pays him enough to give him leisure time to be altruistic. So his boss who owns his company, that evil capitalist, is making it possible for him to be altruistic.
I still don't understand why you are trying to paint me as some absurd slash-and-burn capitalist. I often find that merely speaking up for the permissiveness of a liberal market that is not hog-tied to some shrill socialist dogma is enough to be categorized as some exploitative capitalist "neo-liberal" imperialist or slumlord. I am constantly being called by such types on forums "a slumlord" even though among my rentals are 6 newbies communities which are subsidized out of...altruism! And they are loss leaders!
Of course liberal free-market societies have *civil society* in them and civil society is made up of all kinds of volunteer groups, altrutistic helping groups, charities, churches, synagogues, etc. That rich texture of civil society is what you imply is needed first, for the business and commerce then to hang from; but...I feel it's the reverse, that without the economy, you couldn't have the leisure and philanthropic funds generated.
But is it really so important to determine which hangs from what? The point is, the OP dissed Onder for making a simple comment: that cash transactions are needed! Buying and selling. Is that so horrible???? Do an honest survey of WoW players; think about how it has grown, and try to imagine it without game gold, auctions, leveling up to buy stuff that helps level up further, and the rich pleasure of selling a maxed-out 70-level account. This is all part of a vast culture. Why undermine it by insistence that there must be first do-gooders who do everything altruistically before anything else can take place?
Did you ever see a single game in the universe, or world, or social software, that didn't have a *venture capitalist* or six venture capitalists to get it going, or philanthropist?
Sure, these game gods exploit the altruism of geeks in their famous beta tests, where they get people to work for free. But..those game gods sure don't work for free!
Posted Mar 10, 2007 12:56:25 AM | link
>Which is the bigger myth in this discussion, Mr. Moneybags, or the socialist sectarian?
The socialist sectarian, by all means. I'm truly astounded how much warmed-over Marxist drivel there is bleeding into so much of the "ludology" and serious games movement, even though all of the people in it rely on the capitalists who funded their universities or corporations or game companies. It's truly a marvel to see.
>What is not a myth is that computer-mediated communities that don't have economies dwarf SL and WoW in participation and growth. Obviously, something other than the prospect of subsistence cottage industries is drawing people to communities supported primarily by user fees and advertising.
I think you're playing fast and loose here with taking social software or "communities" -- which is a very loosely-defined thing -- that spring up around this or that interest or activity or following on the Internet and *worlds* and *games* and *platforms*. Further down there is a discussion about what a world *is* -- the feeling of starting in kindergarten, a sense of place, a set of things to learn, etc. Just because I'm on the mailing list for Urban Outfitters or am registered to post Clickable Culture or something doesn't mean we are in worlds together. We're just on flat Internet pages with some exchange of information or views. Yet underlying this exchange for free, for fun, for altruism is somebody's hard work and somebody's capital somewhere.
Here's a great article to read about the essential idiocy underlying YouTube:
http://www.imediaconnection.com/news/13998.asp
Whose going to pay to keep it going? How to keep it afloat? How to monetarize it? How to advertise on it? These are such conundrums, and they seem so fascinating and sophisticated as conundrums, but I always come back to the famous (for me) example of the photo collection site known as Zing. I loved Zing. Free photo storage for life! Once they got over their shock at having 4,000 screen shots from stories on the Sims offline Family Albums, they resigned themselves to never selling a single developed photo to gamerz with poor-quality screenshots that might not even make good t-shirts (back in the 90s). Then...they couldn't make good on their promise and went bankrupt and closed. There weren't enough people to pay to print photos or t-shirts and too many people putting up thousands of screenshots and ignoring the ads. That's how socialism works. It sucks off other people's labour and capital for a time, perhaps even has a good run, then it collapses.
>I don't know where you get the idea of "Mr. Moneybags" from what I've posted here. After all, I'm just another creative professional currently living from contract to contract. I pay for my DSL $25 a month out of my own pocket, just like the majority of peons out there on the Internet. I make creative works to satisfy a particular market and need. And I make creative works as a form of recreational activity to share with a small audience.
It sounds to me like you still hold the dream of somewhere, somehow, a more perfect world being able to be created out of creativity and altruism. But the reality is, you can only live from contract to contract -- which are paid for by capitalists, even if you don't want to be one.
>Well, it seems that there is an element of a false dichotomy here. I'd estimate from my experience that most creative communities fall along the the 90-9-1 rule.
>90% work on a strictly amateur basis sharing their work within supportive communities of amateurs.
9% sell their work or related services semi-professionally or part time.
1% make a living wage or better.
That sounds about like the same percentage that everybody talks about in games that 10 percent of the people make the content for the other 90. But what makes it possible for the 9 to always be replenished and to face competition and to have *customers* is the 90 percent. You couldn't artificially isolate that 9 or 10 percent. This incredibly skewed line of 1-9-90 of course is a *game*. It's synthetic. In real life, you can have one percent of the people farming to feed 99, or 10 percent of the people making up the intellectual and media products for the 90, but the 90 are also busy doing tons of other services and manufacturing and sales to each other, they are not hobbyists at leisure.
And that's why the statistics and discussions around SL are so misleading, because what drives people to noodle around with their amateur stuff as I see often is that they aspire to becoming better. And they may sell a house design here, a t-shirt there, a used bed over there, and feel, well, I'm getting somewhere.
>The 90% of amateurs are the "fans." We are the ones who do the word of mouth marketing, handhold novices into the community, provide alternative channels for technical support, and provide a supportive audience and feedback for amateur-level performance.
I think in games, yes, that is likely the case. It was with TSO and is in WoW. However, SL is not as much like that. There are many, many more people in a far longer tail.
And who says this is *the right way*? See, this is what I question about this 90 percent fans activity, and have heavily questioned ever since I came to SL. Because:
o Many of the people holding themselves up to be altruistic Friendz 2 Noobz are in fact merely prim divas hustling those noobz to their stores, slinging them freebies in the welcome area to entice them into their commerce circles. They give them a free shirt, but then charge them $200 Lindens for the pants to go with.
o Many people literally got paid for being rated positively from grateful people helped by those altruistic ones, and literally got higher stipends -- which were of course gamed and finally the system removed. But it tainted the entire thing to be clearly about a game of leveling up and collecting points to enable you to sell your products or enhance your reputation better.
o People made stuff, but then put it on no-mod, no-copy, or worse, put it on transfer but then screeched like stuck pigs every time someone took that freely transferrable item and resold it. The issue of selling freebies that people in fact d