Got a Life

Salon.com and the UKs Guardian Online both feature a piece James Meek called Get a Life. The feature covers the business of MMORPGs both from the publisher stand point and the growing trade in item trading. I did not spot anything that would surprise a TN reader (though of course they have impeccable sources: Dr C, Julian and Professor Bartle are all referenced [edit: scandalously Julian is not cited, but Nick Yee is – sorry I was halucinating]) but it is interesting to see MMO coverage stretching across the media landscape.

Incidentally the Guardian aunched a games blog this week.

Comments

[Julian Dibbell]

1.

Erm. I don't think I was one of the cited, Ren, was I? But Nick Yee does get a nod.

[Tobold]

2.

Some quotes and comments:

> But just as you are more likely to be killed if you are poorly equipped and inexperienced, so you are less likely to be chatted to and invited to join a gang if you are poorly equipped and inexperienced. In order to get equipment and experience, it is necessary to carry out dull, repetitive tasks, like slaying goblins, or testing your sword against a training post.

For an outsider he is spookily accurate in summarizing what is wrong with most MMORPG. The very concept of doing something "dull and repetitive" just to get the equipment and experience which hopefully enables you to reach the fun stuff.

> But Theguardian, my avatar, has spent a real hour in a nonexistent world with more than four million paying residents, and nobody has been willing to talk to him so far.

I guess Lineage wasn't a good choice for that journalistic experiment.

> As I hack away, clicking the cursor over and over again and watching Theguardian's claymore wearily whacking a virtual straw dummy, I start to think: "This is not a game. This is not fun. This is hard, dull work." The virtual Protestant in me thinks: "If I don't do this, I won't get anywhere in this world." At which point I think: "Couldn't I pay someone else to do it for me while I go and do something more worthwhile?"

Again spookily accurate. This is what Joe Average-EBay-Buyer thinks. And if you want to fight commodification, you simply need to make the "getting anywhere in this world" fun instead of "dull, hard work".

> "It's the people who make it fun. The game itself is boring. It always has been,"

I wonder if the game HAS to be boring to get the people together and have social fun. Some people say that City of Heroes, where the game is more fun, is less of a social experience.

[AFFA]

3.

I would say that they social ties in CoH are not as strong... but also much friendlier. There are fewer disputes, fewer responsibilities, and fewer griefers.

I'm not sure whether that approach is successful in and of itself, or only because I'm enjoying a change of pace after playing so many games with forced grouping, poorly designed timesinks, and strong feelings.

Or, to put it another way, interaction in most games can be good or evil. Interaction in CoH is for good or for awesome.