Emergence Emerges Some More

I've got a lot of thoughts sparked by DiGRA coming, including a long meditation on the dreaded ludology-narratology thing, but first I wanted to mention an interesting sub-theme I noticed weaving its way through the conference: emergence, complex systems, non-human agency, network theory and related topics. Nicholas Glean dealt centrally with these issues. I understand  Seth Giddings as also being engaged on these topics, though I missed his paper presentation. I caught a number of other mentions or invocations of these concepts. Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern's Facade (their presentation on it was one of the highlights of the meeting for me) also clearly is a case of emergence, even if they don't explicitly see it as such.

My own paper dealt with the same issues. A draft is available at my blog. I've fiddled with it some since then.

One thing that I think is important about the general suite of concepts under this heading is that they can be painfully vague or misleading in the wrong hands, or just marketing hype. But in the context of games, at the very least, emergence is a technique for creating the psychologically convincing simulation of life or intentionality. There is clearly a deep mental algorithim that human beings use to sort life and non-life that agent-based emergent systems do a pretty good job of tapping into.

I think there's even more to the concept that's relevant to games, and especially persistent virtual world games. But I'll leave that for  the full paper. I do think it's an important concept  for game scholars to consider, and consider well.

Comments

[Lisa Galarneau]

1.

Silly me, I missed that session, but this looks really fantastic. And a slightly different take on things, but I also presented a paper at DiGRA that outlines my Ph.D. research concerned with emergence, self-organisation and communities of learning. I'm very, very open to feedback...

Link to word doc here...

[dmyers]

2.

Alas, this topic looks so lonely… so, in the midst of knocking about, some thoughts.

The concept of emergence has appeal, no doubt, but is that appeal solely because of its cool mystical flair? I understand the flock of birds analogy well enough, but beyond that, more seems to emerge from the papers about emergence than from what the papers are actually about (eg, Façade perhaps?).

And, then, related1: One of the themes I felt impressed heavily upon me at the recent DiGRA conference was that social play is a good thing – nay, a GOOD and EXCELLENT thing.

However, a couple of papers here and there – the Ho Lin et al stuff on griefing, the Pargman/Eriksson paper on law and order, and my own – indicate that not all is well, wonderful, or even that educational about the oppressive social structures (Pargman/Eriksson calls them “medieval”) that individual players (and play) must endure within mmogs.

Could it then be, I wonder, if emergence is now being positioned as another carrot placed atop the digital stick that would continuously and mercilessly beat individual play into submission? Something along the lines, perhaps, of the intriguing DThomas DiGRA paper on grinding, which I can only in retrospect incompletely (and probably inaccurately) summarize as: Sure, individual play in mmogs may be largely brain-dead and pointless grinding, but this can be a GOOD thing, because, given the proper rules-based social context, various socially determined pleasures of the self EMERGE.

Thus I wonder if there are no scenarios whatsoever, in imagination or in fact, within which emergence – and the social play that evokes it – would be a BAD thing? After all, an invasion of the body snatchers template would explain an awful lot about, among other things, Wolfram’s emergence-riddled A New Kind of Science. Eg., Individual play = cellular automata? Self = social “agent”?

And, then, related2: http://www.sportswebconsulting.ca/sportsbabel/2004/05/foundation-for-sports-geography.htm. Is something emerging here? Or, rather, is something being contained – and, thus, submerged?

And, then, related3: Hi, Lisa

[Nate Combs]

3.

dmyers>
Sure, individual play in mmogs may be largely brain-dead and pointless grinding, but this can be a GOOD thing, because, given the proper rules-based social context, various socially determined pleasures of the self EMERGE.

This seems to reinforce earlier AI-oriented discussions wrt mmogs (e.g. simplified player solveable puzzles: 1., bootstrap game design: 2.). To assert a set of conclusions consistent with the above point on social play:

**) mmog individual play has been streamlined to assist group play (e.g. not too challenging combat AI);

**) enhancements to individual play will require game design improvements to support group play.

[Riccardo (Bru)]

4.

Sounds like that basic economic law that says that "staying with the mass minimizes the risk". This is something that the human instinct strongly recognize (see pack behaviour), and yes I think it could lead to a stronger illusion and trusty behaviour in game terms too :)

Nice hint, thanks!

[Seth]

5.

Thanks for the mention Tim! The paper is in the book and on the digra site if anyone's interested. It's account of 'emergence' is probably more limited than MMORPG scholars would like (though dmyers might ;)), though I do talk about intentionality... my case study is a GameBoy Advance game that uses algorithms similar to cellular automata.
best wishes from PowerUp!