The Virtual UN

Call me inspired by Mia's thread below on Japanese/US gamers. I read the Washington Post's account of USC's effort to create an online game world to improve international relations. The effort, spearheaded by game worthies Joshua Fouts and Douglas Thomas, strives to combine the VOA's outreach with the "can't we all just get along" idea of literally playing nice with each other. The question: Can virtual worlds really foster harmony between groups, let alone nations?

If we put aside the stereotypes about Chinese pharmers and get into the kind of international buddy system that the FFXI players are haltingly creeping toward, will players from different nations come to appreciate or like people from that other nation?

Do people who play with each other in MMOs really develop enough deep contact to actually cross demographic boundaries? Maybe in this case it's just impression management and individual ties don't matter.

Or, is it simply the case that game mechanics, language barriers and interface restrictions will keep the contact from ever moving based "game" and into something more meaningful?

Or do all the little virtual people not amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world? 

Comments

[lewy]

1.

Turning the question around, what about games like Lineage where South Korean and Japanese guilds engage in massive battles with racial/nationalistic overtones?

[Tess]

2.

This article, from yesterday's Washington Post is highly relevant:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/15/AR2005101500218.html

"They found that many players from other countries had a negative view of Americans, an impression that sometimes became more positive as they played cooperatively with players based in the United States."

[Jun Sok Huhh]

3.

>lewy

Such a vivid hatred in Lineage, at least in Korea, has not been so simple. Is it from narrow traits of Korea players? I think it is not cultural, national or racial crash in the game. At their early stage, most of societies/associations have a natural tendency to boycotting alien members from the outer. Especially, in general, Korean people do not have many chances of contacting with the foreign. Among east-Asia countries, Korea scored the lowest openness index measured by UN or something (I don’t remember the source exactly).

More problematic is that those spontaneous feelings of refusal could be amplified by game logics/designs or situation around the game. Here, I’ll point out just two cases in Lineage. One is so-called or notorious PK-system in Lineage. Originally, PK in Lineage was not just pure duel among players, but one of most effective ways of hunting or gathering. Namely, if one player wins/kills another, he can get every item that belongs to the loser/dead. Also, any form of consent was needed in engaging PK mode. Players who looked like foreigner might have been easy targets for the imagined anonymity, the feeling of they-are-not-among-us.
Second case is more complicated. Recently, Korea Police Agency announced the arrest of some groups that were running China-based workshops that are specialized in item productions(details are a little bit subtle. See this post, http://gamestudy.org/eblog/?p=6 ). Since about one years ago, there were many rumors among Lineage players that gamers who logged from China almost consisted of workers (not in metaphorical but in real sense) hired by item dealers. I remember seeing many posts in MMORPG bulletins/communities urging that Korean player hunted these China down for defending their game. Killing for this cause made another big wave for hunting the foreign. It reminded me of witch hunts of medieval age in some ways. But, in this case, the issue of RMT was at the center of problem.

[Jerry P]

4.

Dmitri, 100% synching with your post title: Globalization guru Thomas Barnett is coming into Second Life on the 26th for an event inside a...[drum roll]...virtual UN :-). Info and pics here. Hmm, maybe that will turn into more...

> Can virtual worlds really foster harmony between groups, let alone nations?

Earlier today Alvis Brigis posted An Open Letter to Bill Clinton advocating that politicians start pondering just this question (must be something in the air... :-) as VWs move towards that open, Web-connected 3D metaverse thingamajig. The letter stresses the potential significance of VWs in areas like Remote Labor, Capital Infusion, Distance Learning, Untapped Human Capital, Human Rights, and Coordinated Systemic Action.

[Tess]

5.

I am a big dummy, and just linked the same article that Dmitri linked. Silly me. But, the quote was relevant to his questions. :)

[Alan Meades]

6.

Josh and Doug's project is a very interesting one indeed, I had the privilige of discussing their work at SOP earlier this month. Promoting an ideal of international understanding and tolerance is a broadly positive concept, and one that I'll be keeping a close eye on.

Its interesting that FFXI is considered an example of good intercultural managment; because although FFXI gives a general impression of intercultural harmony if you probe a little further you can see that there are a number of potentialy major stumbling blocks. Although most of these can be avoided with prudent deployment and development I still think that it might be interesting to point out my experiences and those of my many FFXI playing contributors.

FFXI appears to be in a similar turmoil to the real world: a large (and at one point growing) number of individuals are competing for limited resources. Instead of oil or diamonds Notorious Monsters and HigherNotoriousMonsters and the items they drop are in major demand.

Deployment:
FFXI was released in Japan in 2002 (without auto-text translation), quickly Japanese players explored, rationalised and exploited the resources that Vana diel offered them. A balance of power and emergent social structure formed. Note that the exclusion of auto-text translator is significant... at this point FFXI was a Japanese game space which had been colonised by Japanese players.

FFXI was then released in the US in 2003, then in the EU in 2004 - at each point an influx of foreign nationals entered FFXI placing additional strain on resources, causing increased lag, and (through providing a market for low-value items, which invigorated cash-flow) inflating the cost of all items.

Some Japanese players viewed the influx of confusingly behaved players, who in the large part due to a (almost) *functional* text-translator could barely be communicated with as invaders who effectively had no right to be within FFXI. This was less of a problem while there was a significant level gap between US and JP players - as the Japanese players tended to gravitate to end-game or high-level areas due to the value of item drops, which the US players were unable to visit. However the last 6months has seen a large number of American players reaching an end-game point placing high-level areas and mobs in their reach, and therefore placing them in direct competition with terretorial Japanese item-finding-parties.

To cut a long story short this has in times flared up into overt racism both in-game and spilling out onto message boards - 'JPonry' for example, outright agression - active MPKing (inciting monsters to attack rival parties to make attacking a true target impossible, and causing damage).

I have reports of GMs being called and not responding to US allegations (interperetted by US players as a GM bias)... what can only be described as virtual lynch mobs as a result followed by heavy handed and swift penalties on the behalf of Japanese GMs (I have not been able to corroborate these allaegations, but the number of reports suggests that this is happening, or at least percieved to be happening regularily).

This feeling of inequality is becoming a serious issue - some players are leaving whilst others are becoming increasingly xenophobic.

I'm not suggesting that this is indicative of the experience of the majority, however these attitudes are being fostered to some degree and are having a damaging effect on both in game relations and potentially RL international attitudes.

This isnt even mentioning the allegations of Denial of Service attacks on FFXI as a Japanese media product by Chinese as detailed by William huber on ludonauts. http://www.ludonauts.com/2005/04/16/cross-straits-relations-in-vanadiel/

I should say that this is just the opinion of a vocal few, but is cerytainly worth considering in diplomatic terms - what are the RL equivalents of an extremist, vocal, active few?

I'm not suggesting that intercultural spaces are impossible or untenable, just that even if the virtual world is designed with great sensitivity the behaviour of both Live Team, GMs and even deployment is of massive importance.

[Jean]

7.

> Can virtual worlds really foster harmony between groups, let alone nations?

Why not? And if anything, maybe we can get some good ideas on how.

Like with USC's Reinventing Public Diplomacy Through Games Contest
http://games.uscpublicdiplomacy.com

No matter the industry, communication and information are the current buzzwords and are the cornerstones of promoting public diplomacy. Cross utilizing technology in different industries as well as the merging of politics and popular culture are not new. Games are becoming more sophisticated and the next logical step with this medium is to take it to the next level - can it influence people? be emotive? change perceptions? The potential is there, if not already brewing. Both positive and negative repercussions are possible (as in other media) which is all the more reason to not only take it seriously but to continually expand and improve the medium.

...and yes I am part of the Josh and Doug effort :)

[Mia]

8.

Alan: good points about FFXI and the problems that can arise because of constraints in the game.

I'd also point out that NA (or westerners generally) players are probably used to being the figurative *center* of the experience in games, and it can be a strange experience that someone else got to the end game first, or that there might be players not interested in grouping with you. Add to that a feeling that Square Enix *always* (in their eyes) schedules downtime during NA primetime, rather than at JP primetime, and the suspicions begin anew.

[Betsy Book]

9.

Many social ties established in virtual worlds are indeed powerful enough to bridge offline cultural divides, but I think as a whole the sort of Virtual UN project envisioned here may be best served by a structure that's built more along the lines of a social virtual world where the whole point of the world is to make friends and develop social networks as opposed to a more traditional RPG gaming model that incorporates PK-ing, PVP, and all those other P acronyms that automatically create certain tensions between participants. Not that there can't be a competitive structure to the game, but perhaps something more like Olympics-style competition rather than war games would be more effective for this particular project.

[Hamlet Linden]

10.

My own quick take on an apparent similar effect in SL is here:

http://secondlife.blogs.com/nwn/2005/07/into_the_arms_o.html

[Dmitri Williams]

11.

Interesting story, Alan.

Do you think that this is primarily a function of the rollout effect or is there somethign else at work there? i.e. if the game had been launched internationally rather than by region, would we see different patterns?

And Betsy's point is well-taken, too. But I wonder if this same Us vs. Them mentality couldn't also be put into a game mechanic that deliberately fosters internationalism rather than regionalism. Let's assume that players enjoy some of that Sharks vs. Jets/Horde vs. Alliance, etc. mentality and we flip it to our own ideological purposes.

E.G. Some game mechanic places players from different continents into groups more often than with others from the same geographic area. Or, players from different areas playing together get a higher group bonus when their party members are from different places.

What I'm thinking is that the same kinds of game-based systems that create division could be subtly altered to reverse the effect. Incentivize internationalism.

Crazy?

[Alan Meades]

12.

Dmitri,

Not at all crazy!

You've hit the nail exactly on the head here - I'm not simply pointing the finger of blame at the rollout, but also as you have pointed out an almost intrinisc nationalistic bias to FFXI.

Take for example the fact that in a game promoted as a forum for international collaburation and harmony there are in-game flags with the express purpose of excluding player bases - e.g. JP ONLY (I'll only play with Japanese players) or the U.S. equivalent. I had a really enjoyable chat with William Huber on this matter in September over a curry... Such inclusions almost certainly promote nationality or the notion of real world geography as a divisive issue - i.e. steps havent necessarily been taken to promote similarity and to ease social tensions.

I agree with you entirely that a game can produce different, more prevelant forms of opposition and unity - as you suggested Sharks vs Jets etc to which players will ally themselves with (to be fair FFXI attempts this with its nation system). However I think that the flags and the deployment are examples of ways in which the original message has been subverted.

I'd love to see Incentivised Internationalism - e.g. you get better XP if your party consists of players from different locales... yet once again this would be promoting the notion of difference and could be seen as a utopian form of ...social control... uch!

Playing devils advocate:
Perhaps we should allow games to erupt as a forum for nationalism ... would social order and stability form eventully of its own accord? Would this be impossible without the fear of loss - would we need PD?
Crazy?

[Prokofy Neva]

13.

No.