He was killed.
As many will be aware Sean Smith, aka EvE Online player and key GoonSwarm member Vile Rat, was killed in the attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, Lybia. Many of the news reports about Vile celebrate his achievements both off-line and on-line; and so far I've not seen a single report that sneered at or trivialised the work to strengthen the EvE Online community - fitting. The comments from the EvE Community itself - very fitting.Since 2007, by Game Industry Promotion Act and its implementing decree, S. Koreans should not do business for exchanging or mediating exchanges of, and repurchasing in-game money or data like in-game items that are produced or obtained by copying, adapting, and hacking the game program or by way of abnormal game-play.
The word of 'by way of abnormal game-play' has been generally understood as 'using Bots in game', and many sweatshop owners and RMT dealers who broke the law were punished.
On the other hand, Supreme Court of S. Korea ruled that RMT itself is not totally banned by this act in the sphere of MMORPGs where in-game items are basically obtained by sweat, not by luck. So, RMT dealers can buy and sell in-game items as far as those are produced and obtained by normal play.
In summary - human play : normal(OK) vs. Bot play : abnormal(banned).
But, practically, it's not that easy to tell Bot play from human play. Korean government have been worrying about the growth of the grey market of RMT and the crime related to this. Government agency assumes that 60% of RMT in korea were unhealthy one.
To cope with this matter, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism just now amended the implementing decree. Next july, the revised implementing decree will be effective. This time, Korean government enlarges the scope/depth of the word 'abnormal'.
Using the others personal information & Doing for a business also belong to the scope of 'abnormal'.
In summary - amateur play : normal vs. pro play : abnormal
(Probably the first 21th century law that is Johan Huizinga's Magic Circle graven on)
According to korean Value Added Tax act, anybody who supplies goods or services for business and earns more than 12,000,000 won in 6 months should register as "enterpreneur". Enterpreneur shall be liable to pay VAT. This new Implementing Decree do not permit game player be the enterpreneur of VAT act.
This is the end of my brief introduction to the new game law of S. Korea on RMT.
For me, it seems somewhat odd and interesting that Korea recently enacted another law called E-sports Promotion Act. The definition of E-sports is 'through the medium of games, human compete for the record, or win the game against human'. Of course, Main purpose of this act is to assist pro-gamer who play StarCraft, Dungeon & Fighter etc for a living.
Earning REAL money from the inferno be banned, while from the space is not.
Relating news(translated by google)
Former relating posts.
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/11/korean_national.html
http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2007/05/s_koreas_bancan.html
Holy hellions, Batman, 2012 is off with a bang.
Too bad about SWTOR and the LEGO Universe, but Guild Wars 2 might actually ship this year, and there are some other exciting things brewing. Tera Online might emerge unscathed from its legal machinations and make its promised launch date of May 2012. Blizzard is making a 'casual' MMO (with product placements)...
But here's what I'm waiting for...
The Secret World (April 2012) - This one is exciting even among the 'I'm not an MMO person' crowd. To me, it's like the game I've been waiting for. Here's why:
Want more? Check out the initial announcements at PAX 2009, or more recent trailers and interviews. Register for the beta, if you haven't already. Watch out for the government.
Also, don't forget that DiGRA (the Digital Games Research Association) is holding its semi annual conference in Tampere, Finland (where all the very cool kids are). They need papers and reviewers, so get in touch!
Ha, got your attention, eh? But this is actually an important topic, of the 'reality is broken' variety. Like the fact that we're obsessed over sexting and other digital phenomena related to sex, yet we have done little to improve sex education in this country. In fact, we have vilified and cut funding to Planned Parenthood and other organizations that save people's lives by providing them critical information that affects them physically, emotionally, spiritually. I ranted about this on Quora recently:
Sexting isn't the issue. The lack of good, ongoing and honest sex education and support (from elementary school) is. I personally don't care what kids do in this regard, as long as they are well-informed and not succumbing to pressure from peers or romantic partners. And obviously this behavior is probably not appropriate in classrooms.
As an anthropologist, I will tell you that sex play in early pubescence and later is very, very normal, and in some cultures, very well tolerated with positive effect. We are extremely backwards in our proclivity to bury our heads in the sands.
I do, however, think all kids need to be educated on the potential ramifications of having a digital trail of activity like this, and what it can mean in terms of reputation (immediately) and career later. It's outrageous that kids learn most of what they know about sex from each other, tv/movies and the Internet. This leaves gaping holes in their knowledge and their judgment about something that can affect their lives in such profound ways, and can even lead to illness and death.
I've been thinking for some time that games could play an important role in helping to eliminate a lot of the misinformation that is spread among kids and teens. Typically this sort of thing is handled a la the serious game: take some existing curriculum - the sort of thing you'd see in a high school sex ed class (if a school is lucky enough to have it). 'Chocolate-covered broccoli'. Seldom about the realities of sex and the social and emotional contexts that surround it. And boring.
One of my favorite sites is Ask Alice, a community effort from Columbia University that provides a forum for kids and teens to ask any question about sex, drugs, what have you, and get a truthful and reasonable answer. I think it's an incredible resource, but most people don't seem to know about it. So where are people getting their sexual educations?
I was really inspired by a TED Talk a lovely woman by the name of Cindy Gallop gave not long ago. You should watch it yourself, otherwise I might ruin it, but I will tell you that she makes some rather stunning points about how porn culture has distorted the way people think about sex. Clearly we need to figure out some better ways to communicate all of this, aside from ignoring the groundswell of sexual activity that is incredibly normal for our species.
There's rather a dearth of recreational, digital sex games, a fact that surprises me given the proclivity of clever porn mongers who hawk every kind of sex ware imaginable. Have throughout history, using any available technology. It's well established, for instance, that early photography and film thrived on sexual innovations. And we certainly spent a lot of time discussing the ins and outs of cybersex back in the day, when everything digital was a novelty. Are we jaded? Or recession economics?
Well, it seems like a business opportunity to me. They appear to sell plenty of books and board games in those novelty sex shops. People could certainly use some variety in their sex lives. Yet the ecosystem somehow manages to eschew innovation, just like the video game industry. Microsoft, for instance, is blocking sexual uses of their Kinect device, citing 'unintended puposes' (imagine a mash-up of a Kinect device and teledildonics - long distance love, FTW!). I did find A-Chat , but it seems like a graphics enhanced chat room app, and that's boring, too... I suppose there's the seedy underbelly that is Second Life's sex subculture, but it seems, well, seedy. And not terribly educational. But if people are into it, great. Let's just have some other options.
Most sex and videogames conjecture has been about either glorifying or bastardizing sexual content. There are few balanced perspectives: Brenda Braithwaite's work is very insightful, and Bonnie Ruberg has made quite a few contibutions, too. That's sort of not the point I'm trying to make, though. Sure, we could be more mature about sex and sexual imagery in games. But I sort of don't care about that stuff. I want us to ask, yet again, how can this incredible platform for persuasion be used for the greater good? How can we inform people, encourage safe play and experimentation... delight with escapism, encourage fantasy and role-playing... do all the things that we know video games are so good for?
So, brilliant Terra Novans... what games would you design to solve this problem?
Another reason to be against gold farming. Thanks Dmitri Williams for the heads up. (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/may/25/china-prisoners-internet-gaming-scam)
What distances the true terrorist from some wannabe? His forum posts, of course. And how is that to be measured? With forum Likes, of course. With gamified terror forum rankings, the best of the best can get leaderboarded and waterboarded! Gamification >> all! (Thanks to student Peter Winland for the tip.)
Apparently the major media outlets were the last to let us know. While they scrambled to put on their ties and do their hair, the metaverse was spreading the information we cared about. I'd bet a quarter that most people got the news first from a descendent of UO: Twitter, FB, or an online game.
Where was I? Sanctum, home of the Guardian faction in Rift.
...are on the internets ALL THE TIME! At least, according to this video from Corning, makers of lots of glass. It is such a cool ad. Every surface a touchscreen. Imagine! Yet dystopia lurks behind the smiles. Choose your flavor: persistent surveillance, relationship madness, unavoidable work, lack of silence, fragmented consciousness, information overload. And the ad shows no avatars (well maybe one if you count the shopping), no games, and no porn. Just happy families getting timely information from lidup to liddown. Yeah, that's how it will be.
Monica Potts argues in the American Prospect (for those of who who don't know, it's a left-of-center magazine) that liberals who play video games go along with the conservative modes of play within them. (For the purposes of this discussion, the word "liberal" will refer to everything from social democrats to greens to progressives, while those who desire limited government will be called libertarians).
Research by Jonathan Haidt is the best thing yet offered on the difference between liberal and conservative thinking. Haidt's work suggests there are five core dimensions of moral reasoning: Harm, Fairness, Loyalty, Authority, and Purity. Conservatives register concern about all five. Liberals care much less about the last three. Flashpoints of liberal/conservative conflict would therefore be things in the last three categories, such as: Having a Don't Mess With Texas Bumpersticker (Loyalty), Doing What the Police Officer Says Just Because He's a Police Officer (Authority), and Sing the National Anthem in a Traditional Way (Purity).
Ms. Potts touches on various experiences in games like the Sims and casually refers to some play modes as conservative and others as liberal. She also tends to view most of videogame play as essentially conservative, with a few liberal exceptions. She is concerned that she is not disgusted by, and actually enjoys, some of the conservative play modes.
Are there liberal and conservative moments in games? Does one or the other type predominate? Or are games an inkblot, much like mainstream media, which is criticized by all sides for being biased the other way?
Or, consider the premise that games are conservative. Why would that be? Are game developers generally a conservative bunch?
Finally, why couldn't you play any game in a way that suits your moral inklings? Are the incentives in games strong enough to lure people into acting contrary to their moral commitments?
Does a book (new out in the US) point to a happy, healthy, virtual future – just like a certain TN’er told us?
Wilkinson and Pickett’s The Spirit Level: Why Equality is Better for Everyone is getting a bunch of publicity in the US right now. Tom Ashbrook did a great interview with the authors on WBUR’s On Point last week (top tip: an updated edition of the work is available in the UK which includes a response to the books critics).
The thesis of the book is pretty simple: social inequality leads to negative outcomes for the whole of society – primarily this relates to health but includes other things like violence, teen pregnancy etc etc. An note, this is about inequality, not absolute wealth, so the poor in society A can have more money than the poor in society B, but if the gap between rich and poor in A is greater than B, then health outcomes will tend to be lower in A.
Wilkinson and Pickett go further than merely observing this correlation – they argue that the outcomes are a result of psychological impact of inequality increasing things such as ‘evaluation anxiety’; relying on less people for more and more people for nothing, and other elements of a sense of self.
Well, you can see where this is going. After On Point I skimmed back through the last chapters of Exodus to the Virtual World by Dr Castronova (of this parish). The ability of VW’s to provide accomplishment, hierarchy, and social groups is exactly what Catronova was arguing. The Spirit Level seems to add meat to the argument.
Wherein we spin into old arguments – if VW’s can have positive impacts on health outcomes, why are they not actively promoted a part of public policy. Indeed for VW’s to have anything more than a marginal impact on a few that happen to be invested heavily in them they might have to be promoted by the state. What’s more, if we follow the argument, they are preventative and prevention is cheaper than cure.
The rebuttal might be the usual ‘not real’ argument – things there are not real, achievements are not real. But of course we in many ways talking about symbolic achievement on both sides of the argument, it’s not what you have it’s what you feel about what you have in respect of others, it’s all relative semiotics.
So, state sanctioned VW’s and XP for all !?
The Wall Street Journal reports that the rampage killer Jared Loughner was a gamer. As usual? Recall Mr. Cho, whose killing of Hokies was followed immediately by angry denunciations of the game industry for programming him thusly. It turns out that the only game in his troubled mind was Sonic the Hedgehog. I guess Sonic only seems to be a cuddly rodent; he's actually the vehicle for a secret code that turns ordinary people into frenzied savages.
Loughner's preferred game was a MUD called Earth Empires. Aha! Now we get to the root of things! Richard Bartle, what insidious mind-altering snippet of code did you hide in MUD1 that has spread across the gaming industry and caused all these murders? Come clean, you rogue hacker!
On a serious note, it appears that Mr. Loughner's MUD community was more supportive and helpful to him than the world at large. He got kicked out of jobs and school, but one gets the impression from WSJ's report that EE forum readers never stopped trying to engage with him or give him advice. Certainly - and this is critical - none of the gamers encouraged him in his ravings.
Legal commentators in the blogosphere (e.g. Nic Suzor, Technollama, Rebecca Tushnet, Venkat & Eric) have already offered some initial thoughts on the Ninth Circuit decision in MDY v. Blizzard. Since I talked about the district court opinion in this case in Chapter 9 of my book, I thought I'd post a few reactions too.
This post is going to be a bit on the long side, but that's only because the issues raised on this appeal are a bit tricky, meaning that I feel the need to lay a little doctrinal groundwork before getting to my thoughts about the case.
Though there was an interesting tortious interference decision in the appeal, I'm going to focus on the two copyright issues that were decided by the Ninth Circuit, one involving a claim that users of MDY's Glider program breached World of Warcraft (WoW)'s software license and the other claiming that users of MDY's Glider program violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)'s prohibitions on circumventing technological protection measures that limit access to copyrighted works. This second claim focused on the operation of Blizzard's Warden program, which monitors a player's computer to see if it is running any unauthorized software.
The appellate court essentially found in favor of MDY on the licensing issue, reversing the lower court, and in favor of Blizzard on the DMCA-Warden issue, affirming the lower court. That adds up to a win for Blizzard. That win could be reversed, in theory, if MDY pursues further appeals. An en banc review of the Ninth Circuit is possible and there's always the slim chance of getting the case reviewed by the United States Supreme Court.
I'll discuss the software licensing issue first.1) Does violating a ban on botting make a user a copyright infringer? When a user plays WoW, some of the game's software code is copied into the random access memory of the user's computer. This "RAM copying" is treated as an exercise of the copyright owner's exclusive reproduction right pursuant to existing Ninth Circuit doctrine.
Whether the RAM copy doctrine makes sense has been subject to some debate. However, if we accept that premise, it follows that playing WoW entails making a copy of the WoW software. If you are making a copy and you are not licensed to make that copy, you're presumptively infringing copyright. It is worth noting that section 117 might seem to carve out an exception for software purchasers making RAM copies that are part of normal software use, but again, the Ninth Circuit's precedent (affirmed in this case) leads to the conclusion that section 117 doesn't apply in standard consumer software purchases.
So starting at that point, if there is a term in the software license that you fail to abide by, and you make a RAM copy while breaking the terms of the license, are you then engaged in copyright infringement? E.g., I grant you a license to use my spreadsheet program, but include in the license the condition that you must stand on one foot while doing so. You agree to my software license and then, while using the spreadsheet, you lose your balance. When your foot touches the earth, have you committed copyright infringement?
Or perhaps did you merely breach an independent contract with me that is unrelated to copyright, meaning I can only sue for breach of contract?
The difference in the two sorts of claims can be very significant. Breaching a contract gives rise to traditional remedies -- i.e., how were you damaged when I stood on two feet and used the software? Infringing a copyright, on the other hand, gives rise to statutory damages, which generally don't track the actual damages that a copyright holder suffered as a result of the infringement. Statutory damages are a much more powerful remedy.
The Ninth Circuit in MDY draws a distinction between licensing terms that give rise to copyright infringement liability and those terms that fall outside the scope of the copyright entitlement. This makes abundant sense. Software copyrights should not give their owners the power to essentially regulate all user behaviors during software use with the threat of statutory damages for any breach of the terms of use.
To give rise to the infringement remedy, it makes sense that a licensing condition should have some "copyrightishness" about it. By analogy, this is sort of like the touch & concern doctrine in the law of property servitudes, which requires real covenants (persistent social arrangements regarding land use) to have some "landishness" about them if they are going to be applied to downstream purchasers of the estate.
The precise term at issue in MDY is Blizzard's prohibition on unauthorized "botting" software. Glider is a botting program, so it pretty clearly breaches Blizzard's license. Essentially, a bot program turns your avatar into a robot. Using Glider means that you are not playing World of Warcraft -- instead you're letting the bot program control your avatar on autopilot, setting it to run around Azeroth and kill things and collect loot.
If you use Glider, it is clear that you are in violation of the software license of WoW. And MDY essentially conceded on appeal that if users are copyright infringers when they use Glider in this way, MDY is liable based on that conclusion as an accessory to the underlying infringement.
But, as it turns out, according to the Ninth Circuit's ruling, using bots in violation of the WoW software license actually does not make a user a copyright infringer. Why not? Because there's no nexus to the copyright law in the license prohibition against bots.
It's a little hard for me to neatly sum up the reasoning here, but the basic point seems to be that "how you play the game" does not really have much to do with making copies of the game software or recording the content, etc.
As an outcome, I'm fine with this. Still, I must confess I'm a little hazy about the rule. Supporting the court's view, it is true that the claim being made by Blizzard is not that Glider users make copies of its software or experience WoW without paying subscription fees. If this were a traditional video game, I think those facts would strongly support the lack of a copyright nexus. But WoW is not a conventional video game and the copyright at issue is not a conventional copyright. In fact, with regard to the DMCA claim (which I'll get to next), the Ninth Circuit opinion accepts the idea that Blizzard owns a discrete copyright interest in WoW's "dynamic non-literal elements."
So Blizzard is not only claiming protection of the game's literal software code or the various multi-media components (audio files, graphics files, animation files). The copyright asserted in this case extends to the user's experience of the game software when connected to the servers (which are in turn connected to the clients of the thousands of other players). The work accessed is "dynamic" because it is constantly evolving and "non-literal" because it is a fluid multimedia audiovisual experience rather than a conventional fixed text. Note that these dynamic non-literal elements are produced, at least to some degree, by the players.
In fact, what is particularly irksome to Blizzard (and to its subscribers) about Glider is not that Glider players get access to the world, but that that they fail to access the world. The Glider user doesn't actually want the "dynamic non-literal elements" of Azeroth. The paradigmatic Glider user is not even experiencing WoW when Glider is active.
So why is Blizzard complaining about Glider users who pay MDY not to experience Azeroth? Because this case, I think, has always been about gold-farming. Blizzard sued Glider, I think, because the software is useful for gold-farming and gold-farming disrupts the game economy, poses virtual property headaches for the company, and is deemed cheating by a substantial portion of WoW's user base. If virtual gold is valuable and can be sold for profits, botting to collect it is a way to make money and Glider becomes a business tool.
But in the case, it seemed that neither side (for separate good reasons) stressed or deeply explored the connection between MDY's profits and the gold farming business. Given that the parties did not pursue it, the court certainly did not jump on it sua sponte.
Before moving on to the DMCA, I want to touch back on the condition/covenant distinction in the license. Is it really true that the prohibition on botting has no nexus to Blizzard's copyright? Actually, I might argue that it does. The manner in which the Glider player acts (or more accurately, fails to act) actually does shapes the nature of the "dynamic non-literal" elements that are experienced by the other players. The Glider player is, essentially, a bad authorial collaborator, making WoW worse for other subscribers.
Is that a copyright nexus? Certainly not a traditional nexus, but I do think an argument could be made.
Still, as I said, I'm generally pleased with the outcome here. Whatever the coherence of the court's explanation on these facts, the public is certainly better off in a world where every minor violation of a clickwrap license won't put you on the hook for copyright infringement.
2) DMCA 1201(a)(2)
Although the DMCA is another copyright claim, it is actually a much different claim involving a much different law.
The software licensing claim described above follows this logic:
1) Blizzard says no botting or you can't make RAM copies,
2) players who use Glider make RAM copies,
3) these players infringe copyright,
4) MDY is liable for helping them do that.
As I said above, the Ninth Circuit finds for MDY (and Glider users) by failing to agree with Blizzard at step 3.
The DMCA claim concerns Blizzard's effort to control bots via technology. Specifically, Blizzard created a program called Warden that monitors the active memory of the user's computer. Warden scans the user's computer for signs of unauthorized software. When the user connects to Blizzard's servers and the game is running, Warden pokes around in the game memory. If it finds signs of something it doesn't like, it severs the player's connection to the servers.
Blizzard's DMCA claim follows a simpler legal logic:
1) Blizzard's Warden program is a technological measure that controls access to the "dynamic" WoW program,
2) MDY's Glider program is a tool that circumvents Warden.
Essentially, that's the whole claim. This is because the DMCA, at 17 U.S.C. 1201(a)(2) concisely prohibits trafficking in tools that "circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work..."
Because Blizzard relies on Warden's policing activities for this claim, it had to take the position (mentioned above) that Blizzard holds a discrete copyright interest in WoW's dynamic non-literal game play elements. This is because Warden controls access to those dynamic elements, but doesn't effectively control access to the rest of the client software. E.g., the user has access to the audiovisual elements of the game and to the literal software code even when the client is not connected to the servers. The user only gets to see the game be dynamic, though, when the client ties into the server. This is when Warden does its police work.
So Blizzard's claim was that Warden is a technological measure that effectively controls access to WoW's dynamic non-literal work (the gameplay). The lower court accepted this claim. The Ninth Circuit accepted it as well, disagreeing with a Federal Circuit opinion that would have interpreted 1201 more narrowly, perhaps allowing MDY to prevail on this claim as well.
A large swath of the Ninth Circuit opinion is given to explaining what is fairly obvious if you read 17 U.S.C. 1201. Namely, section 1201(a) (at issue in this case) is directed at the circumvention of access-control measures whereas the separate provisions of 1201(b) outlaw trafficking in tools that enable the circumvention of rights protections. The court's descriptions of (a) and (b) are really quite nice, and I'll be sure to give them to my students in the future who get confused about the difference between 1201(a) and (b).
However, the Ninth Circuit uses the difference between 1201(a) and (b) to make a more radical, though not unprecedented, claim. Following what the Second Circuit did in the case of Universal Studios v. Corley, the Ninth Circuit determines that the 1201(a) "access" provisions are essentially a new right added to copyright law that are almost entirely separate from the traditional rights of copyright owners. Disagreeing with the Federal Circuit's decision in the Chamberlain (garage door opener) case, the Ninth Circuit rules that violations of 1201(a) can occur without the demonstration of any nexus (contra the discussion above re licensing) to copyright.
So, in essence, according to the court, it doesn't really matter that users are circumventing Warden with Glider solely to engage in a different sort of game play that is unrelated to copyright entitlements. The court itself stated that the botting prohibition lacks a copyright nexus. This doesn't help MDY evade 1201(a) we are essentially told, because that prohibition isn't about any that a user might do after evading Warden. The very act of evading Warden is the violation, even if subsequent actions have nothing to do with infringing copyright.
With that established, it is also established that MDY, by providing a tool that circumvents Warden, violates 1201(a)(2), even if the use of bots by users doesn't amount to copyright infringement.
Does that sound a bit odd? It certainly does to me.
Just like I disagreed with the Second Circuit when it decided Corley, I find myself in disagreement with the Ninth Circuit in this case. Whatever the legislative history of 1201 may say, it seems to me that 1201 is part of the copyright statute. Requiring that anti-circumvention violations bear some relation to copyright entitlements makes just as much sense here as it does with regard to the questions of software licensing. As many commentators have said over the past decade, treating 1201(a) as paracopyright entitlement essentially divorced from the logic of traditional copyright makes for both bad policy and bad copyright law.
Finally, I want to note that, for reasons that I explain in the book, I'm not unsympathetic to Blizzard's efforts with regard to prohibiting botting software. I'm actually okay, in this particular instance, with Blizzard winning this particular case.
My main concern is about the collateral consequences of this sort of DMCA decision. Copyright owners seeking to use the DMCA in this way are not all going to be like Blizzard going after botting programs. Few plaintiffs will be enforcing game rules with the general support of the user base.
Instead I predict that future cases that cite to this ruling will involve cloud computing companies and social network providers facing off against disruptive innovators -- and I'm pretty sure I'll be significantly less sympathetic to those efforts. Increasingly, the software we are running is going to be connected to remote servers and policed by programs like Warden that want to keep tabs on what we're doing with our iPads and smartphones, etc.
If you think about it, the ruling in this case is essentially about technology replacing law. Blizzard's contractual prohibition on bots has no copyright teeth. Its technological effort to prevent botting, however, obtain very pointy copyright teeth from 1201(a). Seems to me like an incentive for future cloud computing titans to build more comprehensive Wardens -- or even traitorware.
So there you have it. In sum, a mixed bag. (Lots of grays, a few greens, no purples.)
(Prior coverage here.)
Commenter Dave wrote to say that he's interested in a discussion about Call of Duty's policies toward user-created images.
Quoth Dave:
Recently a gamer asked a CoD developer if using a swastika as an emblem ingame would be ok. The developer said no and it would result in a ban.
Original question via Twitter; recent coverage; blog post by the developer.
Will it ever be possible to clearly separate the 'real world' from the virtual or will we always carry baggage over from one into the other? Will a red rising sun always mean Japanese imperialism to Chinese gamers?
End Quote
Interesting stuff. Thoughts?
You can now buy a car designed around the IP of a videogame.
Back in October, Mike & I & others mulled for a bit about Farmville and its place in the gaming/MMO sphere. Recently, a lot of other people have been mulling about Farmville too, in a crabbier sort of way. From various sources, it seems Farmville was the bête noire of GDC this year (see this Sauron reference), both envied (for numbers, revenues, and buzz) and despised (for various reasons, but it seems to me, at least in part, for not being anything remotely like Portal).
Today Soren Johnson worries that Farmville's prominence threatens good game design. Scott Jennings (who wasn't at GDC but is a celebrity) had a nice summary a few days ago of the popular zeitgeist: "Farmville Killed Gaming, V-Worlds, And Your Dog." (Notably, Mark Pincus took exception to this characterization.)
Following on Scott's post, Raph Koster's thread has some of the best commentary so far, imho, on "what the heck do we make of Farmville?" I think Raph is right that this resistance to social gaming is partly about game designers historically inhabiting a particular gamer subculture where "playing house" is simply beyond the pale, and the "tank-nuker-healer" mechanic is engraved somewhere on sacred stone tablets. Yes, Farmville is not WoW, Second Life, or LambdaMOO, or some expensive or innovative virtual world. And yes, the game play in Farmville isn't the game play in Settlers of Catan or GTA or Civ IV or World of Goo. And the constant push to find new ways to monetize the millions of free players is a drag on the desired freedom of the game designer.
But just because Farmville and free-to-play social games have exploded overnight, this doesn't spell the end of gaming and virtual worlds. (For what it's worth, I actually think Farmville is a virtual world by the majority academic definitions, though just barely.) While I haven't got the numbers, my impression is that most of today's social games aficionados have left Solitaire and Minesweeper (not Call of Duty) for this brave new world of MMO-super-lites. Scott Jennings is right -- this is growth, not creative destruction.
I think the hard part about Farmville, for "core" MMO players, is understanding the appeal of the game. Earlier this month, on a visit up to NYU's Game Center, I heard Eric Zimmerman boggling over Farmville's popular appeal. Like many people, his general take was that Farmville was ludically sub-optimal. Ken Wark was there too, and he seemed less surprised about Farmville's popularity. His view, I think, was that Farmville offers players the realization of our cultural mythology of a capitalist consumerist meritocracy... just without any of the nagging failures of the dream that are found in reality.
I actually do think there's something to that, but for me, having chatted with those who farm and farmed a bit myself, I'll take a shot at a different explanation for the popularity. As we all know, Farmville gets introduced to people in the first place because it tries very hard to grow by, shall we say, aggressive attempts at the use of social networks. But that alone doesn't make it popular. I think, on first encounter, the Farmville appeal is largely about the 8-bit-cutesy graphics. (This reminds me of something Nick said about WoW way back when.) Farmville is all agrarian unicorn & rainbow happiness and some people do find this appealing. (This sends MMO "core gamers" running, but compare Plants vs. Zombies -- same sort of agrarian cuteness, but with brain-hungry zombies, so not offensive to gamers.)
Farmville follows the cuteness with a ridiculously simply user interface with near zero learning curve. When you click with the hoe icon, there's something oddly captivating about the scratchy sound accompanying the transformation of an isometric green (or icky brown) square into a furrowed rich brown square of plowed soil. Clicking again, you get more scratchy sounds, more transformation. Liz once talked here about the similarity of the pleasure of the WoW grind and pulling weeds in a garden. It may seem odd, but I think the micro acts of simply plowing, seeding, and harvesting are a key part of Farmville's appeal. They're just as vital as the trademark boingy jump featured in the Mario games. When you combine this micro-experience of growing with the joy of purchasing with the sticky social gifting and conspicuous consumption aspects of displaying your wealth -- the things that really drive some people nuts, but apparently not Farmville players -- the whole experience clicks.
Yes, it's pretty shallow, predictable, formulaic, and not so much about skill. But isn't that the same as romance novels and Hollywood blockbusters... and, dare I say it, MMOs? And yes, it's driven by virtual property sales and a spammy approach to social networks. But, as they say, TANSTAAFL.
I'm not saying Farmville is a great game. But quite a few people seem to be enjoying it and de gustibus non est disputandum. When I hold it up against your average FPS, RTS, or Mortal Kombat rehash, I can't say Farmville's popularity spells the end of civilization, at least in my book.