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We opened class on Monday November 3, 2008 with a discussion on Thomas Malaby’s Anthropology and Play: The Contours of Playful Experience and the second half of Julian Dibbell’s Play Money. We started by looking at Malaby’s beliefs about play. He saw a distinct separation between ritual and play. According to Dictionary.com a ritual is “any practice or pattern of behavior regularly performed in a set manner” and by the very nature of the word this means that “ despite the fact that [rituals] can go wrong, they are subject to contingency, and they aim to bring about determinate outcomes” (Malaby). These determinant and repetitive qualities of rituals makes it the inverse of play because play “is marked by a readiness to improvise” (Malaby). The very nature of play allows for games to be indeterminate. Therefore play is less pliable for the industry because of this improvisation. This doesn’t allow for the exploitation of play for institutional and nationalistic purposes like you could do with rituals because of their determinate outcomes.
After we discussed these distinctions we looked at the example that Malaby used to show how the Olympic games "so clearly demonstrates the power and limitations of games when put to use by institutions."
To emphasize this point Malaby brought up the Olympic games in Berlin in 1936. The Nazi’s felt that through the games they would be able to “display the power and legitimacy of Nazi ideals” because they believed that they could determine that the winners would all be Aryan. However those beliefs went against the very nature of games because of the improvisation that occurs which is supposed to allow their winners to be contingent. After all anything can happen in a game, especially at the Olympics.
We then looked at how competition influences “work” and “play”. Both Dibbell and Malaby brought up the practices of the website TopCoder.com. This website holds various contests which allows programmers to compete by creating the best code solutions in order to win cash prizes. Once the codes are submitted to Topcoder.com they now own the codes and are allowed to make a profit off of them. Malaby discusses how,
"the success of the enterprise depends on TopCoder’s ability to tap into the playful competitive mode or disposition, while the entire game activity is extrinsically governed by an ulterior profit motive, geared to practical applications of the winning solutions after the fact."
This “playful competitive mode” used in order to be productive is not specific only to TopCoder.com. It is becoming more and more popular for various companies to create competitions in order to get all types of people outside of the company involved in their creative process in order to create new and innovative ideas while generating both profit and buzz for the company.
Jennifer responded to TopCoder’s method of productivity in her paper by bringing up how,
"in this situation, the distinction between play and work is blurred. For coders, they are doing some sort of play- meaning that they enjoy coding and it’s fun for them, but in reality they are doing work- they are making something that will be efficient for others in the long run and can actually help computers to run."
Here is the link for the TopCoder.com website. http://www.topcoder.com/
Exploitation?
This then launched the class into a discussion about if this method could be considered exploitation. Anique felt that it is hard to put a label on it, and say if it is in fact exploitation. Charlotte then brought up how when people submit their work they agree to the terms and conditions laid out by the company. I explained my feelings about how competitions like this could definitely be beneficial for both parties and allow for exposure of the creators, which they would have never received without the competition.
Both Malaby and Dibbell wondered about the possibilities of making work more play-like, and whether it would be a good or bad thing. The class believed that if people were having fun at work they would be more productive. Many companies even hold competitions for prizes within their company as an incentive to make their employees more efficient. However, it was brought up during our discussion that once you have a nicer and more fun job they expect more from you.
Another distinction between work and play was brought up in Richard’s response paper he discussed how online players free a sense of pleasure in their work, and this may be because “games like World of Warcraft are encouraging in their nature. When you successful mine, you may get a message saying your mining skill increased, which is rewarding and self-encouraging. The game is constantly telling you how you are improving, while most desk jobs do not.” I personally completely agree with this statement as I have noticed that I hate going to jobs where I never receive acknowledgment for the hard work that I do, as opposed to how I love going to jobs where the environment is more encouraging and supportive.
Another interesting concept is that when Dibbell visited China to view these “virtual sweatshops” he found that after work hours some of the workers still played World of Warcraft, but on their own accounts. This led Jennifer to wonder if their work made them addicted to the game.
Our discussion then turned to Dibbell’s Play Money as we talked about the ethics surrounding gold farming and making money off virtual items. One of the more interesting topics concerned the stolen bone crusher that Dibbell purchased. In Play Money Dibbell recalled an instance where he was debating if he should make the virtual purchase of a bone crusher that he knew was stolen. While he pondered what to do he asked his friend Bob for advice. Bob responded with,
"Stealing in the game is not unethical to me. Rogue/ thief is a player skill- so I would have no problem with that. Now, if it involved real life theft- real money or out of game scamming- that is a totally different story. But using stealth/ stealing in game is totally acceptable in my mind" (169)
John agrees to an extent because he doesn’t believe that stealing is a problem if it is within the original intent of the game. However, it becomes blurred once people start cashing in for real money because that is against the terms of use, which makes it problematic. He believes that it is wrong when people are subverting the original intentions of the game. In my response paper I believed that Bob’s comment was an interesting way to look at it because I have enjoyed many games where you are encouraged to steal from other players, and although I also don’t see anything wrong with it when you are playing the game, I do believe that it can be problematic once it results in the trading of real money. Rachel also responded to Bob’s stance on the issue in her paper by saying that,
"virtual world at the end of the day is a game- and craftiness is rewarded over ethical practices. This seems reminiscent of many hacking acts, such as accessing government databases, which in the real world seems unethical or illegal somehow, but in the hacking world are seen as feats of ingenuity."
John believes that changing the way the software works in order to fix these problems makes it more like the law in these games.
Anique wondered if these companies were just trying to prevent people from making money off of their game every time they changed their code or policies to prevent these actions.
Pride!
Next, we discussed the pride that these games instill in their players. Professor Coleman mentioned that in a gaming system there is plenty to be proud of. Players are encouraged to represent their skill as a craftsman as they have control over everything. Why do people opt out of this in order to purchase items that they did not create or earn themselves? This may be why the workers Dibbell saw in China wanted to continue playing the game on their breaks. They may have wanted to show of their skills as they create their own items for personal use. We then gained insight from Richard who is an avid gamer. He believes that, “games are craft-like. The purpose is to gain skills in order to progress, and in the game you are expected to build these items yourself. That is the point of the game.” During class Richard admitted that last year he was a gold farmer. He said that he had gotten to the point where there was nothing else to accomplish in the game, so gold farming allowed him to add another layer to his gaming experience. Since he had already invested so much time in the game, he was able to use his superior skills as a craftsman while he was able to make some money on the side.
In the end, the lines are still blurred in terms of the ethics that surround this underground economy. It doesn’t help that the IRS technically does not have a concrete way of claiming these earnings. Perhaps once the newness of this industry wears off things will be seen differently.
Have a great weekend!