STDIN

Wednesday's class began with a brief discussion regarding Monday's guest speaker John Perry Barlow. I was unable to attend, but it seemed his reviews were for the most part favorable. For other free NYU events check out: http://www.freeculturenyu.org/

To open the main discussion on virtual games and the first half of the Jullian Dibbell's book Play Money, Gabriella played Leroy Jenkins, a video of a virtual raid in the game Worlds of Warcraft by the internet star himself, Leroy Jenkins. Additionally, we watched the infamous Serenity Now bombs a World of Warcraft funeral in which a group of raiders raids a representational funeral held on behalf of a real life player in a PVP (player vs. player) allowed area of the virtual game world.

The second video sparked discussion on whether the raid of the funeral was justified. While the experienced gamers of the class insisted that in a game about fighting, funerals had no place and a raid in a PVP area was well within game rules. Others, conversely, found the raid to be in poor taste, noting that the reward for killing other players are honor points, not points for experience and were therefore of little value.

Both videos helped to open up the discussion further on virtual gaming, particularly the differences between virtual gaming and those which are tangible and the real world effects on the virtual world.

As Chelsea noted in class, all characteristics that apply to games also apply to virtual games, however the same is not true vise versa. The differences, therefore, are very telling. Gabriella and much of the rest of the class agreed with Chelsea, however John disagreed, arguing that distinctions should not be made because such discussion allows ethical and legal issues to get in the way. Despite his insightful perspective, we carried on discussing the distinctions.

A major distinction between for instance a card game and a virtual game is the aspect of world building that goes into playing a virtual game. Players engage in a sociality they don't engage in while playing chess or badminton, they help to create cultures and even economies, and they cultivate relationships. Richard claimed that interpersonal relationships effected virtual play and gave us an adorable example of how his desire to kill his real-life girlfriend in D and D distracted him from other virtual tasks. Radny, Dibbell's virtual roommate and business partner (a 17 year old smart-ass), was mentioned briefly in this discussion.

Charlotte then brought up the distinction of time. While games in the real world end, usually with a clear winner and loser, virtual games are on-going and never result in a real winner. Anique then made the point this made virtual world more like the real world. Other distinctions included the unregulated nature (for now, noted Gabriella) of virtual games and the intricate games within virtual games. Finally, Max brought up how virtual games encourage the imaginative reinvention of yourself. This virtual self sometimes pulls from reality but is not a literal representation.

As Dibbell writes:

It is this endlessly repeatable collusion of freedom and determinism--the warp and the woof of fixed rules and free play, of running code and variable input--that sets both gamers and computers apart, together, from the larger universe of information technologies they inhabit...And only games, therefore, come close to capturing the precise mix of unpredictability and inevitability that makes the computer such a powerful simulation of our lived experience of the world. (104)

We had already scratched the surface on the subject of the fluidity of the boundaries which separate virtual from real space in discussing Dibbell's perspective that a line can be drawn between the two, however it is not rigid. But, we dug deeper following the the conversation of imaginative identity. Where else does the virtual world seep into the real world? Well, for Julian Dibbell and other entrepreneurs like him who sold virtual loot for "real" cash, the virtual world became his real world livelihood. Max drove the point home declaring that as far as the economy goes there was no line between the virtual and real.

Real world, too, seeps into the virtual world. Status and money would not exist in the virtual world if the real world didn't similarly rear its head. Status and wealth are coveted just as they are in the real world, and while this may seem absurd, it is merely a magnification of the real world process and the real world absurdity. Though it has been normalized and naturalized, our real world economy is just as intangible as the virtual economy. Is there even a distinction at all when virtual money can be sold for real currency? Or, as Charlotte posits: is economic life masquerading itself as play?

We ended on similarly evaluative note that infused hacking back into our discussion, and I feel inclined to do the same. Before we were dismissed from Wednesday's class Richard and Anique posed questions we hadn't yet gotten to. Food for thought, you might say:

Richard: Do gold farmers make the game less fun?

Anique: Which group of virtual gamers stands closer to the hackers?

Happy Halloween!