T.L. Taylor - Play
Reboot8
Talking about MMOGs?
Breakthrough titles:
Ultima Online
EverQuest
World of Warcraft
Social Life: Contexts and Networks
Stereotype of games being social isolation zones.
Gamse are social spaces. Social is not the icing on the cake. The social is the way that the system becomes playable, pleasurable, manageable.
Social is key.
Complicated mix of off/online connections. People play with real world friends, co-workers etc.
Communities around a game bring about an emergent set of practices. It teaches people how to become players. Socialize people into the common practices.
(Communities of Practice?)
Formal voluntary organization form: Guilds
-trust, responsibility, reputation
There is a lack of tools for players to manage their communities inside the games.
Who you know, skills in the game, people you know.
Has a chat transcript from everquest and has people read those lines aloud.
Players have different relations to different characters. Some have multiple characters.
Complex relations in the networks. People sharing accounts with each other based on trust.
Collaboration and teams, people coordinating very complex problems
High level raiding, 40+ people organizing as a team sport
Social practices make the game fun
Co-creative culture
Players add value and content around the games, produce and design stuff
Players change the game in deep ways.
Extending the boundaries of the game
Websites
Fanfiction
3rd Party Apps
Ebay auctions
WoW has a modifiable UI
High level raid leaders have radically modified UIs giving them the information they need
Don’t only make game easier but fundamentally change the nature of the game and play
Who should be the designer of the game?
People sell their avatars on Ebay to get money back. Game companies do not allow that. You do not own your avatar.
Sony owns Everquest. Protest in the game against how their character class works. Meet in Ironforge as a big group of level 1 dwarfs.
Message broadcast: Gathering on a realms with intent to hinder gameplay is considered griefing and will not be tolerated. […] We appreciate your opininon, but protesting in game is not valid way to give us feedback.
Designers have ideas of what users want to do and these sometimes collide with what users really do want to do.
Game culture highlights bigger cultural conversations, intellectual property, aesthetics of appropriation, mashup. It mirrors some of our bigger conversations.
Book: “Play between worlds: exploring online game culture”
Q: It is hard to rhyme being for property rights in games and against trading.
What are the lessons we can draw from games for the future of how we work and visualizations? If games are technological forerunners.
A: Division between work and play. People can’t make the distinction.
Second life is not a game. A virtual being space where you own your stuff.
Q: Problem of ownership and the fact that your playing on someone else’s property. More limitations create diversification?
WoW has a lot of preloaded content
Second Life has a lot less by default
A: If you have massively multiplayers games owned by corporate stakeholders you get different forms of government.
Q: Is there an end to the game? What is beyond level 60?
A: End is defined by the player. If players reach the technical limit, they are still part of communities which they find enjoyable. Players define their endpoints.
Games are not good at helping people leave. Designers haven’t facilitated people leaving the game in a nice way (not being deleted).
Q: Is there a sign theat these platofrms can become the productive work platforms that replace the current platforms.
A: Pepole learning management skills in MMORPGs. Managing large groups of people organizing things.
Q: News fact that someone got a job because he was a guild master.
Q: The long term effects of all these people playing is going to be huge. It is going to have a big impact on culture.
Q: Alternate reality games
A: Game called Majestic. Uses telephone facts, websites. You get messages about the game. Game about conspiracy theories, and hidden knowledge.
They put the game on hold because of 9/11.
Q: Thousands of chinese players employed by american players working for them.
