Really

Ted Castronova’s new book Exodus to the Virtual World argues that the growth of 3D virtual game worlds is inevitable, simply because they are more fun than most other activities. As more people start to experience these types of games, they will try to translate different aspects of game design into policies in the physical world.

The argument rests on the premise that virtual worlds are fun. An enormous amount of effort has gone into game design, ensuring that there is the right balance of challenge and reward in order to keep players entertained for months and years. Castronova provides solid arguments, based on research in psychology and economics, to explain why these environments are fun and how this will lead to hundreds of millions of people using virtual worlds for entertainment as well as to earn their living.

The book then explores the impact of these users interacting in virtual worlds rather than engaging in other activities. Castronova does not go into the effects of attention shifting from one space to another. Instead, he explores what will happen once a large part of the world’s population experiences an environment that not only is fun, but has been carefully designed to be so by applying specific rules and constraints. People will want to experience the same type of fun outside of the game, in the “real” world, and will therefore want to implement policies that match game rules and conventions. For example, in World of Warcraft, everybody starts out with the same amount of minimal resources, has the same opportunities to advance and earn wealth and prestige, and by trying for a sufficiently long time, will eventually “level-up”. Breaking the rules is punished swiftly and harshly, and there is no charity, welfare, or taxation. Applying policies that try to impose the same conditions in the physical world, should therefore create a “fun” society, where everybody can gain wealth and advancement if they try.

Now would be a good time to read (or re-read) Linda Zimmer’s review of Exodus to the Virtual World, where she reminds us that Castronova states at the very beginning that this is a book of “speculative non-fiction.” As speculation, the book is bound to be wrong, given the difficulties of predicting the future. I disagree with Castronova’s conclusions on what would make society fun, but until the changes described in the first part of the book actually occur, my arguments are just as speculative as his. What is important is that we start thinking now about the impact of a shift towards the use of virtual worlds for entertainment, communication, and interaction. As Castronova points out in the end of the book the risk is that those who don’t understand virtual world technology will enact policies that hinders their continued use and growth. Those of use hyping, er, evangelizing virtual worlds, need to lead the discussions, in order to ensure that informed decisions are made.

But while I agree with the general argument of the book, there are some underlying assumptions and claims which I don’t think are fully explored. First of all, the book is really talking about games like World of Warcraft and Everquest, rather than open platforms like Second Life. Though Second Life does not have defined game elements, many users still consider it fun. Indeed, the notion of fun described in the book seems to assume that the steady stream of positive reinforcement seen in MMOs is the only or best type of fun. Yet people engage in games and other activities that can be full of negative reinforcement and be very difficult to master, and think of them as fun as well.

The larger question is how much of game design is influenced by the constraints in the underlying technology. The constant positive reinforcement of XP and gold, may only be necessary in games because the user interface does not allow other types of feedback. For example, the satisfaction of aiming an arrow and precisely hitting the mark, or the smells and sounds of preparing a real meal, are not available in games today, though players engage in both activities. Once we move away from keyboards and standard game controllers, the physical feedback , and advancing based on learning new skills, may eliminate the need for leveling and XP. We may already be seeing the beginning of this transition in games like Guitar Hero and the Wii console.

Castronova also does not examine in detail the negative aspects of games. If game policies are extended into other spheres, will we have griefers wreaking havoc in the real world, with no accountability? The notions of addiction, or physical violence caused by games are also dismissed as uninformed, with very little justification.

Overall, however, Exodus to the Virtual World expertly points out some of the fundamental issues we need to start to think about as virtual worlds become more prevalent. As the sub-title states, online fun is changing reality, and we need to make sure that it turns into a reality where we will want to live.

A few months ago, I got an email from a virtual world training company, that stated that prejudice is eliminated in virtual worlds, since “everybody can choose their own appearance.” Of course, prejudice and bias is as common in virtual worlds as in any other place where people interact: it runs rampant. Hamlet Au (nee Linden) described the negative comments one Second Life user received when she went from white and blonde to “a staggeringly attractive, astoundingly photo-realistic, young African-American woman”. Nick Yee has written about “The Transfer of Stereotypes and Prejudice” in games, including how male and female characters are treated differently by other players.

All of which leads to the question posed by Ren Reynolds at Terra Nova: Do virtual worlds liberate us from prejudices, or reinforce dominant stereotypes? Another claim that’s often heard is how virtual worlds lets people express their “real” self. Yet, it often seems that our real selves are tall, thin, muscular and/or voluptuous. I’ve heard SL business owners describe how they use female avatars in business meetings, since it seems to encourage “better behavior” in clients, or trying to match the appearance of potential customers, in order to put them at ease.

It seems that we are leaning more to the reinforcement of biases than liberation, but I wonder if people are going to get tired of having to appear in a certain way in order to be accepted? Is there a point where it gets disconcerting to realize that a large part of your social network has an image of you that is vastly different than your real physical appearance?

Another question is whether virtual worlds like Second Life even allow the easy creation of avatars that realistically depict different body types, ethnic backgrounds, and disabilities (the avatar described in Hamlet Au’s article was a custom creation by a skilled avatar designer). In Understanding Comics, Scott McCloud describes how realistic depictions of women and minorities did not appear in comics until there were a substantial number of women and minority comic book creators. Are we going to have to wait for a similar type of evolution in virtual worlds (or do we get to look forward to more worlds based on dolls and ponies)?

Update: I just saw Fleep Tuque’s Open Letter to SL Skin Designers talking about the difficulty of trying to offer a diverse set of avatars to potentially hundreds of new SL users (in an educational setting). She says, “ There are virtually NO fully transferable skins for folks who wish to have an african, latino, asian, or other non-white skin type.” Clearly, the default avatars offered by Linden Lab are not sufficient, and it is interesting that while non-white avatars are available for sale, they are not as freely available as other types. Is the scarcity a result of the difficulty in creating them, or because of a (perceived) lack of interest?