Comments on: State of Play II-04 NY Law School, online economics http://grandtextauto.org/2004/10/30/state-of-play-ii-04-ny-law-school-online-economics/ A group blog about computer narrative, games, poetry, and art. Wed, 19 May 2010 01:52:58 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: zombiegluesniffer http://grandtextauto.org/2004/10/30/state-of-play-ii-04-ny-law-school-online-economics/comment-page-1/#comment-3535 zombiegluesniffer Mon, 01 Nov 2004 20:29:25 +0000 /?p=549#comment-3535 i doubt that a play economy is possible. adding play to work means nothing really. isn't this what game testers do already? i guess employers have to add elements of virtual play in order to keep a workforce. they incorporate the language. that's pretty empty. going to game sounds a lot better than going to work, but the structure of the economy stays the same. it's simulation within the prearranged coordinates of society (zizek's formal freedom). i don't know if that's effective activism. it really needs to exist outside the corporate virtual economy. it's already virtual. we need to engage in real space and in new models of free thinking or autonomy.com and other bayesian reasoning engines further structure our lives. it's going to get worse if there is not a clean break from the start. that's how i see it. i doubt that a play economy is possible. adding play to work means nothing really. isn’t this what game testers do already? i guess employers have to add elements of virtual play in order to keep a workforce. they incorporate the language. that’s pretty empty. going to game sounds a lot better than going to work, but the structure of the economy stays the same. it’s simulation within the prearranged coordinates of society (zizek’s formal freedom). i don’t know if that’s effective activism. it really needs to exist outside the corporate virtual economy. it’s already virtual. we need to engage in real space and in new models of free thinking or autonomy.com and other bayesian reasoning engines further structure our lives. it’s going to get worse if there is not a clean break from the start. that’s how i see it.

]]> By: josh g. http://grandtextauto.org/2004/10/30/state-of-play-ii-04-ny-law-school-online-economics/comment-page-1/#comment-3522 josh g. Mon, 01 Nov 2004 19:01:38 +0000 /?p=549#comment-3522 VERTU looks like A Good Thing, but it seems to me that it's simply asking for funds via an unusual mechanism. That doesn't seem to really incorporate "real work" or "real fun" in itself. Or to put it a different way, donating in-game funds to VERTU doesn't seem fundamentally different to me than translating your in-game funds to real-world currency and then donating to the targetted non-profit. VERTU is simply doing the currency conversion step for you. On the other hand, I'm not sure I see any deeper way of involving in-game work in a process of real-world benefit. Right now, the entire virtual economies are based on entertainment. Work is done by one person, and then sold to another for their entertainment value. (This applies to item or character sales as well as content creation in a game such as Second Life.) What alternatives are there? Since virtual worlds are, well, virtual, the only connections they have to the real world are either mental or economic. Education is one possibility, but I don't think it's feasible to expect the average game player to be able to educate. Good teachers are hard to come by, and poor or misinformed teachers are detrimental. Worse, many people's idea of "real fun" is being abusive, rude, or nonsensical, and the idea of creating an interface for educational "griefing" gives me the willies. Even Espen's mention of learning language through virtual environments is dubious these days. Most Internet communities quickly develop their own short-form linguistics, and language as a whole is not well used. Perhaps virtual worlds with a well-crafted audio chat interface would forego this, but that still leaves the other problems I mentioned. That said, please feel free to prove me wrong ... VERTU looks like A Good Thing, but it seems to me that it’s simply asking for funds via an unusual mechanism. That doesn’t seem to really incorporate “real work” or “real fun” in itself. Or to put it a different way, donating in-game funds to VERTU doesn’t seem fundamentally different to me than translating your in-game funds to real-world currency and then donating to the targetted non-profit. VERTU is simply doing the currency conversion step for you.

On the other hand, I’m not sure I see any deeper way of involving in-game work in a process of real-world benefit. Right now, the entire virtual economies are based on entertainment. Work is done by one person, and then sold to another for their entertainment value. (This applies to item or character sales as well as content creation in a game such as Second Life.) What alternatives are there? Since virtual worlds are, well, virtual, the only connections they have to the real world are either mental or economic.

Education is one possibility, but I don’t think it’s feasible to expect the average game player to be able to educate. Good teachers are hard to come by, and poor or misinformed teachers are detrimental. Worse, many people’s idea of “real fun” is being abusive, rude, or nonsensical, and the idea of creating an interface for educational “griefing” gives me the willies.

Even Espen’s mention of learning language through virtual environments is dubious these days. Most Internet communities quickly develop their own short-form linguistics, and language as a whole is not well used. Perhaps virtual worlds with a well-crafted audio chat interface would forego this, but that still leaves the other problems I mentioned.

That said, please feel free to prove me wrong …

]]> By: Espen Aarseth http://grandtextauto.org/2004/10/30/state-of-play-ii-04-ny-law-school-online-economics/comment-page-1/#comment-3487 Espen Aarseth Mon, 01 Nov 2004 07:42:30 +0000 /?p=549#comment-3487 This reminds me of the idea back in the 90s to use the language play that goes on in MUDs for foreign language learning (e.g. http://lingo.uib.no/dreistadt/). Not a new completely idea, in other words, but still brilliant. This reminds me of the idea back in the 90s to use the language play that goes on in MUDs for foreign language learning (e.g. http://lingo.uib.no/dreistadt/).

Not a new completely idea, in other words, but still brilliant.

]]> By: Andrew Burton http://grandtextauto.org/2004/10/30/state-of-play-ii-04-ny-law-school-online-economics/comment-page-1/#comment-3152 Andrew Burton Sat, 30 Oct 2004 18:45:08 +0000 /?p=549#comment-3152 Could a game be designed to incorporate “real work” that is “real fun” that also changes the living situations of real people for the better?

You mean like VERTU?

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