Miss Dystopia in Synthetic Worlds

In Synthetic Worlds, Edward Castronova presents a detailed analysis of the nature and function of the worlds of MMORPGs in the computer game industry. According to Castronova’s thesis, these synthetic worlds have become loci of a broad and complex variety of human activities, and are likely to become an even greater part of the actual world as more and more people participate in MMORPGs. Castronova presents several key arguments that synthetic worlds ought to be taken seriously both as things of value to the vast numbers of people who engage in activities there, and as agents of social change in the real world.

According to Castronova, the relationship between synthetic worlds and the real world is such that the two are separated by a semi-permeable membrane, which Castronova identifies as the “magic circle”. Within the boundaries of the synthetic world, players participate in society with values, norms, desires, and meanings imported from their experience in the real world; thus societies both internal and external to the magic circle share a number of intrinsic human conceptions. The value placed on things within the synthetic world create among “inhabitants” of the synthetic world a social sense of those things having value, which makes them valuable to the users in a very real way. Objects of value and desire in the synthetic world may range from power and status achieved through character development within the game to synthetic world currency earned through the labor of one’s avatar and exchanged or sold for real world currency. As such, synthetic worlds have real economies in the same sense in which any nation state has a real economy: desires exist for people within a particular domain, and satisfaction can only be attained by choice from a range of limited resources. The distinction between the real world and the synthetic world is thus blurred by the ways in which the people who participate in the synthetic world import intrinsic aspects of real world life into their synthetic world goals and activities. According to Castronova, the ability of the synthetic world to imitate and personalize complex aspects of the real world in terms of values, advancement systems, incentives, status change, risk, and conflict that makes MMORPGs so appealing and engrossing as a pastime for many people, and indeed a way of life for some.

In spite of the evidence that synthetic worlds are real in terms of how they matter to people and the ways in which the desires of users form institutions, Castronova argues that there is a fundamental difference between the reality of the synthetic world and the reality of our world. The source of this distinction is found in the fact that the patterns of behavior of people within the synthetic world are not the same as those evoked in people by real world causes. It is deceptive to be overly simplistic, according to Castronova, in our evaluation of how real or unreal in general a synthetic world is. While synthetic world economies are undeniably real and the people there form real social connections, there are serious limitations to how the people of a synthetic world are able and willing to exercise their freedoms of choice. Synthetic worlds tend not to have governments: the rules of the game via the coding authority restrict every aspect of the world and maintain certain rights to punish misbehaving users by means of the EULE and COC, but actual use of authority is rare; even when exercised, such authority only applies to the user’s ability to access the synthetic world – it cannot compel or prevent any behavior on behalf of the user within the synthetic world itself by any means used by real world justice, for tools such as law suits, arrest, imprisonment, etc. simply aren’t practical in a synthetic world.

As both a major technology and a cultural phenomenon, Castronova argues, it is imperative that we take into account the possible future impact of synthetic worlds on the real world – both positive and negative. Synthetic worlds have the potential for many practical applications, not just for online gaming. With potential use as educational and training tools, synthetic worlds could become a powerful instructive tool for immersion learning and social or political experiments. Less likely in my opinion, but nonetheless a major part of Castronova’s analysis, is the potential for harm to be brought about by abuse or exploitation of synthetic worlds: they could be used as tools for terrorists to learn how to blend in with a foreign society long enough to destroy it with surprise attacks; further abuse of synthetic world technology could involve the creation of highly addictive worlds, or corporate/political brainwashing. There is also the potential threat of synthetic worlds taking such a great role in the lives of users that they extend beyond the role of the real world, taking its place in all aspects of entertainment, economic activity, and social interaction; these consequences would likely result in external restrictions on synthetic world activity, which would in turn cause both the destruction of freedom that functioned as a major benefit provided by synthetic worlds in the first place, as well as further blurring of the line between the synthetic world and the real world.

I think the most interesting aspect of Castronova’s thesis is the fact that while synthetic worlds are quite real to so many people in so many different ways, we cannot identify any one thing that draws users to the synthetic world in the first place. Derived from the culture of video games, synthetic worlds and MMORPGs were, I suppose, first and foremost intended to be fun. My first thought as to why someone would be drawn into an alternate, fictional reality is that the notion of storytelling seems to be an innate feature of the human mind – whether used to satisfy one’s desire for entertainment or inclination towards escapism, synthetic worlds seem to be the most engaging means of taking part in a story, by creating and becoming one’s own hero or heroine and taking control of one’s own plotline. The fact that there is no one set objective or methodology/strategy involved with engaging in a synthetic world makes it less of a game, and more of a hobby, in my opinion. But either way, I do not think that synthetic worlds pose any particular threat to the traditional, reality-based ways of humankind. For it is easy to forget, while reading Castronova’s book, that the realm of synthetic worlds is not one thing in itself, but rather many different settings or contexts in which different kinds of games and virtual activities, namely MMORPGs, are intended to take place. I think that MMORPGs are useful as an outlet for many people who seek hobbies or entertainment – they have just as much value as film, television, websurfing, or game playing in general, if not more value in light of their ability to expose people to different cultures, ideas, and ways of life. While the potential harm that MMORPGs and synthetic worlds could have on real world society ought to be identified and analyzed, they should not be considered any more serious than potential harm brought about by real world causes. Just as activities and behaviors in the synthetic world can have unfortunate consequences, harm relationships, cause addictions, waste time, squander money, abuse influences, skew perspectives, create unrealistic desires, and in general go awry, it is important to remember that so too do our best laid plans in the real world; that the misfortunes of synthetic worlds can be avoided by not participating in them does not make them any worse or any riskier than similar misfortunes in the real world.

Miss Dystopia and the Texas Sharpshooter

A number of current mainstream debates surrounding video games involve the issue of whether violent content in video games cause aggression and violent behavior in the people playing the game.

The typical argument that video game violence causes real world violence seems to employ reasoning similar to that surrounding use of the brutalization hypothesis in applied ethics. The brutalization hypothesis essentially states that violent human behavior is a response to the social environment in which we live; when one’s environment contains some factor that explicitly or implicitly promotes violence as an objective moral good, one is desensitized to the harmful effects of violent behavior and accordingly becomes more likely to commit acts of aggression and violence. Although the brutalization hypothesis is typically used in arguments pertaining to the justification of capital punishment, it is somewhat frequently extended to the criticism of any media that portray violence in a positive or entertaining light – especially violent video games. The conclusion that video game violence causes players’ violence is often crucially supported by “proof” from psychological and sociological studies that reveal correlations between violent video game play and violent behavior, especially in children.

As such, the standard argument regarding video games and violence is in blatant violation of the non causa pro causa or post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy, ( see The Texas Sharpshooter Fallacy )which basically deems invalid any argument that jumps to a conclusion of causal necessity based exclusively on the correlation of events.

According to Jeffery Goldstein in “Violent Video Games”, the actual data from studies on the behavioral effects of video game violence are far from conclusive: while some (often biased) statistics show that there is a correlation among young, white males between high aggression levels, poor academic performance, and increased exposure to violent video games, this does not mean that playing violent video games is the cause of the other correlates; after all, there are many young white males who play violent video games frequently and yet still perform well in school and do not demonstrate abnormal levels of aggression. It could very well be the case that some underlying factor causes both aggression and the desire for violent entertainment: for example, naturally aggressive people could be more drawn to violent entertainment, or young people with minimal academic success may turn to gaming as means to other kinds of rewarding achievement. Furthermore, the correlation between violence and playing of violent video games could simply be coincidental.

It’s logically unavoidable that the playing of violent video games is neither necessary nor a sufficient condition for violent behavior.

Miss Dystopia's Addiction to Digital Sudoku

The classification of a particular piece of entertainment media into one or more genres is central to the way in which audiences and critics understand, interpret, and form judgments about the piece. The genres to which works belong reveal formal elements shared by different works within a medium and thus provide common grounds upon which works can be compared and evaluated. In general, media like television shows and movies are fairly easy to sort into different genres – the identification of which sort of genre a work belongs to is among the first concept defined by the work’s producer. The genre is either declared outright or made obvious by short scene selections in trailers. Genre is the first aspect in establishing the work’s target audience. Furthermore, genre is the primary means of categorizing works in critical reviews and award nominations. When new films or TV programs blur the line between genres, new genres or subgenres are often identified to describe them. For example, drama programs with humorous plotlines are frequently referred to as “dramedies”, dramatic movies with a primarily female audience become “chick flicks”, etc.

With digital games, however, genre is not such a straightforward matter. According to Mark J.P. Wolf’s essay Genre and the Video Game, “video game genre study differs markedly from literary or film genre study due to the direct and active participation of the audience in the form of the surrogate player-character, who acts within the game’s diegetic world, taking part in the central conflict of the game’s narrative.” However, the interactive narrative form is not the only point of diversion between digital games and other types of media, nor can the level of interactivity alone be used exclusively to determine the genre of a particular digital game. For how are we to describe such games where there is no such “surrogate player-character”, or those in which there isn’t even a narrative conflict to interact with in the first place? Many games that fall under this description are difficult to categorize in terms of interactivity, let alone by genre, and thus make the process of critical analysis based on genre a very complicated issue.

In his essay, Wolf continues to provide an extensive and detailed list intended to portray digital game genres defined on the basis of the level of interactivity a player has with a game – though admittedly, using this list to analyze some games results in a classification so muddled as to be self defeating; if indeed the primary function of a genre is to provide a reference point to facilitate the evaluation and analysis of the works belonging to it, then abstract digital games pose an interesting problem for the use of genre in the study of this medium.

An example of such a game is the digital adaptation of the totally addictive Sudoku puzzles which have recently become very popular internationally in the past couple of years. In spite of its name (which translates from Japanese to “single number”), the logic game is actually of American origin from the early 1980’s, popularized in Japan and re-Americanized with some modifications. Both the original pencil and paper game and the digital adaptations have the same simple rules: a 9x9 square, further divided into 9 3x3 boxes (totaling of 81 small boxes), is given, with a varying quantity of digits 1-9 filled in. The player’s objective is to complete the puzzle by filling all the empty boxes in with the digits 1-9 such that every row, column, and small 3x3 box contains each digit only once. The puzzles come in degrees of difficulty, ranging from beginner or easy to very difficult.

Pen and paper versions of the game can be found these days in any newspaper or in puzzle books. Although the digital version of these puzzles is available on handheld consoles like the Nintendo DS and PS Portable, computer programs featuring Sudoku are widely available on cell phones and for free on many, many, many websites (here's a longgggg list of web Sudoku sites).

The particular features of the digital game vary greatly depending on the source, but most computerized versions provide monitoring to keep track of the player’s game time and check for errors as the player goes along; furthermore, other sources allow the player to digitally “pencil in” multiple numbers in a particular box, allowing them to see all possible solutions at once, in closer imitation of the original pencil and paper puzzle.

As such, the digital Sudoku games fall into several of Wolf’s interactivity-based categories.

Since there is no narrative structure or characters to speak of, and has nonrepresentational graphics, the game is decidedly abstract in form, and complies with Wolf’s definition of the “abstract” games as having the objective of “constructing, visiting, or filling every part of the screen.” However, Wolf specifies in his definition of the “abstract” genre that “games which are adaptations of games in existing media” should not be categorized as such, and refers us to the “adaptation” genre. This is likely an appropriate genre for digital Sudoku. It obviously also falls into Wolf’s “pencil-and-paper games” category, as well as the “puzzle” category, simply by definition. But it could also be identified as a member of the “educational” category; though it is not necessarily a number game, it is a logic game, and certainly involves the player’s use of abstract thinking and skills of deduction. It’s also a “strategy” type game – fast action isn’t necessary, and a player has to utilize some kind of complex logical strategy to determine which numbers can and can’t go into a particular box, and further strategy to decide which number must be decided upon. It also incorporates some aspects of the “racing” genre: it’s possible on many websites for a player to save the time it took them to complete a puzzle and email the puzzle to a friend, inviting them to try and beat the first player’s time.

So, if we are to comply with Wolf's criteria, we arrive at the very tricky question of which genre best fits digital Sudoku? I think the answer is arbitrary. The game is so well known as to practically count as a genre in and of itself. As for me, all I care about is that it's fun and it gets my brain going in the morning (along with the obligatory vat of coffee) - but beware, it's completely addictive.

The Personal History and Experience of Miss Dystopia in the World of Gaming

The prompt for my first entry in this blog is to write a personal narrative recounting my experiences with video games - however, after considerable thought on the matter, I have been confronted with a few serious problems: primarily, that I don’t actually have much of a personal history with video games. Given the likely expertise of my audience, I doubt that I’ll be able to successfully fake my through this assignment; so, I suppose my best option here is to endeavor to explain my lack of experience on the matter.

In the truly American tradition, I blame my parents. To begin my life with the beginning of my life, I record that I was born in 1986, the only child of two well educated, well-read, and decidedly technologically un-hip college professors (my mother was an expert on Renaissance-era classical Spanish literature, and my father taught English literature and composition). Both were already in their early 40s, with absolutely no confidence whatsoever in the merits of the new media fad whose popularity skyrocketed during the years of my early childhood. Accordingly, like many others of my generation, I was raised on the staunch principles that children should only be allowed access to entertainment of educational value, that reading was the best way to develop an imagination, and that TV and video games would do nothing but rot my brain.

Of course, when I turned 5, I was sent to a nice, suburban, public elementary school, where my circle of acquaintances was greatly enlarged. The school’s enrichment program assigned each class an hour each week in the new computer lab, where I was exposed for the first time to the world of computer games: Number Munchers and Oregon Trail were my favorites. For the next several years, this was my sole experience with computers, let alone with gaming – my parents put off buying a computer until I was 14, when my junior high school teachers required typed assignments and internet research for the first time.

My own first-hand experience with actual console-type video games started when I was 16 or so, when my high school boyfriend and a bunch of his guy friends would gather religiously after school to play Halo, Final Fantasy, and Silent Hill. Of course, being the only chick in the group, I spent most of these gaming sessions watching with reluctant curiosity while the guys became wholly absorbed in the task of shooting each other or beating zombies to death on screen. Eventually someone would have to go home or do school work, and I’d get a chance to play – after a while, I actually got pretty good at first person shooters – but I still never seemed to get the same feeling of full immersion in the games as the guys did.

These days, playing Tetris on my cell phone is about the extent of my interest in gaming, with the exception of my enthusiasm for the totally addictive and really bizarre Katamari Damacy game (I mean, what could possibly be niftier than a game about tidying up the universe?) when I get the rare opportunity to play it. Still, there’s something nostalgic about those days when my high school friends and I would spend an afternoon on someone’s Xbox, relaxing and making a real social connection without even the need for conversation. My current boyfriend and his roommates have Halo parties all the time, and I’m usually invited, although probably more for the sake of courtesy than for the pleasure of my company. Maybe I’ll go and play a round with them… Maybe… just as soon as I'm through with this book.