Protests, Politics And Parties In MMORPGs

The Importance of writes "LawMeme's James Grimmelmann has written an interesting piece on protests, politics and parties in MMORPGs. In particular, he talks about the 'tax revolt' in Second Life."

Comments

There is a true social contract

[Anonymous Coward]

If I don't like how life is in a game, I'm free to leave at any time and start a new life elsewhere agreeing to the new rules of that society.

Re:There is a true social contract

[frovingslosh]

If you don't like something, even something that you are paying for, just shut-up and leave is one approach. I'm sure that many businesses would prefer that a few people do this and most people continue putting up with what they get than to have to address issues. But when issues are raised and changes made, the system is generally improved for the customer and usually even for the business. Protests can be frivilous, but they are often valid and usefull.

it only makes sense....

[Dorothy 86]

that in a game such as Second Life, that something of this nature would happen. It is a game, that is totally openended, which lends itself to the creation of a "government". Take Golding's Lord of the flies for example. A bunch of kids set up a "system of government." this government ultimately fails, but the premise is the same. A group of people, with a common interest get together, in this case their country is a digital domain. It really is an interesting study in anthropology, if you ask me.

Pardon my French but...

[WIAKywbfatw]

...that's a complete load of crap.

Lord Of The Flies is a book that illustrates how easy it is for us to fall into anarchy without the presence of a society to keep us in check.

The book isn't about failing systems of government, it's about how, in the absence of any form of government, we quickly we fall back to a selfish "survival of the fittest" state with the strong preying on the weak.

The boys don't try to set up a system of government, they try to live by the rules that society has taught them. But, pretty soon, they realise that without society watching over them, those rules are easily disposed of - and weaker figures like Simon and Piggy suffer as a result.

Witness the near-deification of the conch, the hunting, the return to "normal" behaviour when rescue arrives, etc. This isn't a book about government or society, it's a book about a lack of government and the breakdown of society.

No book more clearly illustrates the mentality that turns ordinary people going about their daily business into a rioting, blood-thirsty mob than William Golding's masterpiece. When it comes to examining how easily we can descend into anarchy, LOTF is the bible.

Pretty sad

[SuperBanana]

protests, politics and parties in MMORPGs.

Meanwhile, US citizens are barely registering a whimper of protest at the draconian laws passed every day in the name of "patriotism" and "protecting the homeland".

It's pretty sad that people organize "protests" in a fucking -game- but won't stand up for their rights in real life. What is the matter with you people?

Re:Pretty sad

[Whyte]

On the other hand, this might give them enough confidence to try this type of thing in the real world.

Re:Pretty sad

[Chromal]

Insightful and inciteful point. Skewed sense of priority? Maybe they think that, unlike iRL (in Real Life) they can actually stand a chance of making a difference in an online gaming context. This is perhaps just another symptom of the US public education system failing to produce citizens.

Re:Pretty sad

[kfg]

Very simply because in real life you can get really arrested, really have your life ruined, really get shot dead.

In a game you can act out in complete security and comfort. All you risk is maybe having to find another game to play.

Conversely, of course, this also means there is no real valor or heroism in games either. You just get to act out heroism. The next day you can back to the cube farm, or mailroom, or whatever, to earn the payments on your nice car.

In short, the game, however closely it may mimic real life, is just a game.

Anyone who loses sight of this simple fact is heading for trouble.

KFG

Re:Pretty sad

[Pendersempai]

It's pretty sad that people organize "protests" in a fucking -game- but won't stand up for their rights in real life. What is the matter with you people?

Please stop grandstanding. I feel confident guessing that many more protests happen every hour in real life than have ever happened in any massively multiplayer game anywhere.

We protest what affects us. We protest what we care about. If I lived in Australia and spent a signifcant part of my life playing Second Life, you'd better believe that I would be far more interested in changes in Second Life than in America's laws.

Further, as the article indicates (did you read it?), online protests are often mostly recreational. If playing a game is fun enough to spend hours doing, and protesting within that game is even more fun, then many players will protest. If you somehow made protesting the PATRIOT act the most enjoyable out of the three, then they'd do that instead.

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that being upset or offended is a right, not a responsibility. It follows that protest should be similarly optional. No one is stepping on your toes by being apathetic about the PATRIOT act, so your vitriolic straw man doesn't seem terribly justifiable.

Screw taxation as social engineering

[Anonymous Coward]

This game tax was supposed to fix runaway inflation by changing behavior by giving 'players an incentive to get rid of things they don't really want any more.' In the real world people are getting sick of taxation as social engineering. Taxation should be about funding the government.

The best protest

[AvengerXP]

Cancel your subscription. That's what I did with Star Wars Galaxies. The game clearly isn't ready for release.

Re:The best protest

[danila]

This is not a protest. This is you deciding not to play. If you though the net effect was negative, of course, go ahead and stop playing. But what if you enjoyed the game but was annoyed by bugs or some other things? You want to continue playing, but you want stuff to be fixed. What to do? Protest by doing sit-ins, demonstrations, rallies, distributing pamphlets, etc.

Re:I tried an MMORPG...

[Tackhead]

> I tried the star wars MMPORPG because friend insisted it was "the greatest thing ever".
>
> Its so freaking boring...the tutorial fine, but the game, you get to a world, and it consists of guys looking for raw materials so they can level up characters, so they can then look for different raw materials so they can level up characters...

...and then, because they can't do anything without giving up their skills, they surrender all their skills and start over. And this is supposed to be something different than just quitting and reloading?

> I'm only saying this because I think the mentality of people who play these games is not part of what most people consider "normal", and therefore, the current MMPORPG population is just a collection of weird geeks.

At least the premise of Second Life sounds half-interesting. ("There is no content. Here are tools. Build it yourself. Play it yourself.")

By comparison, Star Wars Galaxies is "There is no content. There are no tools. Pretend you're inventing content." (Don't level up, you evil powergamer! There's so little content, and there are no tools for players to create add-on missions, but that's why you're paying $15/month, so you can roleplay... you know, imagine the content and roleplay what you'd be doing if the content was there! :-)

I'm a weird geek. SWG fans make me look positively normal. Bah. Gimme NWN. Hell, gimme Bard's Tale and Wizardry. If I wanna roleplay social interaction, I'll roleplay a party of six on my old-school CRPG. And not one of those characters will know the word "pwn".

Re:Taxation is theft

[tgibbs]

You utilize a classic socialist argument, the economy as zero-sum game. The resources collected by the wealthy can be used to generate even greater benefits for society, such as easier access to things like information and a wider variety of products. I doubt a poor person living off the public teat could fund the businesses that build your home, deliver your food to the grocery store you visit, and finance the research that led to your computer.

No the argument that the wealthy should pay more taxes because they reap a disproportionate fraction of the benefits is an ethcial argument, not an economic one. The economic argument you make is itself a zero-sum argument, because it frames it as an either-or choice between expenditure of wealth by the state for the benefit of the poor and expenditure of wealth by the rich. But remember, the wealthy don't go away because they are taxed. As long as the tax rate is less than 100%, there are benefits to wealth. So the economic question is at what point the reduction in the trickle-down benefits to society from the self-directed expenditures of the wealthy exceeds the benefits to society, both incidental and direct, of the public expenditure of those tax revenues for the public good. Certainly, in the US, there has historically been no apparent correlation between low rates of taxation and high rates of economic growth, suggesting that tax rates have always been below the levels that would significantly curtail the beneficial economic activities of the wealthy.

Re:Solution?

[phantomlord]

Finally, I've always had an interesting theory about economics. The old line is that nothing happens until something gets sold. Yet in many ways, government focuses on "taxing" things which of course reduces the amount of items sold. I propose an interesting experiment to be to reduce taxes for spending a certain portion of your income within a month. For example, let's say 50% of your income within a month. This means that the poor would likely be spending this amount anyways (and be subject to those savings) and the rich would be encouraged to spend more to help vitalize the economy. I'm sure I haven't thought this entirely through yet but I'd be interested in hearing some responses to this. I get this feeling, however, that the criticisms can be worked through.

There are important reasons to actually save money though, especially on a month to month type basis. Things like retirement accounts, risk aversion, financial security in an unexpected crisis, etc. I currently have about 20% of my annual income just sitting in my bank account in case a rainy day comes along. For instance, in 1998, my dad had a brain aneurysm and stroke and was in the hospital for 5 months. After he got out, he still needed constant rehab and someone to be with him all the time so I ended up taking nearly 18 months off from work. My savings, along with some supplimental income (his pension plan kicking in and all his vacation/sick time he saved at work), is how I made it that long.

There are also parallels to the dot com bust. The faster you blow the money, the sooner you'll find yourself working 3 jobs to try to make ends meet when the unexpected occurs. So, do you start allowing exceptions for savings? If so, how do you define the savings limits? Someone who has a $5000 a month mortgage payment is going to need a substantially larger rainy day fund than someone with my $500 a month payment.

What all of the economic theories of taxation come down to is controlling people via the government urging rather than keeping the government off their back. Under the current scheme, people are punished for working their tail off to earn a good living. Under your plan, people are punished for trying to make sure they have a nut saved in case a storm comes along.

I may not be making any money off the few grand I've got sitting in the bank, but the fact that it's there means the bank can lend it to someone else who can try to make something happen with it. Similarly, the money of the filthy rich isn't sitting in their mattress, its being excersized in creating business through stock ownership, allowing government improvement projects through bonds, sitting in a CD while the bank lets someone else use it, etc. Retail is only a small, though critically important, portion of the vast capitalist economic system.

Bollocks

[heironymouscoward]

LOTF is just well-dressed propaganda, teaching youngsters that without the guiding adult hand they inevitably descend into primitive violence. No coincidence it's such a favorite of teachers.

Life's real stories of youngsters abandoned shows something quite different. In the Polish ghettos, Nazi camps, streets of Rio and of Kinshasa... children form groups and look after each other.

The most flagrant examples of children acting violently are wars in which adults abduct children and train them as soldiers: Colombia, Sierra Leone, Uganda, Liberia, and many other cases... it's the adults doing the damage.

Children don't have holy water running through their veins, but they do not embody naked evil either. They just try to get along. LOTF is a caricature, based on the idea of "original sin", saying that we ar civilized only because society keeps us in check. Bullshit. Society is an expression of our human nature, and civilization is a natural consequence of our innate desire for an easy life and our built-in mechanisms for conflict avoidance.

Re:Bollocks

[ojQj]

LOTF is just well-dressed propaganda, teaching youngsters that without the guiding adult hand they inevitably descend into primitive violence. No coincidence it's such a favorite of teachers.

I didn't see it that way. You see the adults who arrive on the island and make everything ok were involved in WW2. And no next-level authority figure was going to arrive and save them from the horrors of their own creation. LOTF was trying to make a statement about adult societies and human nature by creating a microcosm to show just how ridiculous some of our behavior is. The fact that it was children was just incidental -- probably a literary choice designed to emphasise how horrible that behavior is.

Heck even if this interpretation is wrong, the fact that my english teacher spent most of our class time analysing interpretations which go in this direction discredits your statement that english teachers choose to teach this book as propaganda. And that goes for both english teachers who taught this book to me. (I moved after my second year in high school, so had to endure this hideous book twice.)

I hated LOTF not because it was saying that children embody the naked evil, but because it was saying that human beings are fundamentally evil. That is a sentiment I whole-heartedly disagree with.

Inflation?

[0123456]

"Remember, the article starts off talking about the rampant inflation inherent in MMOGs"

Which is, of course, utter bollocks. The problem, if there is one, is rampant _deflation_ of prices: items that would have cost 2000 whatsits when they first appeared cost 20 whatsits today because they're so common. It's only the brand-new and very rare items that cost a lot.

"the rich have an easy time accumulating more wealth to compensate for inflation."

Why do you need to accumulate wealth when goods cost 1% of the price they sold for when they first appeared? A new "poor" player in Everquest can equip themselves with items for a thousand platinum that would have cost many tens of thousands when the game was young... and make that thousand platinum in a few hours of killing spiders.

Frankly, whenever I read an article complaining about "inflation" in MMORPGs I know from the start that the author doesn't know what they're talking about.