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Raking Muck In The Sims Online
Dr. Spork writes "According to a Salon article [ad click-thru required], after launching a newspaper website chronicling tawdry dealings in the Sims Online city of Alphaville, Peter Ludlow, a professor of philosophy at the University Of Michigan, had his Sims Online account terminated by EA/Maxis, the company behind the service. 'Censorship', charges Ludlow, who has exposed dealings such as underage cyber-prostitution and extortion of simoleans (the Sims currency, exchangable on eBay for real-life money)."
I want to kill all the Sim-Haitians.
"Why did they cancel my favorite Sci-Fi show? I downloaded ALL the episodes!"
And we still don't care...
Oh my god! Think of the cyberchildren!
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
It's EA's world, EA can do with it as it pleases. Even if that displeases it's customers.
Of course, if it's customers were displeased enough, they would go elsewhere for their online crack addiction. Right?
Basically, it's just stating that this guy's not pleased (which he has every right to be) that the company used their right to censor the world that is hosted on their servers (which they have every right to be).
Nothing special here, move along.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Dec. 12, 2003 | In the real world, Peter Ludlow is an academic, a professor of philosophy and linguistics at the University of Michigan whose books go by sober titles like "Readings in the Philosophy of Language," and "Semantics, Tense and Time: An Essay in the Metaphysics of Natural Language." He's well-regarded in his field and engaging enough on the phone, but Ludlow is, even by his own admission, not a very interesting person. That is to say, Peter Ludlow is nothing like Urizenus, Ludlow's alter ego in the virtual world of "The Sims Online."
Urizenus is an unabashed muckraker. In the mold, perhaps, of Walter Winchell or Joseph Pulitzer, he investigates the shady underside of life in Alphaville, one of the game's largest cities, and posts all his sensational discoveries on the Alphaville Herald, a blog that he describes as the only newspaper covering "The Sims Online." In the couple of months since the blog went live, Urizenus has interviewed many of Alphaville's most infamous scammers, thieves, money launderers, prostitutes (some of whom, he says, are minors) and other dubious types, and he's documented attempts by the community to create a kind of governing authority to police the place.
Urizenus and his compatriots at the Herald have also aimed their bullhorn at Maxis, the company that created "The Sims Online" and that runs the place; in blog entry after blog entry, the Herald describes Maxis as being signally indifferent to the needs of people who populate the game, and it documents the many reasons why "The Sims Online" -- which was predicted to be a blockbuster and made the cover of Time magazine before its launch late in 2002 -- has been a money-loser for Electronic Arts, Maxis' parent company.
But the Herald's relentless criticism does not appear to have gone down well at E.A. On Wednesday, in a move that Ludlow describes as arbitrary and capricious, E.A. terminated Urizenus' "Sims Online" account. "While we regret it," E.A. told him in a letter, "we feel it is necessary for the good of the game and its community." Alphaville's Citizen Kane was kicked out of town.
According to Ludlow, E.A.'s move was "clearly censorship," and other scholars of MMORPGS -- massively multiplayer online role playing games, a category that describes the online worlds of "The Sims," "Everquest," "Ultima Online," and new entrants "There" and "Second Life" -- who are familiar with Ludlow's site agree with his assessment. They say the situation underscores what is becoming increasingly apparent in the virtual world: There's a fundamental divergence between the interests of a community (typically high-minded goals like freedom of speech and assembly) and the interests of the corporations that run those communities (typically not very high-minded but otherwise understandable goals like making money and avoiding public association with words like "prostitution").
"[These virtual worlds] are a strange sort of commercial space where communities come to exist, but there's a tension between the communities and the private commercial company," says Julian Dibbell, the author of "My Tiny Life," a kind of memoir about the virtual world LambdaMOO. "It's similar to what you have with shopping malls. They're becoming the last refuge of public space for teenagers, but they're run by companies, and they can kick you out on a whim."
The story also prompts a host of compelling questions regarding the nature of virtual existence. For instance, can something like prostitution occur online? And what about community-based policing -- is that possible, or desirable, in the Sim world? And, finally, does E.A. have any obligation to allow a free press to document how all these issues will play out in "The Sims Online"? After all, it's their world -- why can't they run it how they please, however capricious their rule may seem to others?
Peter Ludlow's abiding interest in "The Sims Online" is, he says, professional. The question "What emerges from a state of nature?" is an old chestnut among philosopher
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
As the author says in the article, on one hand there's the player and the whole virtual community's interests (have fun mainly, but sometimes actually make real money for themselves), and on the other had the interest of the game company (make a lot of money for themselves).
As EA's TSO is not a succesfull money-maker (quite the opposite actually), do you wonder that such things happend?
The issue here is wether or not somebody can SUCCESFULLY SUE the company in real-life for in-game things (remember the kid suing the company for the "dissapearance of biological weapons"? or the companies suing "sweatshop" owners in UO?)
By reading this signature you agree to not disagree with the post you just read.
...dealings such as underage cyber-prostitution...
What exactly is cyber-prostitution?
Hmmm, I might check this game out... *cough*
Sounds like its market is beginning to be like everquest's. Random fact(or not so random...from and old cnet article):
"And if the "EverQuest" universe of Norrath were a country, its per-capita gross national product would be $2,266--comparable to the 77th richest country on Earth and ranking it between Russia and Bulgaria. Platinum pieces, the in-game currency known as pp, end up with an exchange rate of about a penny per pp, making "EverQuest" currency more valuable than the Japanese yen and the Spanish peseta. "i wonder how long it will take for The Sims' currency to be as valuable as Japan's, if it isn't already.
-Vib, videogame freelancer for news0r.com, videogame.net, and vnorby.tk
I find this fascinating (as many people do including Ludlow himself I'm sure).
.. yet the *whole thing* is controlled by a company in our "real" society.
There's a virtual society, which has many of the same dynamics as a real society, and functions like a real society as a result
It *is* censorship (but not illegal censorship, just like censorship in Communist China isn't illegal, because you "agree" to the "terms" by living there). But there's nothing anyone can do about it. You can't even revolt because the whole world is controlled by the company. They'll just shut your character off.
To me, I see a company running their world like a totalitarian regime. They suppress criticism and free speech. They "shut down" characters with no remorse, even though these characters mean a lot to someone. They point to the rules (which *they* crafted) and say, sorry, that's the rules, we can enforce them as selectively as we like. And yet people *voluntarily* enter this world. What does that say about us?
But what would be the "democratic" version of this society? A virtual society where the power is spread out over the players instead of being concentrated in a company that controls it? What would happen in such a society?
I guess the internet itself is something like that.. and we see what that's like: porn, hackers, and spam, occasionally interrupted by genius.
Anyway I'm just rambling here but it is very interesting, and I wonder if the dynamics will follow the dynamics other ("real") societies have experiences (rebellion, overthrow, etc).
It is The SIMS, right? You're simulating life.
Therefore, let me draw you a metaphor.
Crazy quack makes a basically correct statement (in this case, the doctor) about something that helps the government (EA/Origin) but they can't admit it (the "bad things" that went on, while they're bad, to EA, they're just more users which equal more cash). So the government (EA) sqaushes the crazy quack (deletes his account) and provides a reasonable-sounding explanation for it.
See? It simulates real life!
I'm not saying the doctor's a quack, and I'm not condoning the activities that the doctor was complaining about. I'm simply pointing out that it's simulating what would have happened if something similar had happened in real life.
It would be cooler if this sort of thing was handled in-game. Sim cops, fbi, etc. Outside of exploiting bugs, DoS attacks, and similar cheating that happens from the outside, resorting to this sort of thing to solve in-game problems just shows a lack of development and forethought on the part of the designers.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
Probably the exchange of cybersex for cybermoney...
(Damn these buzzwords!!!)
-insert a witty something-
I'm not suprised that they're trying to do anything they can to pull the site because it exposes the true nature of the beast.
Some of the stuff reported about is absolutely disgusting. Such vile, repulsive people.
Are all Sims created equal? Does the very fact of their creation as avatars of a rational, freethinking entity, endow them with any of rights - life, liberty, pursuit of happiness - with which their users are endowed?
Certainly in current game engines these personas do not establish their own government. Should they?
As things stand, online worlds are totalitarian regimes, whose users are at the full and total mercy of the commercial enterprise running their world. And yet there are lives -- albeit pale, basement lives -- inexorably tied to the condition of these avatars.
What if the government in my online world chooses to burn my life's work?
I can easily imagine plying my intellectual craft online exclusively - if the game engine allows for such an interaction with e.g. an in-game pad of paper. If I write a poem online, do I not have inalienable property rights to it?
I would argue that I do.
But these rights - intellectual property - are governed by real-world laws. No real-world laws guarantee freedom of association, for example, in an online world. Should such laws be written? What if the game company lets disruptive people remain in the game but prevents their subversive ideas from reaching others.
In a realistic game-world, what becomes of natural rights?
I propose that we the Open Source community produce a game-world with its own government, of the people, by the people, for the people. And I propose that its launching charter read:
The Declaration of a Free Game World
When in the course of online events, it becomes necessary for some users to dissolve the feature-dependence which hitherto has bound them to the whims of a commercial venture, and to assume among the powers over their computers, the fair and equal online participation to which their status as users entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of all users requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We consider the following self-evident:
that all game accounts are created equal,
that they are endowed by their creation with certain unalienable rights,
that among these are access, freedom, and the pursuit of enjoyment and meaning;
that to secure these rights, a system is instituted over users,
deriving its just powers from the consent of its users;
That whenever any such form of system becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the users to alter it or to find or create another, which new System shall lay its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to the Users [and not commercial enterprise!] shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
Prudence, indeed, will dictate that systems long established should not be abandoned for light and transient causes;
and accordingly all experience has shown, that users are more disposed by far to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the systems to which they are accustomed.
But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object of commercial gain, evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such systems, and to provide new means for their future enjoyment.
--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Users; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to abandon their former systems.
The history of the present online world is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over its users.
[list long, exhaustive list of grievances of Users.]
In every stage of these oppressions we have petitioned for redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated petitions have been answered only by repeated injury.
A company whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a tyrant, is unfit to b
That's just begging for a system cracker to break you out of the jail.
nt
Salon's writer says "Several other games have fan sites or newspapers that cover them, but experts could recall no other instance of clear-cut censorship."
If you consider this a case of accounts being banned for out-of-game activities that paint the game in a poor light, it's similar to Mystere's banning from EverQuest. Man writes (to be fair, not very tasteful) fan fiction, posts it publically, gets banned from game.
*cough*Big Brother*cough*
A friend of mine asked how he could change the default Sim language from French to english. Not knowing that the Sims speak jibberish.
I couldn't think of a sig.
I can't decide which is more pathetic. A game compnay that bans someone because they write a newspaper about the fictional characters in their game, or the guy who writes the newspaper.
Jeez. Get a life.
However lame you may think Peter Ludlow is for his pastime, EA has done something much lamer:
Rule #1: Don't Shoot the Messenger. No matter how distasteful the message may be, you can not and should not blame a person just because he delivers it.
Now it looks like EA is trying to sweep whatever nastiness he was reporting about under the rug ...and you'll have to wonder what else they're hiding.
Maybe they should rename it "The Slums"?
You cannot truly appreciate Dilbert until you read it in the original Klingon.