Ethno Post #4

MacKenzie’s paper deals with the blurring of the line between “real world” and “game”. He wrote that the many areas of the “real world” are like games of agon whereby people compete with each other in other to attain higher value than others.
It gets a little confusing when he said the “reigning ideology imagines the world as a level playing field”. It is unclear whether the reigning ideology refers to reigning ideology of games or of real world. I would choose to go with the latter interpretation and therefore, I think he said that games are the “sole remaining ideal” because the premise of a game matches the reigning ideology of the real world. In a game, all players start off equal.

Also, due to the dramatic nature of his proclaimations, I feel that he tends to generalise. He wrote “Play becomes everything to which it was once opposed. It is work, it is serious, it is morality, it is necessity.” First of all, I do not believe that play and work/seriousness/morality/necessity are mutually exclusive. I feel that he has an extremely purist view of what play is and I do not agree with it. I believe that play and work can co-exist because play is a way of doing things with a certain attitude, the subject matter may be work, may be serious, may be moral, may be necessary but the approach can still be play-like.

Julian Dibbell’s article offers interesting insights as to how people function in a world where the lines between working and playing games are blurred. His observations of the Chinese gold farmers provide evidence that play and work can co-exist. One of the gold famer said: “[The work] can be boring, but I still have sometimes a playful attitude”. Another case was when one of the gold farmers continued playing in WoW after working hours to build up his own character.
Gold farmers came into existence because the virtual items within the game are valued by the players in the game. Therefore, this presents a business opportunity for gold farmers who can play the game to collect the virtual items in the game and sell them to other players.

Compared to other MMORPG, Endless Forest does not have an in-game economy. I feel that this happens primarily due to the game design of Endless Forest itself. MacKenzie wrote of games reward players who can best intuit and internalise the game algorithms and mechanics. In Endless Forest, this reward takes the form of spells that can be cast on the player’s avatar to alter the appearance. However, unlike most MMORPG, the game does not support trading. Therefore, while there may be demand for certain spells, there is no easy solution to supporting that.

Another aspect that contributes to the lack of in-game economy is the game design of Endless Forest itself. The peace and freedom advocated by the game design of Endless Forest does not weld well with commercial aspects as revealed in one player’s comment on the game forum in response to the fact that the creators of the game faced financial difficulties funding new features of Endless Forest.

The player said, “I can't say that I really would want to have to PAY to play here... I might consider it if it was a small amount and would keep things going... but I think it would take away from the feel of things in our world, it would destroy some of the feelings of peace & freedom that we have now.”

Seminar question: Where was the philosophical basis for thinking that play and work are mutually exclusive?