[MD] Food for Thought

[Case]

[Arlo]
No, I don't think the majority of these players are remotely concerned with
theories of identity construction, but it has given sociolinguists and
cultural psychologists a lot of clay to play with.

[Case]
Vernor Vinge's short story "True Names" was one of the first thoughtful
treatments of this topic back in the late 70's. While people may or may not
intellectualize identity construction online, it is what they are doing.
Study of the phenomena is obviously very new but there are cultural
anthropologist studying the formation and transmission of culturally
practices online. Linguists are studying the net's effect on communication.
We have touched on 1337 speak before. But gamers also have a whole
vocabulary of words to describe situations and activities that are unique to
virtual space. A sufficiently advanced technology can not be distinguished
from magic. Computer technology sure fits that bill.

[Arlo]
I'll tell you that I don't personally play (although I have "wasted"
countless hours playing Civilization and SimCity. But I have had kids in
language classes tell me that they were learning a language because people
in their online gaming worlds were from these places. Nothing drives
language learning so great as a personal desire to communicate with others.

[Case]
Exactly, there is no there in virtual there. The planet shrinks to a point.
Games can and do provide instant interaction with people on opposite sides
of the planet not to mention political spectrum.

[Arlo]
But, while I think there is leverage to be had (historical simulations, for
example), and I think that there is a real, social, negotiative experience
in forging identity to be had, I think there are also negative aspects (such
as social withdrawl from other venues) that can impact the player. Have you
seen the South Park parody of World of Warcraft?

[Case]
There is one style of game mostly based on Microsoft's Age of Empires where
players begin the game as cavemen, hunting and gathering resources.
Milestones like the development of agriculture and the invention of the
wheel are achieved. Construction techniques improve as a player passes
through the cultural ages and stages of time. Some of these games last up to
2 or 3 hours. I can tell you first hand how depressing it is to have finally
developed gunpowder only to find your village being strafed by bi-planes.

It is interesting how cultural values are transposed into an environment
where they are not necessarily valuable. The rules of any particular game
dictate to some extent what kinds of interactions will succeed. But social
groups tend to form in typical primate fashion with dominance hierarchies,
and social roles determined by both real world personality factors as much
as in game traits.

That South Park episode is legendary among gamers but other more obscure
bits of cultural expression are also prone to propagate in cyberspace. The
"All Your Base Are Belong to Us" flash presentation made the rounds. There
is one segment of video captured from a WOW expedition where the group
leader goes through a careful exposition of the strategy for an upcoming
fight for a few minutes. Then one player Leroy Jenkins disregards everything
runs into a room and gets everyone kill. Pulling a Leroy Jenkins is now a
term of derision in all games. Leroy is a legend.

There is also a whole genre of movies and shorts that are constructed by
using the underlying code of a game, (the game engine). It is called
machinima and virtual actors play their roles on a virtual stage. As game
engines improve this offers the potential for a whole new form of
expression. Ah, but I go on and on....