Plato, Daigo, and Wallstreet

“Play is older than older than culture”, a quote which is repeated through out Huizinga’s book ((1950). Nature and significance of play as a cultural phenomenon ) seems to emphasize how play is a characteristic of many living things, and therefore precedes culture. He spends half of the first 27 pages of his book discussing what play actually is, how it is defined, what it’s purpose is, and how we play. He notes some possible reasons for play though including the need to discharge abundant energy, it is an immitative instinct, it fulfills a need to relax, and that it provides, training for real life scenarios. Despite these reasons for it’s existence, Huizinga tells us that play exists to serve something else, or fulfill a great need.

Huizinga tries to determine what play is from a relational perspective, in that he compares it to things such as laughter and non-seriousnesses, saying that they are related but not synonymous. He also tries to characterize play by defining some traits which always apply to it such as that it is always voluntary, play exists within a definite time span, play begins and ends at distinct times, play exists within a certain defined space, and play has a defined set of rules. I disagree though in that I don’t think play exists within a definate time spawn, I think it can be in spontanious spurts, and that play exists within a distinct space; play can start in one place, and move into another physical space without breaking play. I see where he was coming from when he said that play has a set of rules, because I do believe that there is a general unspoken set of guidelines, limits, and social norms when playing, but not a strict ridged set of rules, unless it is an organized game.

The second half of the first chapter is dedicated to examining how play relates to rituals, with a specific focus on the rituals of “savages”. Huizinga describes how rituals are rooted in play essentially because they involve acts that that do not affect the “real world”, but instead the participants know that what they are experiencing is in a sense false. It seemed to me through the second half of this chapter that the author really want to apply this concept to major religions, and even hinted at it, bu kept shying away from it, maybe out of fear? He also quotes Plato to put a positive spin on things, basically stating that we are God’s play things, so we should act as such, and play, because only God is worth of true seriousness.

“God alone is worthy of supreme seriousness, but man is God’s play thing, and that is the best part of him. Therefore every man and woman should live accordingly”

Anfrew Hinton’s (ASIS&T Bulletin, August/September.) bulletin was much more directly related to video games in tht it discussed their evolution as multi user online environments. He describes a concept of how we essentially have 3 iving spaces, home, work, and a frequented place of non-seriousness, and how this third place is becoming MMO environments for many people. He writes about how Quake was really the first MMO game, and how it was so successful not because of the quality of the actual game itself, but because of the community that was able to develop around the game due to it being left open. When I say open I mean that users had the ability to create their own content for the game and even redesign certain parts of the game itself, then share that with the world (community).If I had to make a comparison I would say that Quake did for gaming what the web 2.0 did for the internet. It put massive amounts of control into the peoples’ hands.

World of Warcraft, another game mentioned int he bulletin achieved enourmous success for the exact opposite reasons. The game does not allow for any user alterations of generated content, but instead relies on the community within the game as the main source of appeal. The community did not develop because of how the game allowed for user contribution, but instead provided the means for users to get to know each other better through the capabilities of the game itself, such as voice chat. In WOW, Hinton says, “It turns out that a player’s level and in-game wealth end up being secondary to the personal character traits of the person behind the character in the social milieu of the game world.”

At the end of the bulletin Hinton also raises some interesting points about ubiquitous computing in that ubiquitous computing has become such an integral part of our lives, put we now have virtual worlds emerging, and the two are starting to overlap at certain points. e gives the example of someone in real life talking on their cell phone to someone’s avatar in second life. This makes me seriously wonder what the future holds in the way of communication and social interaction via technological mediums. Will our digital representations of ourselves become just as or close to as important as our real life ones?

I pose this question to anyone who reads up to this point, is it proper to say that you “live” in one of thee MMO environments. I don’t mean in terms of being alive, but, more so existing. Do you extend, temporarily tansfer, or not have existance in this MMO worlds?

With the advent of these MMO style games, many gamers are not going out to the store and picking up a CD or cartridge in order to play the game they are most interested in, they are not buying a product, they are simply downloading software then paying (often monthly) for an ongoing experience, keeping up the payments to keep the experience alive. Pine, B.J., & Gilmore, J.H discuss the concept of commodities, goods, services, and experiences in their book (1999). The Experience Economy. Cambridge: Harvard Business School Press. I feel as though their first chapter relates on online gaming in that games are, and have been, moving in the direction of creating an experience for a “guest”, that will leave them with something memorable, and an insentive to either continue paying for that experience, or to continue buying games of a particular series based soley on how it made them feel while they were playing, as opposed to how entertained they were. Games are one industry that is not in danger of becoming commoditized, prouctized, or any other “tized” that may have been mentioned, because they are already sitting right on top of the currently desirable by creating these experiences.

With many of the current online games, the companies who produce them have to put little effort into keeping their users entertained and making sure that they have a desirable experience because all of the users are providing that service for each other. The company just has to develop and maintain the virtual environment, and the whole experience production is handled by those paying for it, as opposed to the Disney land example the authors give, that is constantly challenged to innovate and utilize the newest hardware to push the limits and provide some cutting edge experience to it’s guests.

I am genuinely excited about the future of virtual worlds, mmo games, ubiquitous computing, and collaborative user generated virtual experiences in general, and seeing how all the lines that divide them slowly start to fade away until you have something completely new and unique unto itself.

Second Life

I created a second life account as well as a virtual self/avatar. I tried to make my avatar look as close to my real self as possible but that proved rather difficult. The facial features seemed very rigid and I could not get them to smooth out the way I wanted to. Also I could not achieve the texture I wanted for my hair, I know the program allows for custom textures, but, I could not really figure those out. I think I used a wood texture for everything just so it did not look plain. Upon creating my character I was dumped off on some tiny island filled with a few other new players. I eventually figured out how to bring up a world map and “teleport” to a new destintion. One feature I liked in Second life was the ability to fly, which saves time and effort when trying to get from here to there, when there might be difficult to reach, high up, or a far away place. After escaping the newbie island I headed over to what seemed like a club. The club had techno music blasting and people dancing, also, I noticed that the music was being streamed in from the internet once I heard a plug for the radio station.  I tried to talk to a few people but they ignored me and did not seem very interestedd in chatting with a stranger. Eventually I figured out how to dance (there are a few pre-set dance modes), bound the dance modes to keys like macros, and rotated them.

Overall though I found the game to be very laggy and the rendering of the enviroment to be of poor quality. Also, it was very easy to glitch the game and end up in a wall, underwater, or in some other form of black hole. I did not really understand the whole currency system, how to create or use things, and I found anything except basic movement to be a challenge and not at all intuitive.

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