”I'm afraid currency is the currency of the realm!”

This week’s readings revolved around the topics of co-creative culture and labour within computer games, which resulted in a number of different discussions on for instance gold farming, player modding, avatar re-skinning, gamification in the workplace as well as machinima. Furthermore, the presenting team went on to highlight some interesting case examples of co-creative culture and labour in computer games, of which I have chosen to elaborate furthermore upon the much debated auction house for the upcoming Diablo 3 game from Blizzard Entertainment.

Within the article Interactive Audiences? The Collective Intelligence of Media Fans Henry Jenkins elaborated upon the co-creative audience culture that throughout the last decade has sprung up around different new media artefacts such as television series as well as computer games, since “[…] we should document the interactions that occur amongst media consumers, between media consumers and media texts, and between media consumers and media producers […] audiences are gaining greater power and autonomy as they enter into the new knowledge culture. The interactive audience is more than a marketing concept and less than "semiotic democracy." However, Jenkins’ arguments about the co-creative audience culture must be understood in relation to the broader academic developments within media studies, since different researchers throughout the last decades have attempted to substitute the so-called passive audience model with a more active or participatory audience model. For instance, the media studies faculties on the universities have started educating the students in qualitative reception analysis, and different researchers in the game studies discipline likewise began to point out that the more dedicated players could be understood as a co-creative as well as immaterial labour force for the game developers. In the book Games of Empire Nick-Dyer Witheford and Greig De Peuter have for instance pointed out that “Immaterial labor is less about the production of things and more about the production of subjectivity, or better, about the way the production of subjectivity and things are in contemporary capitalism deeply intertwined”, and the authors furthermore tried to situate this phenomenon within the broader historical developments behind the computer game medium.

Chinese gold farming has for instance been accentuated as the most obvious example for immaterial labour in computer games, since the economical differences in wages between the west and the east have encouraged people to sell virtual items for real-world currencies on different online auctions houses. In the book Play Money Julian Dibbel has described the fascinating meta-game surrounding online auctions for virtual items, and he furthermore emphasised that the gold farmers often could choose to utilise different glitches as well as exploits inside the computer game in order to earn a huge amount of real-world currencies. However, the Chinese gold farmers have become a much-chastened demographic group inside the virtual communities, which is why both the game developers as well as the more player-driven cultures have attempted to prevent this phenomenon from happening through different legal and emergent methods. Constance Steinkuehler has for instance described the emergent manner, in which the different player-driven communities within the computer game Lineage began to hunt down the Chinese gold farmers that harvested the in-game items as well as resources. Furthermore, the persons that decide to purchase virtual gold or items from the Chinese gold farmers could likewise be looked down upon by the other players in the online communities, since the in-game achievements for the computer game are supposed to reflect the player’s personal skills.   

One could therefore argue that Blizzard Entertainment’s controversial decision to include an auction house in Diablo 3 that encourages the players to sell virtual items for real-world currencies might seem outright provocative to the dedicated people, who for years have been attempting to prevent the Chinese gold farming from happening inside for instance World of Warcraft. The players have therefore begun to spam the different online forums surrounding Diablo 3 with negative comments about the planned auction house, since the intermixture between the virtual currencies and the real-world currencies could break the balanced ludic experience inside the computer game. Furthermore, Blizzard Entertainment is planning to earn a certain percentage from the virtual sales on the action house, and one player has therefore emphasised the unethical paradox that “So real money goes in and none comes out. They charge you to auction, they skim the top of that auction sale, and then whatever money you get ultimately can only be handed back over to Blizz in some way.” And other players have even correlated the planned auction house for Diablo 3 with the micro-transactions in Facebook games, since the more inexperienced player easily could purchase a powerful avatar using his real-world money. However, in order to understand the reasons for the strong outcries surrounding the planned auction house for Diablo 3 one should bring Johan Huizinga’s influential idea about the so-called magic circle into the discussion, which he used to describe how play […] proceeds within its own proper boundaries of time and spaces according to fixed rules and in an orderly manner.” The auction house for Diablo 3 will therefore transgress the magic circle that should delimit the computer game from its surrounding sociocultural context, and Roger Caillois likewise argued that real-world money unavoidably turned the ludic experience into a professional sport. One could therefore argue that the controversial auction house for Diablo 3 should be understood as the most recent example for a more general discussion within the game studies discipline about the relationship between ludic experiences and real-world currencies.

Seriously…

 

This week’s articles approached the topics of rationalization and instrumentality in computer games from a social science perspective, which resulted in a number of discussions about achievement systems, playbour, the role of play within the broader cultural sphere as well as Facebook games. During the lecture the case team furthermore presented some interesting examples of rationalization and instrumentality in play such as the badge system in Foursquare, the Volkswagen commercial with the piano stairs as well as the Panopticonic surveillance in Farmville.

In the article The Achievement Machine Mikael Jakobson presented an ethnographic examination of the achievement system on the Xbox360 gaming console, and he furthermore pointed out that “[…] the achievement system is […] a massively multiplayer online game (MMO) where separate achievements are the functional equivalent of quests.” Furthermore, Jakobson decided to subdivide the players on Xbox LIVE into three different categories called the achievement casuals, the achievement hunters as well as the achievement completist, since he discovered that some people actually enjoyed spending an enormous amount of time on unlocking the most difficult achievements within the computer games. Mark Silverman and Bart Simon likewise highlighted the somewhat invisible border between play and labour within modern computer game in the article Discipline and Dragon Kill Points in the Online Power Game, which is why “[…] good work can no longer be understood as such in relation to play. Now, good work is play […] many power gamers do not describe their game experiences in terms of fun or joy […]” And one could therefore argue that both the achievement hunter as well as the power gamer have attempted to rationalization or instrumentalize the more ludic experiences inside the computer game in order to become more effective players, since […] power gamers approach gameplay as a problem soluble through collective hard work as they ‘‘grind’’ away to collect the levels, reputations, and resources they need to engage in the primary goal […].”

The achievement system for the Xbox360 gaming console could therefore be understood as postmodern playbour, which often encourages the achievement hunter to perform a mundane or repetitive task inside the virtual game spaces one thousand times in order to acquire a small badge on his Xbox LIVE profile. For instance, in the computer game Gears of War the so-called ‘Seriously…’ achievement will instruct the achievement hunter to ‘Kill 10.000 people in versus ranked match total’, which could take the more inexperienced player several weeks worth of playing time to acquire. At some point the repetitive grind surrounding the ‘Seriously…’ achievement will therefore cease being fun and instead turn into postmodern playbour, which is why the achievement hunter often must attempt to locate different exploits or grinds that could help him acquire the required kills much faster. Different online forums such as xbox360achievements.org and achievementhunters.org will also help the achievement hunter devise effective strategies for the most difficult or time-consuming achievements in a specific computer game, since the “Achievement hunters typically care more about the accumulated gamerscore than getting all the achievements in any given game. Their approach is to deplete a game of all its time efficient achievements as quickly as possible and then move on.”

The philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamar has in the book Truth and Method highlighted the paradoxical that “[…] the game masters the players. [...] The real subject of the game [...] is not the players but the game itself.”, and one could likewise ask whether the achievement hunters in fact are played by the ergodic state-machine rather than the other way around. Furthermore, the achievement system for the Xbox360 has resulted in a number of discussions inside the game design communities about the ludic values behind intrinsic rewards versus extrinsic rewards, which Roger Caillois’ classic distinction between ludus and paidia could help elaborate further upon. According to Caillois, paidia should be understood as the more improvisational or unstructured play-forms that “[…] effects an immediate and disordered agitation, an impulsive and easy recreation, but readily carried to excess, whose impromptu and unruly character remains its essential if not unique reason for being”. On the other hand, ludus should instead encapsulate the more rule-bound or structured play-forms that is “[…] complementary to and a refinement of paidia, which it disciplines and enriches. It provides an occasion for […] a particular mastery of the operation of one or another contraption or the discovery of a satisfactory solution to problems […]”, which resonates with Jakobson’s descriptions of the so-called achievement hunter. Some game designers have therefore argued that the achievement system on the Xbox360 gaming console in fact affords for a much more narrow as well as disciplined ludic experience, where the state-machine often could play the achievement hunter rather than the other way around. Furthermore, the achievement hunter must interact with the computer game in according to the preferred player model that the game designers have chosen to inscribe into the achievement badges, which in the end could leave little room for the more emergent or paidiac experiences.

Throughout the last decade both the game designers and the game reviewers have furthermore praised the more emergent or paidiac computer game titles such as Minecraft as well as Little Big Planet, and the achievement systems have therefore been understood as these much more behaviouristic or conservative elements that do not leverage the player’s creative imagination in any way. For instance, imagine that Marcus ‘Notch’ Persson had chosen to implement an achievement system into Minecraft, which instructed the player to construct specific buildings or structures such as the Brooklyn Bridge as well as the Eiffel Tower in order to acquire the achievement badges. Such an achievement system would probably have ruined the emergent as well as paidiac appeal behind the Minecraft universe, and the indie computer games for the personal computer could therefore become an important counter-example for the different achievements badges or trophies on the modern generation of gaming consoles. However, the game designers have to a certain extend always dictated the player’s ludic experiences inside the game world through the different affordances as well as constraints within the gameplay mechanics, but the modern achievement systems made this paradoxical power relationship between the achievement hunter and the underlying state-machine much more obvious and apparent. 

Emergent Play in Minecraft

The assigned articles for today’s class in Game Culture elaborated upon the somewhat controversial topic of emergent play and control within computer games such as World of Warcraft, Lineage as well as Super Smash Bros. Melee. In the article Games of Emergence and Games of Progression Jesper Juul has for instance defined emergent play as computer games that “[…] feature huge amounts of variation even though they are based on simple rules, and how this variation is not just random or supplied by the user, but is a non-obvious consequence of the rules of a game.” Emergent play will therefore arise somewhere inside the negotiating spaces between the designer’s original intention and the player’s subsequent interpretation, and in the article The Mangle of Play Constance Steinkuehler has for instance pointed out that computer games often can become so-called mangles of production and consumption. Steinkuehler demonstrated that the different player communities within the massively multiplayer online role-playing game Lineage 2 often chose to subvert or renegotiate the designer’s original mechanics on a number of areas such as playing killing as well as gold farming, which is why the academic researchers not just must understand the “[…] formal rule systems designed into them but also the full range of human practices through which players actively inhabit their worlds and render them meaningful.” In the article Communication, Coordination, and Camaraderie in World of Warcraft Mark Chen likewise tried to emphasize the sociocultural importance of emergent play, since he went on to argue that the different ad-hoc rules as well as norms in his personal raid-group had enhanced the collaborative coordination in World of Warcraft.  

One could therefore argue that the game studies discipline has started to recognise the importance of emergent play in computer games, since researchers such as Chen and Steinkuehler attempted to frame the player as a more active human being that utilised his creative imagination in order to enhance the designer’s original intentions in different ways. In his PHD-dissertation from 2006 Jonas Heidi Smith argued that the game studies discipline has tried to encapsulate the role of player inside one of the four meta-categories called the susceptible player model, the selective player model, the active player model as well as the rational player model. Furthermore, the game studies discipline has for the last decade been favouring the so-called active player model, in which the player is regarded “[…] as actively engaged with the game or gamespace in ways often not prescribed or predicted by the game designers”, and the recent focus on emergent play must therefore be understood as a counter reaction to the outdated susceptible player model that dominated the discussion surrounding computer games and violence in the eighties. And the recent focus on emergent play has also spread to the game design communities, where the reviewers often praise the more emergent computer game titles that encourage the player to utilise his creative imagination in order to build different objects or buildings.

The emergent indie-phenomenon Minecraft has for instance encouraged the player to use the building materials or resources from the procedurally generated environments in order to construct different buildings, tools and objects. One can therefore argue that Minecraft personifies Juul’s ideas about emergent play in computer games, since the dedicated player communities have managed to use the simple building mechanics in order to construct impressive objects such the Enterprise as well as the Reichtag. For instance, I once talked to some players from a private Minecraft community, which had decided to turn the emergent building mechanics into performative utterances. The players inside the community therefore took turns in creating a monumental building, which either could be based upon their own imagination or a pre-existing building out in the real world. While creating the building the player furthermore needed to conform to both the predetermined temporal cycle within the Minecraft universe as well as the player-imposed or emergent challenge of completing the architectural project within less than week.

Emergent Play in Minecraft.

More Emergent Play in Minecraft.