Play is not a new concept, and neither is the idea that we all belong to various communities of play, groups in which we can adopt different roles, take on different aspects of ourselves or our other selves. Upon reading this first chapter I made a list of the play communities I am apart of to help further understand this idea Pearce puts forth in the beginning of her book Communities of Play: Emergent Cultures in Multiplayer Games and Virtual Worlds. I am a text based RPer, I am part of the hoop performer/festival community (similar to her Burning Man example), I am a convention goer who dresses up in various personas, I was a part of the Society of Creative Anachronisms (people who like to reenact Rennasance and Medieval aspects of life), and I used to be part of the theater community. In essence, all of those communities are communities of play, communities which exist “quite sonciously outside ‘ordinary’ life” and are “ ‘not serious,’ but at the same time absorbing theh player intensely and utterly” (5).
Pearce opens up her book on play communities with a brief outline of playing, how it started, what it was like, and asserting that in many ways these MMOWs and MMOGs are a return to a more “natural order” (7) as games used to be mostly multiplayer. It wasn’t until technology advanced in the most recent centuries that games because predominantly solo played. In many ways it seems as though we have taken a step back, drawing in and away from communication with others, until the birth of MMOWs and MMOGs. And, it is within these sorts of worlds that creative inquiry burgeons. With table top RPGs there was miniature paintings and fan art (though we still see fan art a lot today with Con Badges con goers have commissioned of their characters). Within these specific communities of play (and others) we have a growth of creativity through avatars, avatar art, ingame fashion design, etc.
Avatars
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| My avatar on GaiaOnline.com |
There are specific ways in which virtual worlds are structure, specific characteristics which help them succeed including that they must be spatially diverse, explorable, persistent, inhabitable, populated, exhibit worldness, and allow the player to participate (all of which I am going to bypass over except for the identities part in this blog). As a writer and someone who engages in text based games primarily (though I am an avid member of Gaiaonline.com), the avatar, arguably one of the most important aspects of virtual worlds, fascinates me. It allows the player to expand themselves, reach into what they want to be seen as. With the ability to alter so many things on many avatars, players can chose to represent that they look like (perhaps young/old, thin/fat, bald/full head of hair) or they can project themselves the way they want to be seen. Basically, Pearce harkens back to Gee’s concept of the player as the hero. Even in games where there is no definitive beginning or end, the player has the ability to posit themselves as “hero.” Throughout all of the avatars I have had, I often keep some times the same—for instance, I try to make all of my avatars fit into the “goth” persona, one which I would dress more if it were culturally acceptable (I used to and that just ended badly!).
Culture
Perhaps the greatest topic Pearce dwells on within this second of the book is emergent cultures within these virtual worlds (which is, granted, part of her general goal of the book). Pearce writes that “emergent behavior in games and virtual worlds arises out of a complex interaction between players and the affordances of the play space they inhabit” (24). Basically, if we chose to consider these virtual worlds as real worlds (which begs the question, what exactly is real?), the cultures that evolve come from both interactions between players and the constraints/rules of their worlds. These emergent cultures can take the form of “online weddings, game-wide protests, social organixations, and various types of social and fashion trends” (46). Much like real culture, though time on the internet can be accelerated which place these virtual worlds as prime places to study. All of this is to prime the reader for the remainder of the book which delves into an in depth study of the Uru Dispora and the culture that arose from there.
Pearce, in these first several chapters provided us, the readers, with a good handhold to start from as we delve into this idea of emergent culture in virtual worlds.
Questions:
1) 1) Continuing the thought of communities of play, what communites of play are you involved with?
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2) Which sort of “world” is better? Or rather, which do you enjoy more?—One, like There.com where player content cannot be introduced without extensive review? Or one like Second Life/Minecraft where the players have the ability to shape and create their world as they desire?
3)
3) Will the two games we are creating have the ability to develop emergent cultures? Is that necessarily important for our games?
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