Designing for the Bitch-goddess Success

Could virtual worlds encourage more failure, and if so, what would that imply? A recent op/ed piece in The Economist (Feb 26th, Lexington, "An Ode to Failure" - subscription required), provokes thoughts along these lines. I suspect that the difference here comes down to one's view of embodiment, the avatar-as-self, and the distinction between game worlds and social worlds. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations. 

After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. After you get some fighting practice in, Requiem Gold will definitely roll. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers. And there are huge gaps in what we don't know. What they do instead is ban a few at a time and they would be required to buy a new everquest cd key. Where is the research about sports games, to take just one example? Anyway, the point is, I enjoyed the exercise, and learned a lot from it. I hope the audience did as well.

But overall, I like to think that the attendance demonstrates that developers are interested in what academics might be able to tell them (again I will point out: no fruit was thrown). And all week, I talked with developers who were interested in what was going on with research, from the smallest to the largest companies. This will enable them to be mobile with their games without having to take along their warhammer online cd key. Maybe the issue is the "larger" community. It's always easy to abstract and oversimplify at that level. But I know that on an individual level, there are real conversations and collaborations going on. I don't want this to turn into some rosy "it's better than we think" or "can't we all just get along" thing, but I do think that perhaps the situation is not as dire as it's hyped to be. But then again, I haven't gotte my evals back yet.

Or [shudder] perhaps it's Ye Olde Narratology-Ludology Punch-and-Judy show. But an divergence of views by smart people is always good, since value is often (always?) found in the interstices, not in the received wisdom.

Instead, I am coming to believe that game designers and developers, on the whole (some of the august exceptions being right here on TN), are simply not able to see beyond their own way of thinking about MMOGs. I am not chalking it up simply to arrogance (although there is some of that too, especially from some bright lights who clearly have enough going on upstairs to know better). I'm actually suggesting that they are (largely) incapable of thinking outside the box (to use a well-overworn phrase). This should not be seen, however, as some devastating slam on them  -- all people, in all places (though I would suggest particularly those enculturated into heavily technical professions) have trouble looking at things from another point of view, and this group is really not so different. But it was still a bit surprising, especially given, in Eric's and Raph's cases, their stated interest in academic research.

Here is what I wrote on the backchannel a month ago when the topic was the related issue of developers and their attitude toward the content contributions of their player-base:

But the designer arrogance goes deeper than that, I'd say. This kind of elitist characterization [of users as lacking in skill] itself rests on a rather narrow conception of what "content" is. What do you want to know? Buy SWG Credits from us. A flying mount costs nearly 1k Warhammer Gold. You could feel surprised that our Star Wars Galaxies Credits price is the cheapest on all the servers, especially on US server! Here is just one quick example of this kind of disposition in action: Billmonk, which Constance posted about here. The site promises to help you keep track of your obligations throughout your social network precisely (using any of a number of imaginable currencies). It is double-entry bookeeping for your friendships, and thereby prompts you to conceive of these obligations in exact terms. This is a perfect example of a code-based solution to a code-defined problem: People's moral obligations are essentially precise and monetary, and they therefore need a precise tool to manage them. (And this approach is not just applied externally; within software companies one frequently sees similar efforts to address organizational issues with precise and enumerated systems that can be, above all, measured.) Heather Kelly, one of the developers on a panel on Monday asked a great question about game development that she hoped researchers could help answer: Why does money trump everything? The answer lies in the remarkably good 'fit' between the market and code, and in the existence of a lot of well-trained people who can find ways to exploit it.

I submit for your comments the idea that the reason many developers have a hard time finding anything of value not only from researchers, but often from their own players, is that they are, in effect, seeing a different world, all the time. An optimistic disposition -- a faith, even -- in technology and code-based problem solving runs deep in the technology and software development community (see, for example, Gary Lee Downey's ethnography of CAD/CAM engineering, The Machine in Me), and it hampers developers' ability to recognize the range of content and community creation (very broadly defined) by users as well as the fruits of the well-established but different methodologies and concepts of researchers.

I don't flirt, or try to produce any sexual vibes... I *do* tend to refer to myself using feminine terms (ie: "I'm your girl" instead of "I'm your boy" when agreeing to help someone)." From "A Million Dollar Baby" to H.L. Mencken, Lexington's piece asserts this (real world) cultural claim:   "The (American) worship of success inspires not just extraordinary achievements but worthwhile failures" - too, citing William James - "(t)he exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess Success...is our national disease...'"  

Presented are a set of stark contrasts, leading to these thoughts:

Why success/failure opportunities aren't more ruthlessly exploited in virtual world design? And I have yet to see anything approaching the social space that is Atlas Park. Sure, there have been interesting places and moments--e.g., co-defending Brill from some random Night Elves or sharing a Goblin dirigible ride with some l33t d00dz--but they have been brief and far between. Which makes me think that Computer Gaming World is right--while World of Warcraft is certainly a great computer game (the graphics are fantastic, the grind is so slight it's negligible, the creativity is amazing), City of Heroes is the better MMORPG. And part of this goes back to what Nate and Damion have been talking about, I think, along the lines of worldy v. gamey MMOGs. City of Heroes feels and plays more like a society, whereas World of Warcraft feels and plays more like a movie with high production values that just happens to involve other visible people.