“Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games”
Author: Edward Castronova | Publisher: University of Chicago Press | 2006
The internet has reached a point in its evolution where many questions are being raised as to whether or not it’s truly beneficial to society. It could be argued that this is the next logical step in a new technology’s “upbringing,” but the news reports on never-ending spam, network crippling viruses, sexual predators, E-Bay and Craigslist swindles, jihad web-pages, Facebook harassment, etc., are the dominant form of internet education, persuading one to believe there is little hope. Online gaming is no exception; EverQuest (EQ, 1999) and World of Warcraft (WoW, 2004) are titles that the general public is familiar with due to the controversy surrounding them—Avatar relationships leading to player weddings/divorces and “gold farming” sweatshops are still making the rounds on mainstream media—instead of whether or not they’ve actually played the games themselves. But there is a deeper socio-economic layer lurking beneath the sensationalism surrounding these online games that deserves scrutiny. In Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, Edward Castronova presents a thought provoking, well-rounded introduction to online gaming and its far-reaching implications, both good and bad.
The book is written with the non-informed in mind, which is welcome, as acronyms like MMORPG (which, just for the record, is shorthand for Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, the official genre for games like EQ and WoW) can be intimidating for those not familiar with the industry or its vernacular. Castronova is kind enough to walk the reader through a “Synthetic World”—the game environment that players spend their time inhabiting and interacting with—and the different gameplay components that make the MMORPG genre unique. What is startling about these game universes, Castronova makes explicit, is that they contain highly complex systems of commerce, trade, governance, and social interaction that both rival and transcend the systems of the “outside,” and they are growing more complex as the technology that builds them keeps expanding. A game like Second Life (2003), for example, allows the player to purchase, in U.S. dollars, acres of virtual “land” that they can construct practically anything on. Being an economist, Castronova has extended chapters on the systems of commerce that are in place within these game universes, containing an exhaustive amount of detail. But he makes an effective point—what appears to be micro-level exchanges of things like gold pieces for in-game tools and weapons is actually influencing the outside world on a macro scale: once the game currency of EQ trades at a rate that rivals and/or surpasses the yen, it’s time to take notice. And it has. In 2001.
The argument that Castronova makes throughout his book is that these synthetic worlds are affecting our real world (and vice-versa), and we should be examining the social and economic structures of these “games” more closely. Tens of millions of people spend their time within these fabricated universes, and the numbers seem to be growing as more and more people are gaining the technology required to visit them (a broadband connection is the highest hurdle in this respect, but as of 2009, that global barrier is being torn down on a daily basis). Consider Korea, the most “wired” country in the world: higher real-world divorce rates due to affairs occurring within game-worlds; people who have not left their physical homes in over two years, preferring to remain online; even stress-induced deaths caused by gaming marathons. Indeed, these events find their place within the mainstream media with disturbing regularity and provide perfect fodder for doomsday predictions, but Castronova does more than simply report these alarming figures in Synthetic Worlds (and yes, the “WoW Sweatshop” issue is present here as well); the author offers an insightful analysis as to what has, and can, be done about them. The connection between real and virtual—the “porous membrane,” in the author’s own words—lies with both users and creators, and it will take an equal effort from all parties involved to ensure that the evolution of these spaces is one that results in a positive stance on the technology, instead of tabloid sound bytes that are designed to instigate rather than invite.
Links:
Synthetic World Institute
Author’s Personal Site
Terra Nova: Virtual World Weblog
Posted by Kurt Shulenberger on February 23rd, 2009 :: Filed under Book Reviews
Tags :: EverQuest, Interactivity, MMORPG, Review, Second Life, World of Warcraft
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