Wednesday, January 31st, 2007...10:53 am

Notes from Jan. 31

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  1.  Tracy Spaight, Who Killed Miss Norway, in Balkin & Noveck pp189-197
    1. A tale of faked identity and staged ‘death’
    2. What does this mean about the identity of the fictional/real “karen”
    3. Reality of the idenity matters because people develop real bonds, and if they are being duped then that spoils the experience.
      1. Or, was it Tracy Spaight who spoiled the experience by her obsessive search for the “truth”?
      2. That could be said to be the point of the “velveteen rabbit” analogy.
    4. Is geneder tranformation a form of “duping” people?
      1. Or did it take more? 
      2. Was it being good at it?
      3. Was it sending in the fax picture?  Other false real-world details.
      4. The fake death?
    5. Is the harm the betrayal of people’s expectations that you will tell the truth about your real-world characteristics.
    6. Isn’t this a classic case of “intentional infliction of emotional distress” — making people feel sad about a death that didn’t actually happen?
      1. Or did the death *actually* happen — the character IS dead.
    7. Is this a ‘fraud on the community’ - morally if not legally
    8. Does Barttle’s test for spotting gender fakers tell us more about him or about fakers?
  2. Voice is an issue
    1. It’s revealing
    2. It’s a reason why some game designers might NOT want voice - destroys illusions (e.g. a young squeaky voice for that burly dwarf)
  3. Age fakery is an issue that is not discussed as much as gender fakery
  4. What is fakery?
    1. Is it empowerment
    2. Or is it lying that is probematic
    3. How does this map to the “it’s only a game” debate?
      1. If you think “it’s only a game” does it follow that you see role masking as just part of the game and/or empowerment and not cheating?
      2. If you think it’s embedded in a greater reality does it follow that you see role masking as a dishnorable form of dishonesty?
         
  5. Beth Simone Noveck, Democracy — The Video Game, in Balkin & Noveck pp 257-282
    1. Argues that 3D immersive environments facilitate group conversation better than chat rooms
      1. Contrary case would be that some very effective chats work just in text, e.g. class backchat rooms
    2. Second Life tax revolt is an example of a group coming together and pushing for in-game rules reform (but doesn’t support the primacy of visual)
    3. Would classes based on VR work just as well?
      1. If non-verbal channels are 50-80% of communications in person, what happens when we lose that? 
      2. Do the things we add by being online (e.g. hyperlinks, multi-channel modes, economies of scale) make up for the loss?
      3. Is the issue that different people have varied learning styles so that some win some lose?
      4. Is the issue that there are too many potential distractions online?
      5. Would the loss of human contact mean people didn’t get some necessary people skills for lawyering?
        1. Or will the clients have avatars too?
      6. Note that some classes are now taught in Second Life
        1. Which seems to create vulnerabilities for new types of disruption
  6. Nick Yee, The Labor of Fun: How Video Games Blur the Boundaries of Work and Play, 1 Games and Culture 68-71 (2006)
    1. Line is blurring between work & play
    2. Play is too much like work, not work is too much like play!
      1. But see day trading?
    3. Is this a problem or just a phenomenon?
      1. Is Star Wars Galaxy an unusual example in that everything depended on other players?  In other games you can get basic stuff from NPC shops.  In SWG you have to create to be able to get stuff from other people: the chain of production is highly reliant on others producing, which puts pressure on all parts of the chain.
    4. Are games conditioning us?
      1. Even if they are, is that any different from any other activity?
      2. That’s capitalism?
      3. Is the argument in some of the other articles that gender play and other empowerments in games are ways of fighting AGAINST the real world’s conditioning?  Or that those aspects are illusions when seen against the background of the games conditioning you for more work?
      4. Are games part of conditioning people into being better consumers? 
        1. Second life attracts businesses because they see it as advergaming
        2. There are markets in game and around games
          1. they give you more things to want
      5. Is it bad to be conditioned?
        1. Is the reason it is bad that it is hidden, like subliminal ads?
        2. Does conditioning or addicition interfere with free will, with freedom?
        3. False consciousness spotted in the wild?
    5. Or is it that people like the games because they replicate what we are already conditioned to?
      1. So much for the hero’s journey, eh?
      2. So even short cuts and exploits are just being better capitalism: the hero’s journey is Taylorism rampant?

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