On Trust, part 3.5: Balkanization
Earlier I mentioned the ways in which countries are chopping the Internet apart, creating national walled gardens where the perceptions of reality are literally different, thanks to the filtering of information.
I also referenced the increasingly migratory nature of today’s online gamer, moving entire guilds from game to game, often finding new niche titles to occupy their time.
I see both of these as forms of Balkanization, driven by the same imperatives related to trust.
In both cases, the authorities are engaging in deeply similar practices; not to compare the typical MMOG operator in PR crisis to the Chinese government and their handling of Tianamen Square, but… well, actually, yes, let’s compare, despite the obviously different circumstances and relative importance of the two cases.
In both, we see the same sorts of tactics being used, the basics of politicking, of prevention of access to public fora, rapid revisions of history, and so on. I am not criticizing these practices, necessarily — often, they are the only way to retain order. Even highly democratic societies make use of these on a regular basis, as there is a widespread recognition that sometimes, some things need to be kept secret, sometimes the populace should not be driven into a panic, and sometimes it can be dangerous to the community as a whole for certain types of information to be widely disseminated.
Remember, the authority is attempting to maintain the faith of its constituency, despite not actually enfranchising it. I use faith here in the technical sense by which I defined it.
It’s unsurprising that when the service provided by the authority is unsatisfactory, we see the same passion plays: lacking enfranchisement, the audience resorts to public protests, to disgruntled threads, to blogs full of alleged exposes and vitriol, to obsessively watching the comings and goings of individuals within the authority structure, to accusing one another of being a favorite or somehow receiving preferential treatment… the list goes on.
In the real world, of course, it’s difficult to leave your country. There’s a multitude of barriers to exit that affect your literal survival. By contrast, departing from a virtual world is relatively easy. Were it possible for the disparate communities in the real-world nations to simply break apart, they would, and then we see situations like the Balkans, like Iraq.
But as we recall from the LambdaMOO example, lacking a structure for creating social contracts, the community is likely to fragment along ideological lines. Depending on the precise issue that triggered the unhappiness with its current authority, you may see splinter groups forming around ideas like playerkilling or not, free economics or not, classes or not, and so on. The result is a continued segmentation of the userbase into more and more tightly defined communities of interest — and the market result is the nichification of the market, as more and more games spring up to service these highly targeted audiences.
These subgroups will tend towards greater and greater homogeneity, until they end in the most homogeneous group of all: a group of one. A largish group that has a high self-similarity is far more vulnerable to an en masse departure, particularly if the hubs in the social network are lured to some other virtual locale.
It is often alleged that the only true right that players have is the right of departure. The eventual and inevitable result of exercising that right is the fragmentation of the original community, and the lingering effects are felt in the sad remnants of older games, hanging on in environments that probably do not meet their needs any better than the original did, because they will carry with them their own flaws.
Those attempting to emulate their pre-Ren UO existence in Shadowbane found some needs met, but not others; those dreaming of Allegiance in Earth and Beyond, or of EverQuest in Neverwinter Nights, or of SWG in WoW, or of Uru in There, are never going to find a large subset of their itches being scratched. They will have traded many of the qualities they still liked in their older game away in exchange for their statement against the things that they disliked.
Because of this, the right of departure is not the best tool to give communities that seek self-preservation.
Similarly, game operators, like nations, must find their communities’ faith justified by some form of a social contract to which they also adhere, a philosophical statement that trumps the disagreements on how best to execute on that philosophy. And that means that some form of enfranchisement, of subjugating the authority to the community, must be granted to the userbase. Given a framework of sufficient robustness, it is possible for many constituencies that are in disagreement to live under one roof, creating a heterogenous community that will therefore be paradoxically be more resistant to mass departures. In difference lies strength.
It’s not that one game must make everyone happy; it’s more that granting a voice will enable individuals to feel that they are in a trust relationship with the authority.
The challenge, as the world is discovering in the situation today in Iraq, is that it takes a significant level of social infrastructure for this sort of trust relationship to develop. Most crucially, it requires a populace that is willing to engage, as opposed to be buffeted by the winds of change, or simply “check out” of the process.
The one thing we know, given real world history, is that the more paternalistic the authority has been, the longer and more difficult this transition will be. Given the fundamentally paternalistic and authoritarian nature of MMOG governance, it’s unsurprising that LambdaMOO failed, and likewise unsurprising that games like A Tale in the Desert succeed when they begin with a more open premise.
12 Responses to “On Trust, part 3.5: Balkanization”
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People keep equating a desire to network socially with the phenomena of acting-out online, and I just don’t get it. Creeps me out actually. I’ll admit I’m uncomfortable with the whole virtual world “better than life” idea. It’s not only because of thelack of trust mechanics, but also because it just seems a little naive. Ultimately, someone has to buy this. And from experience, people should be asking if this will sell at Walmart. I’m not kidding. There are so many online experiences and games to be had right now that
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[T]he right of departure is not the best tool to give communities that seek self-preservation.
I don’t think we, as developers, really give this to the communities. This is pretty much an inalienable right that everyone has. Can you really forbid someone from departing an online community? Do we really cult-like mentalities where “you can never leave” is whispered by each member to each other member?
The trick is, as I said in my response to your previous essay, is to make self-preservation more appealing (i.e., easier) than departing. I don’t necessarily think this is even possible in a virtual world like we create. We’d need to hook into more vital emotional needs in order to accomplish this, and then we’re talking about a lot more than “mere” entertainment. I realize that some people may be advocating this, but I’m not sure we really want to go that far anytime in the near future.
The one thing we know, given real world history, is that the more paternalistic the authority has been, the longer and more difficult this transition will be.
Sure, but as you’ve found out with your discussions about creativity clashing with copyright law in our games/worlds, this isn’t exactly an easy sell to the people controlling the money. In addition, I don’t think that less paternalism (that is, direct admin control) will necessarily lead to an easier transition. As you pointed out in the previous installment, even with the wizards removed a majority of their paternalistic control, some people still wanted the easy way of having someone else enforce all those pesky rules.
Some thoughts,
I’ve decided I prefer the italics method of quoting, too.
The one thing we know, given real world history, is that the more paternalistic the authority has been, the longer and more difficult this transition will be.
I do wonder: is the difficulty of this transition necessarily a bad thing? Sure, it’ll be the time of mass exodus for lots of people, or a general repulsion to the game, but assuming that these things aren’t immediately critical (you’re willing to continue on, etc., etc.). Are there merits towards having a long and difficult transition?
I’m guessing not, but it was a thought.
I don’t think we, as developers, really give this to the communities.
This bothered me my first read through, and niggled at me continuously the next few times. So, I’m going to take a stab into the dark and make a guess at what Raph meant.
Perhaps what he means is that admins have a tendency to tell players, “Well, if you don’t like the way things are run, just go ahead and leave.” Maybe not explicitly, but their actions may suggest this, and so on with other implicit communiques. So instead, perhaps admins should begin with the premise that they want to keep every player, make this well-known, and constantly remind them that it’s impossible to please everyone, but they’re trying?
Dunno; this strategy seems to be oddly successful, especially when it’s backed up by things like following through on promises, honesty about the reality of the situation, and so on. (I’m referencing Dragonrealms on this, though I’m too lazy to dig up a specific enough scenario to back my point up.)
“Given a framework of sufficient robustness, it is possible for many constituencies that are in disagreement to live under one roof, creating a heterogenous community that will therefore be paradoxically be more resistant to mass departures. In difference lies strength.”
Which is why educating people is so crucial. If the population doesn’t understand and fully appreciate the social contract, everything falls apart.
It isn’t just having someone enforce the rules; after all, in democratic societies, there’s still people enforcing the rules. It’s about whether or not those rules offer participation on the part of the community, or are imposed by fiat; whether or not the arbitration is part of the community, or operates from on high; and so on.
Of course the right of departure happens to be inalienable, in virtual spaces. The point is that the right of departure is akin to setting yourself on fire to protest a government’s policies. Consider the situations that regularly occur with migrants leaving a troubled country; the country that loses those people is in fact suffering a brain drain of many of its most motivated citizens, those most willing to take on radical change and most willing to work very hard to survive.
It may be that with lower barriers to exit, as we have in virtual spaces, it’s instead the least willing to put up with things who leave. That’s still a valuable segment of the population, if you could only engage with them.
This strategy is exactly what I meant by triggering a “chunking of trust-like behaviors” in the last essay. It’s still players taking the admin organization as a whole on faith, but perhaps trusting a few individual faces. And it happens because by saying those things, the admin is saying they are part of the community rather than above it. Over repeated interactions, it can develop into something many players will call trust even though there is no separate recourse for aggrieved players.
I couldn’t agree more, although I’m still uncertain if I’m drawing the same conclusions as Raph in the implementation.
I’m just a player. I have no driving desire to be anything more than that, as in a developer or even a Event Moderator, in a game. (Although I would be interested, just like anyone else I suppose.)
But I do know what I want, and that includes the diversity of players in a game to make it well rounded. I want a game that has powergamers, roleplayers, carebears, and anything else you can think of with two exceptions. Even eBayers are ok with me (see the exceptions). The two exceptions are cheaters and PKers who demand the right to PK anyone and everyone, all the time, anywhere, and with no real consequence. These two player types do nothing but hurt a game and drive away all the others.
I feel that by empowering players, under a cohesive flag of choices, and in a “realistic” fashion, you can form the social contract that’s needed in MMOs. This contract must be overseen by the authority, the game’s makers. They must have the ultimate power, of course. But as we know, they can’t do it alone, and so the reason for the social contract is even more important than simply allowing a voice.
Wanting play that satisfies all these types of players, and yet remains cohesive in a single world way, is the problem. By empowering players with choices, it would seem to drive a steak into the heart of cohesion, and cause the balkanization that might seem unwanted. But can’t balkanization be used as a key part of it all? To an extent anyways, I think so.
If any of you haven’t visited Kressilac’s game site, I would encourage you to read their FAQ. In my opinion, they have formed the perfect answer to all of this. The world will be balkanized to an extent through the choices player cities make at formation, yet it remains cohesive to the game world in a realistic feeling fashion. Or as close as a game can make it.
The choices allow players to group with others of like play style, yet their interactions with others in the game will be encouraged by the mechanics of trade and politics. The beauty of it all is that by making things seem more realistic, all things tie together with eachother very much like real life. Real life in a fantasy dream, of course.
Only the extremes of the player type graph won’t like it. An opinion based on my own experiances watching MMOs and players since UO was in developement. I would expect that extreme carebear types won’t like it, just as extreme PK types won’t. This is the goal, isn’t it?
In the long time perspective it appears that relatively large communities can learn to apprechiate dedication to a ideology as a type of contract. The networked users make it impossible to breach these ideologies unpunished, altho I guess large authorities will not understand their own ideals once they grow to commercial size and hence require the reverse authority of reacting to the wishes of the subordinates.
The real key here could be the online lifestyle of virtual populations. Relevant information becomes highly transparent and can not be stopped by the authorities.
The transparency of information is a huge huge factor in all this. Authorities tend to want less transparency — and often have very good reasons for it — and communities may want transparency of the authority but not of themselves. In addition, communities will also have the worry of information overload. A group that gets more info than they can parse is going to be as pooorly educated as a group that gets little info.
How about attempting to look at this situation through the lens of Chris Crawfords The March of Abstraction, justice (and authorities in general) would be more direct and less abstract than happiness, at least when applied to the whole community. As with the need or greed example from WoW it becomes apparent that even very large communities understand the importance of maintaining a contract that supports optimized gross product happiness development. The players dont think like this, they think and act more directly with the deviants getting the shameful label of ninja applied to them.
Ninjas are badguys, but the weight of the label really comes from their ability to harm the happiness gross product of the whole community. Which apparently can contain several million individuals.
[…] Now, I’ve commented before that homogeny can be dangerous for a variety of reasons. And really, to me the fascinating thing about seeing all of these groups out there with their own special rules for who is or isn’t an appropriate member is the variety of it all. […]
[…] Raph has been building a series on Trust. I find the meandering through all things real and virtual, personal and sociological, to be a great springboard for one of the potential themes throughout: the relationship between MMOG developers/publishers and the players. […]