July 6, 2009 5:44 PM PDT

When gaming communities go wrong

by Dave Rosenberg
The more time I spend looking at video games--especially online games and MMPORGs--the more and more strange information that comes out. As with any society, norms and oddities appear as individuals assert their place.

City of Heroes(Credit: City of Heroes)

There's a fascinating (and somewhat terrifying) article about Loyola University media professor David Myers "unwelcome" behavior in the game City of Heroes, where he created a character that everyone hated.

Players tried everything they could to get rid of the pariah, but he kept at, apparently as research, but there had to be hint of satisfaction in his role as the most hated player--probably right until someone threatened to kill him for real.

Myers revealed his identity and his character's purpose in "Play and Punishment: The Sad and Curious Case of Twixt," an academic paper on his experiment published in 2008.

If we assume that games are their own communities and have some level of self-policing (just like open source projects) we can also assume that these things iron themselves out. In this case the community turned completely against the individual and game-maker NCSoft had to step in to moderate a bit.

This all led me to ask: does everything needs a community?

The short answer is it depends. (Note: I'd like to thank business school for that pearl of wisdom that gets you out of answering any question.)

These days every company, project, website, circus clown, and dog websites have community-oriented features that are supposed to facilitate some deeper level of interaction. While some communities thrive, others plateau and become something less than the sponsor wants it to be. That's clearly the case with the City of Heroes example above.

The onus to provide unique, beneficial features and functions falls both on the community sponsor and the users.

Users bring a wealth of materials to communities, but the infrastructure and the impetus to participate has to come from the source. Companies also have to be responsible for what goes on their communities if they want expect the group to be self-governing. Community also takes on very different connotations when relating to online gaming versus software. In software we rarely kill each other repeatedly. Once tends to be enough.

(Via Slashdot)

Follow me on Twitter @daveofdoom.

source: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10280604-62.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

nice read. In conclusion i would have backed Twinxt up... A pvp area is a pvp area and it's normal that there's pvp/pk. I'm not a pvp person (mostly because lack of time to improve my pvp abilities) but i know that if i enter a pvp area i risk of being killed. I don't know how COH/V is made but if that area was not the only area of the game where you could level, if it was just a area where you could level faster, then i would have supported Twinxt.

The Best Online Game i Ever Played....

rofl So basically this Myers dude made a sociopathic char and "discovered" that when u screw with the status quo few ppl will follow while most of them will hate and ask for ur head. Good thing he had a virtual space for this experiment of his.
I find it funny how he writes about his char as if it was a separate human being. I'm sure that after 2 years of playing his observation wasn't biased at all. Right.

Why do you find it funny? Do you identify 100% with your game char? If so then it's pretty bad already...
The game char is a toy, it's not you. You can do with it many, many things that you would never do in real life. I, for example, use a female char all the times because i prefer to see a female ass rather than that of a male char. I'M NOT A FEMALE in RL. I use to hack, slash, bash, kill, heavily wound, die, fly and many other things in games that i would never do in RL. Games are fantasies and the game char is an avatar. It's not me and I could never identify myself with it. The interaction with others is a completly other thing. If i say in the game "Get lost!" I am the one who sais it and not the avatar. I interact with all the other USERS (not their chars!!!)

I find it funny because 1. he writes as if his char was a (human) being therefore 2. as if his char possessed it's own will, made decisions etc. I couldn't agree more> the char u play with is not u. But he is also 1. not a (human) being therefore 2. it does not choose to close communication channels, kill or anything. My point is that the work of mister Myers is, strictly from my point of view, a joke. I think his so called academic paper lacks neutrality, that his method of research, despite the obvious advantages, could also have affected his cool and objective thinking; also i suppose there was an ethic's breach somewhere but i might be wrong. Most of all, i feel his theory does not bring anything new to the table, no valuable insight. That's all and u are free ofc to prove me wrong.

As for me and my chars, trust me ...they might act crazy but i'm not :)). I am very happy to say that I can make the difference. They are not us, i get it. They are toys, as u say. But would u agree that the toy u chose to play with and the way u do it say something about the person in front of the pc?