“Play turns to seriousness and seriousness turns to play”
Homo Ludens
According to Ludens play is freedom, a stepping out of real life into a temporary sphere of activity. It is a voluntary activity; it begins and ends, in a sense it is finite, limited to time and space. Play occurs in a temporary world within the regular world of ordinary life. All games have rules and these rules create order in a play. Play occurs in a structure, a configuration or pattern of physical, biological and psychological integrated units.
If the play is not solitary, it creates relationships between the players and develops team spirit. When more than one head comes together new ideas emerge, creativity blossoms and creates a potential for social networking. With the advent of technology and new media, there is a proliferation of digital games. When played out online they create an enormous web of links and conversations transcending international date lines and time zones. Digital games can involve thousands of players at any given moment and serves to highlight the social function they lend to. Every culture, community in the physical world has its own play. The digital games transcend this notion of a village community. Hinton says that Digital games are a significant cultural and economic force that is often overlooked in conventional media.
Digitization is influencing our society and culture, the distinction between play and the real world is blurring, is play becoming the reality?
People play games to overcome social restrictions. “Play casts a spell over us, it is enchanting, it is captivating” (Ludens). He goes on to say that play is characterized by its spatial separation from ordinary life. How then does this hold true today when profits earned in the virtual space by selling real estate are transferred to the physical world and the player quits his real world job. Play has encroached into ordinary life. People have begun to live in the play world of cyber space. In the 3D world one can actualize a fantasy or vision. Andrew Hinton aptly says that our daily contact with simultaneously shared digital environments is only increasing and deepening with time. But this online play world subserves our real world because behind the make believe fantasy of avatars, it’s the real human connections between players that keep them invested. “Fantasy is an important component of human play. It is critical to our recreation, our art and our games”(Crawford, C). On the other hand fantasy may bring forth the less desirable socially unacceptable personality, since there are no social bindings. One may call it the cyber personality. Every week 2,500 new people choose to start living their lives online, and this trend is growing by leaps and bounds.
The human computer interface is very responsive in that all a user needs is the ubiquitous machine and an internet connection. Huge numbers of players can be logged in at the same time for real time play, thanks to telecommunications technology. It is not just the game then but all of the peripheral community that has evolved because of it, that is changing our culture. Dress designers reap huge profits and transfer the dollars to their real world accounts. This game community will evolve into a parallel world. All that is present here will be found in the gaming environment.
The online community second life is no longer just a game for veteran gamers. It is here that players make a living; they make business connections and talk shop. Real business happens there, and “real-life” business is taking notice. Wells Fargo is already targeting the youth through the second life. The youth are the embodiment of the ‘always on’ culture. “It’s a serious game inside a non-serious game, in a virtual world with virtual currency, where players learn about finance and the real economy” (Andrew Hinton). A protagonist in the SL pays $75 USD a month on something over 12000 sq meters, though a gamer can get his first land tax free. If you wish to make the purchased property self sustaining then offer services, experiences, and amenities. These amenities could be free boat parking and launching, free/$1 store, shop space and townhouses, underwater dome for observing live mermaids frolicking amongst the coral. If real bodies are unavailable to play the role of the mermaids then possibly use scripted beings in addition to a giant hedge maze, complete with booby traps and dangerous creatures. The publishers of the game want the experience to be memorable to set them apart and thus attract and retain more traffic. The experience created is richer and compelling than their counterparts. This in turn will get the players deeply invested and boost the publishers’ profits.
Limitations in the game world exist because of the input/output of the interface. Better technology will heighten the virtual perception in the near future. The fantasy world will seem more compelling then. The game designers are virtual gods who set parameters in which the players can live their fantasies. They decide where the money goes, who gets what. Everything is subject to their rules. They have the power to boot off players, ban them permanently. Wealth and power acquired in the virtual landscape could very well be transferred to the real world. This could make corporations who have shown interest in the fake world to become even more powerful exerting their influence through play onto the ordinary lives. It may reach global proportions in the e-commerce, social and political spheres.
Market a fantasy, sell an experience, and establish an office to help others become more entrenched in the game. The administrators of SL enforce full intellectual property protection for digital content created by their citizens. The psychological and social functions of playing around in digital personas could be a learning environment, just like a child engaging in make-believe games. It could facilitate business partnerships leading to real profits. In addition it could help establish social clubs and a network of contacts which satisfy the human urge for being acknowledged. Most people have a need for external validation, if that is missing in the physical world; it is compensated through online role playing. Interacting with others in the privacy of the gamers’ homes, fulfilling fantasies and engaging in commerce are very compelling forces for the virtual reality to blur the physical.
References:
Crawford, C. (1982). What is a game? (c.1). The art of computer game design. [ html ]
Huizinga, J. (1950). Nature and significance of play as a cultural phenomenon (pp. 1-27). Homo Ludens: a study of the play element in culture. Boston: Beacon Press. [ pdf ]
Hinton, A. (2006). We live here: Games, third places, and the information architecture of the future. ASIS&T Bulletin, August/September. [ html ]
Assisi, Charles. “Second Life.” <http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/msid-1271788,curpg-3.cms>.
Jenkins, Henry. “”COMPLETE FREEDOM OF MOVEMENT”: VIDEO GAMES AS GENDERED PLAY SPACES .” <http://web.mit.edu/cms/People/henry3/complete.html >.
Sandhana, Lakshmi. “Hip Hip Hooray for Hybrid Life.” 09/9.05 <http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,68794-0.html>.
