Previously I wrote a bit on the games in politics. This can be flipped around to look at the politics in games, specifically MMOs and the player-dev relationship. There are a few good angles to come at this from, notably the following:
Gordon’s Politics MMORPG
The Political Power of Games from Experience Points
Games with political and social subtext, like Phoenix Wright or The Redistricting Game (OK, not MMOs, but tangentially interesting)
Jack Thompson and any other ill-bred political crusader using games as a whipping boy (I’m not linking anything on this one intentionally; if you don’t know Jack Thompson, you may be better off, but if you want to chase him through the internet, it’s easy enough.)
…
As the Experience Points guys note, game devs “work within an immensely powerful medium”. We are effectively the deities of our game worlds, able to rewrite the fabric of our little reality at a whim (more or less). Players conform to our design parameters in most traditional games, simply because, despite the interactive nature of games, playing by the rules is often the only way to get through a game.
I’ve seen players who intentionally ignore or act directly opposite of a game’s tutorials… gaming counterculture hippie rebels, as it were. It’s a valid way to play, certainly, but unless such experimentation is the point of the game (say, in a sandbox game), dev-sanctioned “progress” comes slowly if at all to someone who runs against the grain.
Even so, when a game is live and constantly mutating, as an MMO is, players can have some influence on the design. Just look at all the tweaks in the average WoW patch, and how the ever-shifting balance between classes creates storms among the players and the class/race population distribution. The Blizzard devs aren’t obligated to listen to any given forum, but they would be foolish not to at least try to understand how their design is perceived and processed by players.
An MMO is not a democracy (though running one as if it were might prove… enlightening). Devs aren’t at risk of being kicked out of office due to a savvy political campaign or article of impeachment. They are more like a hyperpowerful dictatorship that players pay to be a part of. The coin of the realm isn’t merely popularity contests and elections, it’s real world money. Games that don’t manage to stay ahead of their consumers and keep things interesting and enjoyable react largely to the “pure” elections of wallet voters.
To be sure, there’s a dose of goodwill currency manipulation as well, and some political games involved therein (complete with spin-infused marketing), but for the most part, MMOs live or die by their financials. If people aren’t happy enough to keep paying the bills, the game can have problems. If the MMO’s design relies on a critical mass of players, the stakes are raised even further. None of this is astoundingly insightful, but I’m underlining the need for devs to understand their players and react well to them.
This is especially important when you’re relying on the constant stream of subscriptions to finance your business. People must be happy all the time, at least above the “cancellation” threshold. They don’t need to always be extremely happy, so the entertainment value isn’t as dense as, say, that of a movie, but they do need to always be “happy enough”. Devs can’t rock the cart too much… but neither do they constantly have to provide astounding moments of awesomeness.
Even the much-ballyhooed “Cataclysm” in the World of Warcraft isn’t so much a radical shift in game philosophy as it is a mild mutation and facelift for existing mechanics and art assets. Cataclysm is a good idea, methinketh, and indeed, I called for that sort of renovation before it was announced, as did BBB, but I’m not imagining it to be a Brave New World so much as Cheers with a paint job. It really can’t be anything radically new; that would risk losing too many people.
So what about the players? Are there forums for players to organize themselves into powerful blocs or unions to wield power over game development? I’m not familiar with any, but I do have to wonder what an MMO might look like if it did have such metagame factional input. Perhaps the Ryzom open source experiment will be an interesting tangential look at what happens when players get power.
Still, as Nels Anderson notes, Player Generated Content isn’t always the best idea. It has potential, sure, especially at smaller scales and with tight dev control, but when you’re dealing with large groups of people, things can get dicey fast. It’s a good idea for the devs to have a steady hand on the reins. Much like the notion that a true democracy can be a dangerous thing (effectively degenerating into mob rule), a faceless, anonymous horde of gamers can be a dangerous thing, at least if game stability is an issue.
It’s easier to give players a lot of control over things that don’t actually matter. That sates the player need for authorship, and keeps the game from being polluted by too many diverse opinions. This is the heart of why cosmetic options and talent specs are so valuable to MMOs. (Dear Blizzard: appearance tabs already, aye? Housing, maybe?)
Devs are closer to deities than senators, but money still talks. Follow the money, and understand why it goes where it does, and you can siphon off a living. Divert the stream too much (not the same as crossing the streams), and you run the risk of upsetting the flow, such that your living (or the health of the MMO) is at risk. Keep things even and smooth enough, though, and everyone can be happy. It might mean a little compromise here and there, and actually listening to each other, but it pays off.
Sort of like politics.
When the players or the devs start feeling entitled or start ignoring the valid concerns of the other party, acrimony builds, and can undermine a game world. I’ve argued before for more player input into these MMO things, and I think it could be a good thing… but it wouldn’t be wise to push things so far that players have more power than the devs. There’s a balance to be struck, more in MMOs than any other class of games. Rather than pitting players vs. the developers (that link is to an excellent blog), perhaps some cooperation and compromise would make an MMO stronger. Maybe not… but, like a democratic MMO, it’s worth thinking about, if only as a thought experiment to confirm that the way things currently run is the Best For Now.
I’d play a Democratic Kingdom for Keflings MMO! Interconnecting cities and building…kind of a cross between SimCity and KfK with village/town/city interaction. Think player built towns/housing, with no other long term goal than having the biggest.
Also reading the articles you linked, the game I ‘described’ with politics would be lots of a fun. Kind of a building and territory game, with that same flavor of end-game EVE, where it’s all about controlling better resources to strengthen yourself. Combat would be necessary, because with no threat, there is no reason to negotiate, but it could be power/dice roll based.
Well, I’m not so much talking about a democracy between players as they jostle about for power in the game world, I’m talking about the metagame layer where players engage in political maneuvering with the devs as a counterparty. That’s the sort of thing that could more easily get out of hand as devs cede power to the players.
With that caveat aside, yes, I agree that a SimCity/AKfK mix would be very interesting. Splice in some sort of districting and terrain control metalayers (like the differences between county/district/state/country layers), and you could even have a bit of the EVE/Dust 514 interweave concept happening. You can definitely have a good, solid game built around politics and interpersonal competition/cooperation.
Originally I had hoped that Cities XL would have something like this going for it, but the last year has proved otherwise.
I don’t mean to comment twice, but holy cow, I hadn’t heard of KfK and … and … thank god it’s coming to the PC. That looks a definite must-try for me. Oh yes.
Yea, I commented on what I knew. I don’t have a thought that is articulate to answer the thesis of this article.
*chuckle*
No worries. Half the time, the tangential discussion that pops up is more interesting than the article anyway.
Oh, and Fortuente? I’m glad that the Keflings appeal to you! It’s been a fun game to work on (as is the sequel), and we’re really happy to get it out there on the PC.
Tesh, another off topic…I’m not sure your comment e-mail notifications are working. I’ll check e-mail me on this one, but I know I did on the Portal/Mech4 post, if you want to test. Just make sure you mention something teste…err testy…so I remember what it’s about. My memory works like rice in old sack, eventually it all falls out.
Hmm… if the email notifications *aren’t* working, it’s probably a WordPress problem, not mine… but I’ll check the controls just in case.
“perhaps some cooperation and compromise would make an MMO stronger.”
I think your saying this about the developers. But when do players/customers actually compromise? From what I’ve seen they are all hell bent on getting exactly what I want.
I’d contend that if one party wont compromise, neither party can, even if the other guy wants to compromise (all you get in that case is one person bullying the other). It takes two to tango. And you just have a vast swath of people out there that really have no empathy on the matter that’d drive any sort of compromise. Empathy is a rare commodity.
Also, even if they did compromise – what’s going on with that, fiscally? What are they buying? Anything? What are they paying for?
The whole thing is more of a lord of the flies situation.
Really people just gravitate towards this ‘content’ without any real thought – they offer up power (money) in huge masses. That doesn’t mean any structure can be made out of it – it’s just a big weird gravitation. It’s just alot of moths to the flame (and I say this having been a moth to the content flame – I’m not pretending to be beyond this)
True point on compromise needing two… but that’s actually what I’m getting at suggesting a democratic MMO dev process. The thought is to make the dev process more open and let player decisions matter in the pipeline, even if it’s only in aggregate (though voting districts and such would be an interesting twist). Say, give them a choice of Expansion X or Hero Class Y, making it absolutely clear that only one can be done in the current schedule with the current budget… and let the players make the call. They can’t demand both if the presentation doesn’t allow it.
Or, on a more local scale, let players who have declared a certain zone as “home” have a bit of say in how it changes, say with factions and markets. Say, if they repel a zombie invasion while another zone doesn’t, or have a reputation for helping newbies, something cool happens, like a local unique reputation recipe or something.
Whether or not that’s a viable way to actually make an MMO work is debatable, but of any game, MMOs would be the best suited for that sort of feedback loop, being “live” games constantly in development. I’ve suggested this before in a variety of ways, and in a variety of scales. The potential to get good feedback to both parties might outweigh the logistical issues… but it might not.
Still, politics are in large part about communities. MMOs are built on communities. It’s not impossible to try to leverage the structural benefits of democracy to make an MMO community more interesting and engaged.
Well in terms of making a new game built around the idea, fair enough.
I’d still say though that you get masses of people who are internally conflicted – they’ll say “oh, I just wanna play, I don’t want to think political stuff…but don’t nerf my druid…and my zone should have more potion vendors, and…”
I guess I’m saying you’d need to commit commercial anathema and not actually accept any old person who happens to have enough money to buy in. You’d need to have some standards for entry otherwise these conflicted people will screw your system up. You’d need people who, to some degree, can and will look after themselves with the tools you hand them. Devs help those who help themselves! But some people don’t want to look after themselves, but they don’t want their druid nerfed either – they want to be babied.
Or atleast that’s my estimate. Games that let anyone in, let any sort of behaviour in. No matter how screwed up the behaviour. I’m pretty sure that’s true.
Well, on the one hand, yes, you generally want a way to keep abuses down… but on the other hand, well… it’s possible to be born into a nation and not really qualify for the citizenship exams that are offered to immigrants. The idea isn’t so much to turn the asylum over to the inmates, just to let them have a say. As I’ve noted before, this could even just be an aggregate of what they do, not so much what they say. Voter turnout is what, less than 50% typically?
Just look at real world politics; there are a lot of whiners, a few movers, and a great many apathetic lumps. Somehow, the world shuffles on anyway, despite those who, like George Bernard Shaw, would rather kill off some of the more useless elements.
Australia, where I am, has compulsory voting.
Otherwise I’m not sure I understand – were talking about a virtual world. Where you have basically absolute control of all circumstance.
Real world politics is us pretending to each other we have the ability to give each other choice. No, where circumstances say no to it, no one gets a choice.
Circumstances control us in the real world, we control circumstances in the virtual world.
But it sounds like you want to repeat the sad, shabby state of affairs we have in real life, where we pretend people are in control when what’s really in control is raw circumstance? We have a space where we can finally control circumstance, but you want to use as your model of design for that space the very place where circumstance has us leashed?
Dragging the wreckage that are whiners, movers and apathetic lumps – all of which are the vestiges of circumstance having leashed us, and dragging it into an environment where we could have actually controlled circumstance otherwise??
I don’t understand?
Or perhaps less talky talky – why do you want to make something that shuffles? Or use something that shuffles as your model for what you make?