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On Trust, part 3.5: BalkanizationMarch 14th, 2006 |
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.
If you want, you can insert this right after “They do not share one contract.” in part 3. 
It’s what I meant, anyway.
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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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