It bears repeating: developers are players. When they use mod kits or mission-creation tools, players become developers. With worlds like Metaplace, we’re all some combination of tool-maker and tool-user. If you enjoy yelling at the devs or sneering at the players, make the most of it while it lasts, because I think it’s going to become increasingly difficult to tell which is which.

Sure, I’ve seen developer chat more pessimistic than that, but as you say, it’s of the “this racket sucks” type, which most professions can generate at will when they gather together.

I can only say that analogizing players to water is kind of an example of what I’m thinking about, and you seem pretty aware of that–it agglomerates players, makes their agency and actions into something natural to be channelled. I’m not really sure that when you’re looking at group or social dynamics that it helps to think about them as a single system, in fact. Or to forget that developers are part of the same system, not necessarily standing from somewhere outside of it, building channels.

Just to lay out a bit more of the argument about players and developers that I think was primarily reflected in a comment of mine in the backchannel, though we talked about it a bit later. It’s something that you and I have knocked around contentiously on a few other occasions, and I’ve definitely stated my views too sweepingly at times.

It’s not that developers in general or you in specific condescend to players, that’s really not what I mean. What I mean instead is that you especially have a strong view that what happens in virtual worlds is often a result of problematic or flawed player responses to essentially neutral or functional mechanics. You’re quite honest (to the limits of NDA constraints) about when a design is so technically screwed up in some respect that it is the primary cause of a problem. But when things aren’t going entirely as you want in terms of social practices and player behavior, you’ve tended to attribute that to some deep ‘prior’ cognitive, social or cultural disposition on the part of players (Theory of Fun is premised in part, for example, on the proposition that game-playing is driven significantly by pattern-recognition and exploration of patterns), that players want to do something (and can’t help but want it) that messes up design, forces compromises.

Travel mechanics I think in this case was the topic that triggered this thought for me–you (and others on the panel) suggested that players want instant gratification, that they want to be with their friends or accomplishing economic goals *right this instant*, regardless of what damage that does to other functionalities in a virtual world. So you frame this as, “We can’t give them what they want because it would be bad, but I guess we can give them a bit of it, and lose something else good.”

I think you (and I and everyone) should be curious about that: are we sure that’s why players hate travel times or travel mechanics? Why are we sure? How universal is that motivation? Maybe travel mechanics are a synecdoche for something else they don’t like about virtual worlds: the degree to which obstacles and goals in most worlds feel arbitrary, are signed “by the developer” rather than feeling organically present in the world. Maybe this is really an objection to the lack of dynamism in most worlds, or a preemptive irritation with the way that developers manipulate time sinks for the sake of retention rather than pleasure, using time sinks as an alibi rather than a imaginative premise. I’m not saying those are universal sentiments, but players do often seem to get framed as intrinsically against developer objectives on some deep level, where developers have plans and ideas and will and players have human nature and instincts and behaviors.

—

The ‘chasing tails’ observation, somewhat paradoxically, was a thought that you guys seem overwhelmingly pessimistic about virtual worlds in ways that surprise me. If we’re at a plateau, maybe it’s the plateau that says, “these are not the media form that will liberate the world or that we will live in for the future…they’re one more form of entertainment and expression with their own characteristics, and that’s *fine*.” It just seemed to me that all of you were looking everywhere else and saying, “over there, look at teh shiny”.

Could you just put up the text or main theses of your keynote? Because I can’t tell if this guy Easily Distracted is reporting it correctly.

If you ARE saying that “nothing has happened in virtual worlds” and “it’s all happening on social media” — then sorry, you are profoundly ignorant, Raph, and I’m surprised you’d be that dense.

I don’t even know where to START this is such a breath-takingly dumb claim. I can only say — I can’t wait for your own world to come and bite you in the ass if you think that way.

Why do you think someone intelligent like me who isn’t a gamer would bother with a virtual world with Second Life if it didn’t contain within it profound developments about online economies, governance, virtual social relations, adapting to new media mechanisms, etc? It’s a huge wealth of material. It’s not about selling land as an equivalent to mining game gold.

I think the developer-condescension thing is a tricky line to walk. I’m not sure there’s a workable defense of the “different-but-equal” approach to the relationship between developers and players. By nature, developers will have the control whereas players will have the attention-energy, and the relationship is different and symbiotic, but ultimately developers must ignore what some or even all players will say on given topics, for an assortment of reasons. And when developers don’t do what players say they want — as, by necessity, they sometimes-often-always will, the player response is going to be one of asserting perception of superiority on the part of the developer — which is actually there (they wouldn’t do something that is inferior intentionally), but it’s not a 1:1 comparison to what the _player_ thinks is superiority/inferiority axis. Look forward to what more you say about it, though.