Social commentary in games

Games and virtual worlds are praised for their ability to bring people together in new and unique ways. However a situation that is becoming more relevant in the examination of games is their ability to tell narratives and how these narratives reflect modern society. While social commentary is not new to games with some of the earliest games every made being joke filled text adventures that often made fun of the games very own technical limitations. Newer games have been able to create more complex statements about life and the world around as they have been also capable of creating a world we can reckognize as being similar  to our own.

Sometimes this statement on society happens purely by accident and becomes almost a post-modern art piece.  One of the first virtual worlds Ultima was met with high expectations and a large fan-base. It allowed every player to build homes, raise families and even rule entire kingdoms with other players supporting them. This all sounded wonderful, however overtime players began filling the game world with their homes leaving no place left to adventure, turning the entire game world into an endless city sprawl with small patches of parkland that very powerful players controlled and used as a farm for money and reasources. Many people found the situation Ultima became to immensely ironic of real life in that even during play all anyone wants to do is fight over real-estate.


 Ultima-Information about the online game.

Online evolution

Over the  last 10 years games have been able to take advantage of the increased use of online accessibility to allow what originally may have been closed isolated narratives to evolve into online virtual worlds that adapt the wants and desires of the playerbase. This has lead to several changes in overall game design. The first is that players never view a game as being "complete" anymore, as there is always the possibility that the game makers will add more content to make the game bigger or more complex. A second change is that a bad game can fixed after its released. whether it is a technical problem that needs to be addressed or the players feel more narrative needs to be added for a better experience there is always hope that this can be addressed in the future. 2 examples of this are the games Fallout 3 and Bioshock 2. Fallout 3 had what is known as a hard ending, in that once the narrative is complete the game can no longer be played, however many players found this conclusion rather jarring as it stopped them from exploring the game world after the end of the story. This lead to the creation of a story change where the ending was removed so that players could play to their hearts content.
In Bioshock 2 the issue was more complex in that many players felt the game was not as good as the original game and that its narrative was simply bad. This lead to the creation of a completely new narrative that could be played as an alternative to the original that many players and reviewers felt was stronger than the original . These are both large scale examples of online expansions to a videogame, but they are strong indicators or where games are currently going in the future.

expansions to Fallout 3

bioshock 2

Religion in Virtual Worlds

While video-games as a form of technology and art-form has made many leaps over the last 30 years, there are still areas of our culture that are difficult to express in the medium and are considered very controversial. Religion as concept is used often in games and virtual worlds as device to explain game mechanics and the structure of the virtual space. Almost all virtual worlds have a fictitious back-story to explain why the player should care about their surroundings and some form of fictitious religion is usually part of this narrative and often based somewhat on real world religions. The concept of current religions being used in virtual worlds and games is very rare and usually met with displeasure by the users of the game for various reasons, for example not all members of the game community practice the same religion, or the interpretation of the religion by the creators of the game is considered inaccurate by religious members of the game community.
Some games attempt to make very broad statements about religion that may be offensive to people of faith. A recent example of this is the game Assassins Creed 2 where the antagonist is the Pope. In regards to the specific genre of virtual worlds, more leeway is given in what can and can not be done, as much of the content is created by the players themselves. Several guilds in World of Warcraft are themed around real-world religion's. The religious themed virtual world called The Bible Online is currently in development, and as the concept of morality figures more prominatly into games, the concept of religion will most likely increase as well.

Article abour religion in games

The bible online

more about religion and games

The Power of Creation!!!

While there are many games that allow you to explore virtual worlds either alone or with friends. There is a small genre of games that allow you to create virtual worlds of your very own. In these genre of games, often referred to as "god games", the player has near limitless power to create planets, living entities, even societies that the player can then mold into whatever form of culture they choose. Two specific games stand out as famous examples of this genre, the fire game, Black and White cast the player as a literal deity at the dawn of time. The player had the power to be a benevolent god who protected his people through and miracles or a dark and evil deity who cursed the land and demanded constant sacrifice to feed your ego. There no punishments for either play style, the game simply altered itself to fit how you wished your world to be.
The second game, Spore has the player guide an individual species through evolution, from a single cell organism to a space faring race seeding other planets with life. The innovation of spore is that every other organism  the player interacted with is a creation of a different player from their own version of spore from a central sever. This meant that the more precise and effective your creature was, the more likely it was to thrive in other players worlds and interact their societies, influencing their evolution.
God games continue to be a small genre of the overall game industry but their influence has been felt in the design and development of many of the virtual worlds that have risen to prominence.

God Games-information about god games

A virtual world that belongs just to you

While the concept of the virtual world is normally used for online multilayer games, there are many examples of vibrant offline worlds that are designed for the enjoyment of an individual player. While these games have only person playing the game they are filled with complex AI characters going through routines that mimic real life and this gives the illusion of a world that continues beyond the players immediate location. In many times this illusion, is real and the AI is in fact having fights and conflict all on its own without the player being involved.

A good example of this style of game is Red Dead Redemption. A western game designed to encapsulate the feelings and emotional up-heaving of the old west during the turn of the last century. The game creates a fantastic atmosphere around the situation and allowed the player to live a life in the old west and truly immerse themselves into the period situation.

Another game that is a good example of a strong single player virtual world is the game Bioshock where the player explores an undersea city that was designed to be a great utopia but had failed to lived up to it's creators designs and had fallen in disrepair. This game allows the player to explore a realized fictional world at their own pace and leisure and understand how they fit into this fantastic situation.

bioshock - link to website about bioshock

red dead redemption - link to website about red dead redemption

Real World Economics in Virtual Worlds

While it may seem on the surface that a Virtual World is simply a system of socialization or entertainment, there is much more beneath the surface. One of the key factors that drive many virtual worlds are real world economic factors, to the point that the virtual money in many of these games have a monetary exchange rate. The most infamous example of this is gold farming in World Warcraft, where people play the game as much as possible to make as much virtual gold as they can so they can then sell this virtual money to players who do not have time to play the game as much for hard currency. This is frowned upon most players as cheating and deflates the value of the virtual money, but it is done despite protests.

This belief is not universal among all game companies. Everquest, one of the first virtual worlds has an acution house within the game where players can use real money to bid on ingame items, as well as directly buy games from shops and other players.

The most extreme example of the real and virtual economies colliding is the game Entropia Universe. where every item made by a player or bought by a player is worth exactly 1/3 of a dollar. Players can deposit money into their game accounts to buy more virtual goods and in a strange twist, sell virtual goods off to other players and the game itself for market value to attempt to make a profit

With so much money floating around these virtual worlds, the blurring between real and virtual property will probably continue until there is no distinction.

Gold Farming- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_farming

Everquest auctions- http://news.cnet.com/2100-1040-823260.html

Most valuable piece of online property ever!!-Expensive Island

Life in a virtual world

When thinking of the concept of the virtual world. images of simple 3d worlds such as Second Life usually pop into a persons mind, however the reason for this stems more from Second Life being embraced as part of pop culture and less from it being a successful virtual world.

In fact, Second Life has several flaws that stop it from being a true virtual world, the two primary flaws being that the game does not have a unified player-base and game-world. Second life is divided into two large servers, one for players 17 and under and the other for 18 and above, while this partition does serve to protect younger players from some of the more "adult" sections of Second Life, a virtual world can not be divided, it must be unified. Furthermore, Second life does not have a unified game-world, rather the game is comprised of thousands of islands, many constructed by individual players for private use. This sense of having your own private world is a key point of Second Life, however it does not contribute to a unified virtual world.

I feel a better example a of unified virtual world is the game EVE Online. EVE allows players to explore a large fictitious galaxy that is ever expanding, and all players who play EVE play in the same galaxy. As everyone must play in the same game-space, players must compete for resources and authority and form player-made corporations to better control entire regions of the galaxy. From this situation a player is able to achieve several goals in EVE that they could not in Second Life. One such goal is fame, as all players are interconnected in one large world then a large success can reverberate throughout the player community, this can even lead to authority, as one player can lead others to control economic goals and military goals that can have significant impact on how others play EVE.

For more information on EVE and Second life please follow the links

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eve_Online

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life

http://pc.ign.com/articles/100/1002527p1.html  -Article about the banking crisis within EVE during 09