Prokofywatch: Richard Bartle Is An Evil Marxist Racist Roundeye

10Mar/08Off

Prokofywatch: Richard Bartle Is An Evil Marxist Racist Roundeye

Most people on the Interweb are fairly normal. You know, they post pictures of their cats, sometimes they gossip about work, sometimes they bitch about politics. Much like people everywhere.

Some people on the net are... well, quite obviously crazy. You know the ones, it's usually something about the patriarchy or the dangers of fundamentalist preachers or intelligent insect armies or long, disturbing fantasies about family members getting it on with each other. And that's just science fiction writers.

Then you get the ones that are like speakers of foreign languages that you kind of sort of know. You cock your head to one side, because it sounds like they should be making sense, using words that you're pretty sure are used by normal educated people, but put together differently. Until finally, after in-depth analysis, you realize that dear God, you just wasted your time, because this person isn't just misunderstood, they really don't make any sense.

As part of that, I give you Prokofy Neva, probably Second Life's most infamous avatar and certainly one of its most interviewed by the mass media. There's not usually much to comment about Neva's blogs (yes, she has three now), mainly because she focuses absolutely on Second Life and treats other endeavours like MMORPGs and Wikipedia as ridiculous or evil or, usually, both. In fact, pretty much anything Neva doesn't understand, or hasn't heard of, she treats as dismissively unimportant. Like, say, SXSW, a live music and film festival that shuts Austin's traffic and parking down on a yearly basis. Oh, wait, no, it's not important!

While tekkies and geeks everywhere thinks SXSW is the epitome of culture, it isn't really, because not only have most normal people never heard of it (it's in Austin, Texas and a few thousand people go bar-hopping and watch movies and hear panels about games at it annually), those that have wonder privately if it has peaked.

Well, that explains it, I suppose.

However, apparently Richard Bartle made the mistake of giving an interview in Second Life, and in so doing, attracting the gaze of the lidless eye.

How *could* Richard Bartle and his MUDs and whatnot have anything to do with Metanomics when Richard Bartle, as a good British socialist and intrinsic Marxist (although he'd deny everything but the British part likely) is opposed to virtual economies. He really really hates RMT, and he wants to set up a giant commission in the sky to scold REALLY hard all those nasty smug little Chinese boys that go around gold-farming and interrupting everybody's game! For shame! Shame, shame, little Chinese boys (and Western round-eyes who do the same thing, essentially, in Second Life or some place). Shame! Maybe if we all hold hands and chant STOP THE GOLD FARMING, KILL THE RMT really really hard, we can make Tinkerbell wake up and prevent money from leaking into and out of games! Evil money! Evil capitalism!

As I said, Prokofy looks at everything through the Second Life filter. People make money in Second Life. Therefore making money is good. Why would people be against making money anywhere else? Not that anywhere else actually matters, or that you've heard of. But Bartle's said that he's against RMT in games, and people call Second Life a game, therefore, burn the heretic! Plus, he's English so he's probably a Commie. Or gay. No, better go with commie. They're all lefties there, donchanow.

But, we get some clarity as to what Neva is on about: it seems Bartle didn't speak up when they came for the Jews, or something.

Or, he could have said, "Yes, we've seen such a textbook example of the dynamics of griefing in that utter savaging of you on Terra Nova in the w-hat thread, and the solution should be not banning people but enabling them speak in defense of themselves, to have good speech drive out bad eventually."

Instead, he began this total nihilist Marxian rant about the impossiblity of ever having any sort of agreed-upon morality such as to define some minimal code of behaviour (he wasn't even willing to concede a game-god's TOS, it was wacky).

[Let us pause for a Moment of Reflection, and recall that when it came to RMT...evil little Chinese boys...gold...there WAS an absolute, rock-solid, non-subjective, absolutely objective moral imperative which we could all invoke, which was (*holds up Cross*): evil, evil game gold mined by evil evil kiddies disrupting the game and CHEATING *gasp*!)

But griefing? Naaah, no moral imperative. It's anything goes. P.S. this is a good example why socialism always and inevitably turns to crime.

Note that Prokofy Neva is one of the few people actually banned from commenting on Terra Nova. Note that Richard Bartle is on Terra Nova's masthead. AT LAST ALL IS CLEAR.

But just in case you still were confused, Prokofy Neva finally drives a stake in the Bartle Player Types!

Unfortunately, with the usual crashes and lags and idiocies, I couldn't get more than about half of what he was saying, but he did dwell quite a bit (because unfortunately Robert Bloomfield set him up to dwell on it) on these four avatar classes in games, which were something like, um, let me think now: Asian, African, American, Middle Eastern. No wait. Man Boy Women Girl. Wait. Let me check my notes. Explorer. Doer. Uhhhh Entitlement-Happy Clueless Git Nutsack. And uh...

What was it again?

Remember kids, what we don't understand? We mock. And I really, really don't understand Prokofy Neva.

Filed under: Dude, Prokofywatch, Richard Bartle, _ Comments Off

Comments (430) Trackbacks (9) ( subscribe to comments on this post )

ReturnToNull
March 10th, 2008 - 22:46

Heh, I recall happening upon some big long paper that went on about some global communist conspiracy, that big money capitalists, the founding fathers, and the free masons, or somesuch are all in on with a shadow government and everything. It read almost verbatim like everything that comes out of her mouth to the point that she’s either an adherent or cribbing it. I should go dig that up again.
Prokofy Neva
March 11th, 2008 - 00:38

Yes, I realize you’re so far gone, that when normal people talk, you can no longer understand them. Thanks for quoting huge swathes of my blog though : )

Sooooo…you’re for sequestering games absolutely airtight and never having real-money trade?

Well?

And…given that this is so hugely widespread that some games just finally made peace with it and start selling the game currency (Sims Online will even start this now)…your solution for making a closed, Soviet-style economy out of games is…what?

I hardly think my banning has anything to do with the quite proper take I have on Bartle. He’s a respected game-god. But he belongs to the past with men in tights. The world is evolving. We’re not on the moors with the elves and orcs and trolls anymore.

Oh, wait…

And yes, Bartle’s attitude toward griefing is disgraceful. He doesn’t get it. He’s for moral imperatives against things he doesn’t like, like game-gold commerce, but suddenly, when we need a moral imperative against crashing sims, he calls it religion.
]
ReturntoNull, I’m not the global conspiracy nut. It’s folks at Terra Nova like Bartle or Dan “Zhelezniakov” Hunter, who, as leftists, imagine that there is this big evil American imperialist capitalist evil conspiracy afoot everywhere that will *gasp* regulate their games or even take them away! Ohnoes!
Neil
March 11th, 2008 - 00:49

It’s like an MMO version of Ann Coulter!
TPRJones
March 11th, 2008 - 01:01

Wow, there’s a whole fresh batch of crazy right here in the comments, too!
Scott Jennings
March 11th, 2008 - 01:01

Oh, I forgot to mention: as seen above, Prokofy manages to see Soviets EVERYWHERE. It’s cute!

The “Zhelezniakov” reference is to a Red Guard who officially dissolved the Constituent Assembly (the last freely elected Russian parliament until the modern era) in 1918. How this is relevant to message board moderation I leave as an exercise for the concerned and no doubt confused reader.
Scott Jennings
March 11th, 2008 - 01:08

I’m loath to reply directly to Prokofy, since it’s highly likely this was just a drive-by referral log checking, but just in case:

Sooooo…you’re for sequestering games absolutely airtight and never having real-money trade?

Well?

I’m for the creators/maintainers of online games and other communities having the right, and in fact duty to regulate whatever antisocial conduct that happens within them. Apparently, given just the evidence in this comment, you’re only in favor of that when it suits your own interests.
Jessica Mulligan
March 11th, 2008 - 02:05

I propose we award her the title of “The Black Hole of Blogs”, in honor of her ability to suck the life out of any and all discussion within reach.
UnSub
March 11th, 2008 - 02:30

MMOs that fight against RMT are Soviet communists?

Does this make unauthorised RMT organisations the patriotic freedom loving American capitalists?

Wot wot wot???
VPellen
March 11th, 2008 - 02:48

So wait.. Who’s Prokofy Neva? I stopped paying attention to Second Life ages ago.

I think I need to actually read this damned interview before I can piece together whatever Prokofy seems to be going on about.
Van Hemlock
March 11th, 2008 - 03:03

All aboard the Hyperbole Express! Calling at Patronization Junction, Ad Hominem Parkway, Waffle, and But-but-but-Stalin-On-Sea!
Gwaendar
March 11th, 2008 - 03:32

The good thing about reading the ravings of genuine wackos from time to time is that it reminds you you’re a lot less crazy than you think.
Athryn
March 11th, 2008 - 03:49

Does anyone actually play Second Life?
Schtee
March 11th, 2008 - 03:51

“Just because he’s one of the first people to study this stuff, has been doing since and lectures at a university doesn’t mean he’s so clever”

Yeah, what? Also feel one needs to seperate a character’s actions from the user/player’s actions (see Second Life vs. MMORPGs [i.e. the distinction clearly lost on Prokofy]).
Simond
March 11th, 2008 - 04:04

VPellen: “So who’s Prokofy Neva?
Prokofy Neva (AKA Catherine Fitzpatrick) is the poster child for “Second Life is Serious Business”. She thinks because she makes a living peddling virtual trinkets, that Second Life is more important than Real Life.

Ask her about w-hat and /b/.
VPellen
March 11th, 2008 - 04:24

Simond: Ahh, I see. Yeah, I know a bit about w-hat and plenty about /b/.

Good for her for making a living, mind.

Also, does anybody have any actual record of this chat/discussion thing that Bartle was involved in? Following the obvious links doesn’t lead me to any logs or such, and Google falls flat on its face also.
Ross Smith
March 11th, 2008 - 05:48

UnSub: Does this make unauthorised RMT organisations the patriotic freedom loving American capitalists?

We must carefully ignore the fact that the game developers and players fighting most strongly against RMT are the Americans, while the unauthorised RMT organisations tend to hail from … er … Communist China?
Ironwood
March 11th, 2008 - 06:08

‘Normal People.’

Good One.
pharniel
March 11th, 2008 - 06:53

wow.

that was almost as good as a trip to redstate.

or the meatsies vs. the angries.

goddamn i miss playing a malkavian
pharniel
March 11th, 2008 - 06:54

also, i have decided that the holy grail of AI is a program that can recieve a block of text, contextually analyse it and then insert a notation on every violation of rehetoric with the rule number in red.

because tehre’s too much crazy on teh interwebs for everyone who can do that to do it, automating it would be full of win and awesum and allow humans to focus on content.
Bonedead
March 11th, 2008 - 07:05

So I just found out that I hate Second Life fanboys even more than WoW fanboys or carebears. Thank you, Glorious Mr. Jennings, for helping me discover this.
Anticorium
March 11th, 2008 - 07:19

Oh man. All that effort to say, twice, “There are things I consider important that Richard Bartle and Lum do not consider important. This proves they are Marxists.”

I can’t help but be reminded, the last time we were visited by the truth like this, of Prok declaring that Second LIfe was a technology which uniquely empowered women and as such old sexist Lum was unable to react to it with anything but fear and snark, to which Scott replied that of course women gravitate to leadership positions in MMO social structures, we’ve known that for years, I saw it happen on the game I worked on.

Everything Second Life does has to be revolutionary, because it has to be revolutionary to justify Prokofy’s disdain for everyone else. If SL is just another g– ga– entertainment like DAoC or LambdaMOO (or SXSW), that means that Prokofy has to pay attention to British socialist Marxists like Bartle, because they have relevant ideas and she might learn something from them.
J.
March 11th, 2008 - 07:42

I have to go back to my old standby.

Some people express their love of games by playing them. That’s what they’re for. Sometimes people have enough time to write about them, too. Sometimes the writing takes over, and they end up doing that more than playing.

SL isn’t a game, but of course there’s a lot to write about it, even if those who play it are diversifying in odd ways (heard my brother, a school superintendent, bring up all the educational initiatives going on there over Christmas, and he waved off my example of flying dildo squadrons) that seem increasingly less about “play” and even further into the not-play areas of “drudge” and “obligation.”

I guess no one wants other people to not take them seriously just because they love something. But that’s the most sensible thing I can take from someone with three fucking blogs, all about the same thing.
DJ Larkin
March 11th, 2008 - 07:47

Thats a big heap of crazy.
tsweatt
March 11th, 2008 - 08:03

Athryn:

“Does anyone actually play Second Life”

Ironically, in Soviet Russia, Second Life plays You.
Amp
March 11th, 2008 - 08:53

Is she hawt?

That’s all that really matters.
Aufero
March 11th, 2008 - 09:01

Several years ago I realized that looking directly at certain people’s blogs causes insanity. Since I already have all the insanity I need, I don’t read anything written by those people.

Cute Heinlein reference, though.
Sutro
March 11th, 2008 - 09:12

Over the past four years or so, my mind has learned to dynamically identify PN’s writing style and completely ignore all blocks of text that employ it. It’s a great tribute to the evolution of man’s self defense systems.
Prokofy Neva
March 11th, 2008 - 09:17

So, rather than engage in the usual invectives, could we hear from all the gamer boys here whether they ever sell their game gold? Are they for punishment of gold farmers? Do they think real life authorities should do that punishment?

I fail to see a single one of the ranters here grappling with the implications of a closed economy, and understanding the implications involved and the relevance of Marxist and socialist theory to these games’ designs and their command economies.

Dan “Zhelezniakov” Hunter at Terra Nova banned me on a whim last summer, writing that he was “tired” lol.

Ross, would you characterize EA-Land/Maxis as being from “Communist China”? They’ve just re-engineered their game to enable purchase of the currency and cashing out of the currency in RMT.

Would you characterize Linden Lab of San Francisco as “Communit China”? They long ago authorized user-generated content and cash-outs of the fictionary inworld currency of the virtual world.

I’m hardly any poster child for Second Life. I fail to see why, if someone has a business online, they are somehow a freak. Don’t you geeks by your computers online and lots of other stuff? Why is that any different? It’s ok for amazon.com to rent out server space, but I can’t do that on a small scale in Second Life? Huh? Why is that something to be ridiculed? I think you’re just not following it because you are gamers.

The chat and such should be up soon at http://www.metanomics.net

Scott, if you’re in favour of a TOS, why would you find Bartle’s remarks acceptable? He has this incredibly persistent meme that anything that I or any other Second Life business person would find as disruptive of business — common vandalism, griefing by crashing sims, etc. as somehow a cultural and religious problem — he uses the example of an American hamburger chain or whatever putting up a giant cow and offending a Hindu. The issues are merely the same zoning issues of real life, that putting up giant nuisances that interfere with the enjoyment of one’s property are dealt with by the law. In fact, the Lindens recently put in a policy against extortionist “ad farms,” spamming of lots of ugly ad signs on new sims and then setting them to sale to make people buy back the view. I’ll bet a lot of people in this thread so loath commerce and capitalism that the idea of a lot of spamming ad farms would make them absolutely seethe in self-righteous hatred lol.

Anticorium, if these ideas are *not* British socialism — and Bartle admits he’s to the left of Tony Blair — then…what are they? Controlled, closed economies. Enforced egalitarianism. Central control by an elite of progressives, etc.

I hardly think a critique of Bartle’s notions for games hinges on some celebration of Second Life. It doesn’t. There are some aspects of SL that are “revolutionary,” but others that are vestiges of the sad MMORPG culture that you see right here in this thread : )
Prokofy Neva
March 11th, 2008 - 09:27

BTW another touching little tech meme of all you children and gamers is that if you criticize a closed economy, and if you call it socialist, why, you must be Ann Coulter. My God. Ann Coulter is an extremist, an ideologue. I’m an Obama voter.

You folks need to get a really big grip on your lack of relevance to the rest of the world, with your childish and unaccountable recycling of Internet griefing memes and hackneyed political cliches. Only 20 percent of voters read political blogs. And…how many of them read gamer blogs?
Matt Mihaly
March 11th, 2008 - 09:30

Catherine Fitzpatrick/Prokofy wasn’t banned from Terranova on a whim. She was banned for flaming, griefing, and trolling, all three of which are normal operating procedure for her.

I’m fairly sure she’s pledged to herself never to pen a post in which she doesn’t attempt to belittle or insult at least two other people.

–matt
Matt Mihaly
March 11th, 2008 - 09:34

Catherine wrote:

You folks need to get a really big grip on your lack of relevance to the rest of the world, with your childish and unaccountable recycling of Internet griefing memes and hackneyed political cliches. Only 20 percent of voters read political blogs. And…how many of them read gamer blogs?

Pot…kettle…black.

–matt
Cosmic Cat
March 11th, 2008 - 09:35

Hm, belitting “gamers”. I’m starting to think Prokofy Neva and Jack Thompson use the same ghost writer.

I bet she also thinks the presence of bishops in chess is the sinster hand of the Catholic Church at work.
Damion Schubert
March 11th, 2008 - 09:39

Hell would be infinitely presiding over a trial where Jack Thompson was the prosecutor and Prokofy Neva represented the defense.
wins32767
March 11th, 2008 - 10:03

When I see really complicated math my eyes glaze over and I have a hard time extracting their meaning. It’s always been math, and always really abstract stuff. This is the first time I’ve had it happen trying to read someone’s writing. I’m quite impressed.
Scott Jennings
March 11th, 2008 - 10:06

Scott, if you’re in favour of a TOS, why would you find Bartle’s remarks acceptable? He has this incredibly persistent meme that anything that I or any other Second Life business person would find as disruptive of business — common vandalism, griefing by crashing sims, etc. as somehow a cultural and religious problem — he uses the example of an American hamburger chain or whatever putting up a giant cow and offending a Hindu.

I don’t agree with Bartle on that, assuming that’s what he actually said. I merely find your hypocrisy on the subject amusing.

I fail to see a single one of the ranters here grappling with the implications of a closed economy, and understanding the implications involved and the relevance of Marxist and socialist theory to these games’ designs and their command economies.

That’s because you haven’t been paying attention. We’ve discussed it here for years. Admittedly because Second Life wasn’t involved and almost no one made ad hominem attacks or dismissed each other as easily caricatured stereotypes like “gamer boys”, it was probably beneath your notice.

Briefly, games are closed economies because they are imperfect simulations of worlds, and the checks and balances that keep real-world predatory capitalism in check do not exist. The games that have a more complete economic simulation, such as Eve Online, have little or no problem with gold farming, because it becomes a part of the world itself. Games with less emphasis on economy, such as most fantasy orc-smashers, have more of a problem because they’re designed as Hero’s Journeys, not as economies.

None of which has anything to do with Second Life, which as you yourself often insist is not a game, so no one is threatening to take away your livelihood as a virtual landlord.
Makaze
March 11th, 2008 - 10:15

How I hate getting sucked into these things…

So in real life I’m pretty pro capitalism. Healthy market competition is a good thing, it leads to innovation, efficiency, and prevents stagnation. Regulations should really only be used to prevent unwanted side effects (like massive environmental damage) or prevent monopolies that pretty much throw the positives out the window.

I’m pretty much the same way in games. In fact I wish they had deeper economies that allowed more of the large scale societal interactions that come with full fledged economies. So pretty sure I’m not a dirty commy.

Then again RMT sucks. The inherent unfairness, the disruptive behavior it causes, and there aren’t really any positives to be found. So if that makes me a Marxist then guilty as charged but I’m pretty sure that puts you only a couple of feet from Godwin’s Law.

The thing Prok can’t seem to grasp is that the real world and virtual worlds are separate entities. Sure the virtual exists within the real and therefore there will always be a little bit of spillover but limiting that is a large part of I and most people here want and strive to do. Removing real world constraints like processing power, bandwidth, lag, human interfaces issues, and damn near every other thing that goes into MMO backends/infrastructure is about trying to transcend the limitations imposed by the real world so that the virtual world can be expressed as designed. She seems to want to drag the real world in including real currency, rules, and morality. And why? I’ve already got a world with those.
tannenburg
March 11th, 2008 - 10:17

Cool! All this time I thought I was playing a computer game, and I was actually supporting the International Internet Communist Conspiracy! I wanna be a Chekist – just call me the electronic Dzerzhinsky!
Servitor
March 11th, 2008 - 10:40

How am I supposed to choose between this trainwreck and the Eliot Spitzer coverage?
Vivianne Draper
March 11th, 2008 - 10:59

well isn’t this fun. Thanks Scott!
Freakazoid
March 11th, 2008 - 11:26

So, am I supposed to feel angry at catherine? Sad? Or what? Because the only impression I get is she’s hiding a penis.
Vivianne Draper
March 11th, 2008 - 11:30

She’s in SL. In SL, everyone has a penis in their inventory. The real questions are: is it Xcite and does she use it.
L'Emmerdeur
March 11th, 2008 - 11:51

Second Life is one of those wonderful inventions that serves a noble purpose: it provides yet another reason for ugly people to remain indoors.

Blogs like Terra Nova serve a similar purpose, because otherwise these folks would end up debating such drivel at the local coffee house, where I would have to hear it and possibly be forced to stab my eyes out with plastic spoons (which is quite difficult).
Prokofy Neva
March 11th, 2008 - 11:52

>Catherine Fitzpatrick/Prokofy wasn’t banned from Terranova on a whim. She was banned for flaming, griefing, and trolling, all three of which are normal operating procedure for her.

I’m fairly sure she’s pledged to herself never to pen a post in which she doesn’t attempt to belittle or insult at least two other people.

–matt

1. Could you post for us again the 8 things we didn’t know about you?
2. Could you cite the speech you can characterize as “griefing and trolling”? Was it calling the professors at TN *gasp* eggheads?
3. My real-life name is easily linked to my avatar/pen name as I link it myself and Google has many links. Could you also link to the real-life names of the other people in this thread?
Prokofy Neva
March 11th, 2008 - 11:58

>Then again RMT sucks. The inherent unfairness, the disruptive behavior it causes, and there aren’t really any positives to be found. So if that makes me a Marxist then guilty as charged but I’m pretty sure that puts you only a couple of feet from Godwin’s Law.

I don’t play games. So gold farming doesn’t bother me. When gold-farmers botted and mined The Sims Online, which I viewed as more of a virtual world than a game, it decreased the fun for some people trying to play the straight economic game within the game, but since most people played a meta game, it didn’t bother them.

I can only observe in kids I see playing WoW that buying the gold on third party sites, and buying the characters pre-skilled, is part of the game itself. It may not be part of YOUR game. But it is part of THEIRs. I’m for, uh, oh, net neutrality, I guess you’d call it, when it comes to gaming and virtual social systems.

I want them to be open, and those who want them to be closed not to bleed their ideology and control into every other space. Close their own games, if they like. Good luck! Don’t impose that system on every one else!

There must be plurality of game/world systems just as in real life, the sliding scale between communism and fascism falls down for a lot of people around social democracy and for a lot of other people around democratic socialism.

The thing Prok can’t seem to grasp is that the real world and virtual worlds are separate entities. Sure the virtual exists within the real and therefore there will always be a little bit of spillover but limiting that is a large part of I and most people here want and strive to do.

Well, no, what YOU need to grasp — and can’t seem to grasp — is that you don’t get to dictate how various games and virtual worlds “should be”. For some people, virtual worlds will — and can and should be — serious businesses. That might be the object of ridicule for goons, but they don’t get to encroach on others’ freedoms in that way. Real and virtual aren’t separate for many people now — they just went ahead and did this, without asking your permission, or seeking your guidance about what “you want and strive to do”. Who the hell are you anyway, that you get to control the entire Internet and Metaverse? My God, *do* get a grip please!

It’s not me who dragged the real world into games. It’s kids. Teenagers. Not even Chinese. American. Brazilian. Russian. I dunno, they’re all over. You can’t stop them. Are you going to keep your head in the sand?
Scott Jennings
March 11th, 2008 - 12:05

Could you also link to the real-life names of the other people in this thread?

I haven’t a clue as to what the real life names of Scott Jennings and Matt Mihaly could be.

I don’t play games. So gold farming doesn’t bother me.

See, most people would stop right there.
Sanya
March 11th, 2008 - 12:05

I’d watch the Spitzer stuff. That’ll fall off the front page in a few days, whereas this psychosis appears to be long-term.

Dear crazy lady: No one is trying to control the metaverse. We are suggesting that capitalists who create unique intellectual properties are entitled to control their own material, and if someone uses that material to cause harm to other customers, we suggest those capitalists have the right to protect their earning by banning the farmer. And to send that farmer to products such as Second Life that SUPPORT such behavior.

But you’re not actually listening or you’d have gotten the concept ten posts ago.
Sanya
March 11th, 2008 - 12:07

Oh, Sanya is my real name, FYI.
Prokofy Neva
March 11th, 2008 - 12:07

Scott,

Could you please back up your claim that I’ve somehow been “hypocritical”? You seem to believe that gold-farming is inherently “Griefing” and therefore immoral? But it seems to me like the normal human response to any socialist, closed system. People make and create value no matter how you try to keep them down. I find that very different than the other kind of activity, which destroys value — griefing. They are very different in genesis. You seem to be willing to allow the one when it suits you and not allow the other — but on a whim.

>That’s because you haven’t been paying attention. We’ve discussed it here for years. Admittedly because Second Life wasn’t involved and almost no one made ad hominem attacks or dismissed each other as easily caricatured stereotypes like “gamer boys”, it was probably beneath your notice.

Well, I’m quite entitled to call boys who play games “gamer boys” when they post an entire ad hominem attack ON ME FIRST as the OP did, basically calling me a tinfoiled hat nutter for…daring to call the great Richard Bartle on his socialist prescriptions for games. I don’t want his socialist prescriptions on worlds I am. Let him keep his socialist paradises to himself, and not bleed the ideology everywhere into prescriptiveness. So please, spare me your little hectoring lectures about ad hominems when you have nothing to say about a) the OP’s ad hominems and b) all the heckling nits in the comments raising my real-life name as a form of griefing; speculating on my trans-gender status; asking if I have a penis blahblahblah. Could you please be an equal opportunity bleeding heart about ad hominem attacks?

>Briefly, games are closed economies because they are imperfect simulations of worlds, and the checks and balances that keep real-world predatory capitalism in check do not exist. The games that have a more complete economic simulation, such as Eve Online, have little or no problem with gold farming, because it becomes a part of the world itself. Games with less emphasis on economy, such as most fantasy orc-smashers, have more of a problem because they’re designed as Hero’s Journeys, not as economies.

I’m aware of all that, hon, and your condescending attitude is so noted. You’d have to be living under a rock, even not being a gamer, to be incapable of reading, oh, The New Yorker on Everquest and Ultima Online, or the New York Times or Terra Nova. The problem is that in his presentation in Second Life, Bartle went on a RANT. Go to http://www.metanomics.net and listen when the tape is up. He ranted about the cheating little buggers who engage in RMT and didn’t make anything LIKE the nuanced presentation you imagine. He didn’t say, “Second Life is understandably going to have an open economy. Eve Online which has more stragic gameplay will also have a different sort of economic rule set. I just want to make sure that my favourite old-fashioned orc killing hero journey games aren’t touched and harmed.” Because that’s NOT what he says. It’s not what in fact most people (even Castronova) *are* saying when they rant on and on about the need to keep economies closed.

And I will definitely suggest that their problem lies in their wish to close real-life economies as well — they all talk about this same socialist paradise, this idyllic realm where the rich people who aren’t skilled can’t buy their stake in the game in advance. The maker of NeoPets talked the same way at VW07.

>None of which has anything to do with Second Life, which as you yourself often insist is not a game, so no one is threatening to take away your livelihood as a virtual landlord.

Oh, can it. It’s not about my “virtual livlihood as a landlord.” I make a modest income as a part-time landlord. I have real life jobs completely unrelated to virtuality. But what if I didn’t? That wouldn’t make me any less entitled to challenge somebody socialist prescriptions for virtual worlds.

It’s Richard you need to re-address your little homilies about people feeling “threatened.” He is feeling threatened in his livlihood as a closed games designer. I’m not the one feeling threatened by the potential loss of my minimal income from a virtual real estate business. Get over your stereotypes. Reexamine your values.
Prokofy Neva
March 11th, 2008 - 12:13

>Dear crazy lady: No one is trying to control the metaverse. We are suggesting that capitalists who create unique intellectual properties are entitled to control their own material, and if someone uses that material to cause harm to other customers, we suggest those capitalists have the right to protect their earning by banning the farmer. And to send that farmer to products such as Second Life that SUPPORT such behavior.

Surely a publisher of a game with a TOS has certain rules he can expect to enforce. But…what is he supposed to do if he, within his realm, cannot enforce him? Are you suggesting that Interpol round up all the gold farmers and put them in jail? Perhaps that’s reasonable. But…perhaps what we’ll see instead is more enlightened game publishers realizing that they need to supply more capacity for user-generated content and a users’ economy and simply learn how to profit from the transactions themselves, as Entropia does selling banking licenses, as Linden Lab does selling virtual world currency.

And as for “not controlling the metaverse”…Actually, that’s not true. None other than Jane McGonigal at GDC said that game makers — makers of these very closed games you are so protective of — said that reality is broken, and that game makers can fix it. They can take their ideologies about closed economies, code-as-law, and controlling masses in social media, and…fix the world. Make it a “better place”. Ugh. Look out!

Read Castronova’s book. He, too, wishes to port out of the closed economies of games various institutions that he wants to transplant into real life. Your little orcs on their little moors are not staying put. They are bleeding into real life. That’s the problem. That’s why I push back.
Prokofy Neva
March 11th, 2008 - 12:18

Prokofy Neva finally drives a stake in the Bartle Player Types!

Gosh, is that the sacrilege that I’ve committed here with the gamerz???

I haven’t seen anything so lame and ridiculous as those 4 game types since, since, I dunno, I happened to see a personality quiz in my kids’ teen magazines.

I took the test…except…if you don’t play games, how can you take it! lol If you never kill anything, how can you decide what is important, showing your sword o r killing something ROFL? I mean, it’s utterly retarded.

And the four types may be old hoary ancient classical types from the Shakespeare of games. But they certainly don’t work for today’s *actual* behaviour. I mean, where does the griefer and the clueless git fit on there? The social boors and asstards such as can be found in this thread? What “persona” are they? They don’t explore, they don’t socialize, they merely destroy. And why is Richard exempt, as a game designer with the “meta conversation and meta art”? It’s a type, too. And one not only limited to game gods.