Social (Video Game) Spaces

In his book "Video Game Spaces" Michael Nitsche (2008) describes five layers of spaces referring to video games:

1. The layer of hardware on which the program runs and all processes are executed
2. The mediated virtual environment as it appears to us on the screen and we can interact with it with our avatar (or however)
3. The imaginary layer, which represents what each one of us interprets into the mediated layer
4. The real space in which we sit and play the game
5. The social space which is created when playing a game (with others or without).

The last layer might also include the social and cultural space created through video games. As they long passed the state of being a nerdy, quite unusual leisure time activity and reached living rooms all over the world, even of people who would not be considered nerds or even gamers at all. (Triple A) Video games nowadays are comparable with a shitty reality TV show such as Masterchef or Dating Naked which "no one likes" but still everyone is talking about. They became a topic for a short break at school or university or a coffee at work: "Have you played...", "I can't wait for the next..." etc.

But I don't want to drift into a discussion about shitty video games and shittier television shows. The more interesting part here is the question of the social space, Nitsche mentions in his book and Torill Mortensen's thoughts about deviant strategies in video games (Mortensen, 2008). She raises the question what strategies in World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004) are normal and which deviant (Mortensen, 2008).

   Her thoughts raise the question if what Nitsche described as social space is sufficient for describing everything social connected to video games. What about things that happen inside of the game, as for example (unspoken) agreements about what is normal and what is deviant?

Another example is a "funeral raid" as happened in World of Warcraft many years ago:

In short a player of one faction died (in real life) and his guild and (ingame) friends organized a funeral in Winterspring. Apparently players of the other faction got to know about it and disturbed the funeral, attacking and eventually killing everyon participating in it. This act of hostility towards players who wanted to show their condolence towards the loss of other players raised a huge discussion wether or not it is ethical. Of course this is an extreme case but the question to ask is if this kind of social (the funeral) and antisocial (the raid) behaviours can just be generalized under the term social space of Nitsche.

   I say we need at least one more space, the social ingame space. The aggregation of both phenomena under the same term seems insufficient as such social phenomena inside of games might be different from real life actions. An example could be Mildenberger's (2009) discussion about "evil" behaviour in virtual worlds.

   Even though Mildenberger's concern is an ethical one, his example in EVE Online (CCP Games, 2003) shows in how far behaviour in virtual worlds can differ from what people do in real life. His subject of discussion is the act of "suicide ganking" in EVE Online. Again shortly described, a suicide gank is the act of destroying the space ship of another player in an area which is actually protected by police forces. The act of destroying the other ship will unevitable result in the destruction of the attacking ship by the police forces. What players do now is, they team up and destroy a ship just to get destroyed afterwards themselves. A third party (player) is asked to be at the spot of the kill to collect all goods resulting of the destruction of the ship and the attacking ships and the third party share their gains afterwards. As Mildenberger points out the act of sucuide ganking almost never leads to a positive outcome (economically) for any of the parties (considered the attacker and the third party are belonging to one team; of course the third party could just get away with the loot and therefore would have an absolute win situation). Therefore Mildenberger considers the act of suicide ganking as purely evil.

   The reason we can use this as an example, even though it is a discussion of ethics in games and not social gatherings is that it shows how different people act in video games than in real life. In real life such an act of pure evil (no gain for anyone) is nearly unthinkable and the best examples we could find would probably be in television. In video games on the other hand, players tend to act like this more often. Because of this I suggested the sixth layer of ingame social space, as a space in which social behaviour might significantly differ from the "real life social space".

Bibiliography

Mildenberger, C. D (2009). Evil in virtual worlds. At The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference, Oslo. Online at: http://gamephilosophy2013.b.uib.no/files/2013/09/Mildenberger_Evil-in-virtual-worlds.pdf

Mortensen, T. E. (2008). Humans Playing World ofWarcraft: or Deviant Strategies?. Digital culture, play, and identity: A world of warcraft reader, 203.

Nitsche, M. (2008). Video game spaces: image, play, and structure in 3D game worlds. MIT Press.

Ludography

EVE Online. CCP Games (2003).

World of Warcraft. Blizzard Entertainment (2004).