Economies of Scale in Online Games

Today I feel like talking about economies of scale... in online games. Of particular interest, when centralized online economies in games translate to real-world profits.

Case in point: World of Warcraft--with just over 12 million subscribers since October 2012 (seriously)-- is a booming example of an online economy. Individual players buy, sell, and trade items amongst themselves, and can buy from and sell items to non-player characters, or NPCs. They may craft items, and some custom items cannot be replicated. Vendors pawn their goods to other players, and mods have been created by the user community in order to facilitate the ongoing search for products of interest (e.g. Auctioneer). This is not a micro-economy; it is an amalgamation of cultures all over the world exchanging goods. And yet it is fictional.

Individuals who specialize in making money in massively-multiplayer online (MMO) games for the purposes of real-life sales are called "farmers" by many MMO communities. The dub farmers is a reflection of their ceaseless, efficient, and monotonous repetition of the same actions in order to garner in-game money, usually by killing monsters. Often the same monster. Over and over and over and over and over again. All day.

Farmers strategically pick targets of interest, kill them, and take in-game money drops. In WoW, farmers gather gold and sell it in online venues. Players with hard cash, usually from Western nations can purchase in-game money or items in order to make their online questing more comfortable. In recent years, the WoW developer Blizzard has strong-armed online marketplaces into protecting their WoW economies by making it against terms of service, and a bannable offense.

Often farmers are from Eastern nations. Chinese gold farmers are especially prevalent, sometimes (certainly not always) working in sweatshop-like conditions, playing MMOs for most hours of the day alongside other twenty-something Chinese players to meet gold quotas, under supervision of a "factory" boss. This is, of course, to sell for a real-world bottom line; Chinese gold farmers may typically earn up to $250 in a month, but more realistically earn about $75-100 in a month. While real-world gold auctioning violates WoW's terms of service, it isn't illegal. Players generally look down on farmers and those who patronize them, with disdain for what they perceive as cheating. Unfortunately, then, farmers are assumed by players to be Chinese and are often harrassed, enduring the pejorative or racist comments attached to assaults. But the business model is so successful that it has spawned as many as 100,000 gold farmers in China. (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/09/technology/09gaming.html?_r=1&ex=1291784400&en=48a72408592dffe6&ei=5088)

 Why is this important? An online economy is being transformed into a real-world economy. Fictional currency can be bought and sold by players all over the world, and shifting hands through online venues and organized using venues like eBay or forums. Western nations provide the capital for this business; while the conditions are often not ideal for workers, it is still a service of value. Customers will apparently pay. We must, then, consider the value of some large online economies relative to real-world economies. Second Life is an example that perpetuates this concern, with businesses and individuals paying for virtual real estate, avatar modifications, services, and every virtual object you can imagine (see Second Life Marketplace). A real-world market for virtual goods is already viable. The next big question is whether this innovative adaption will perpetuate itself and grow, or fall away.

Technology and Social Interaction

3. Technology and Social Interaction

Your task for this assignment is to describe your thoughts on how technology influences social interaction. Do you think the spread of technology has had a positive or negative impact on your everyday face to face interaction? What about for people more generally? What do you think about using the Internet to meet other people (via online dating sites, Craigslist, message boards, fan sites, online gaming, or virtual worlds)? Is connecting to others via online communities a viable way of creating meaningful relationships, or are we neglecting our everyday relationships in favor of these "virtual" relationships? Do we, as a society, need to focus on creating more "real" spaces/public spheres for people to connect, interact, and discuss meaningful political and social issues?
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Technology loosens the restrictions on interactions with strangers. We are not as accountable to strangers whom we speak to with interactive technology as a proxy. Online dating websites, for example, depend on impromptu interactions with strangers that wouldn't ordinarily happen due to real-life social restrictions. Technology also extends the capacity to interact with real-life acquaintances. Students email professors, voice and video chat, use instant and text messaging to exchange information with acquaintances. Finally, we have a newfound capacity to extend the reach of our real-life social networks through social technology. Long-distance relationships sprout between online acquaintances, and sometimes translate to intimate relationships with individuals who otherwise may never have been accessible.

Is this positive or negative? For me, this has been very beneficial; I'm rather introverted and come out of my shell online, making friends and forming relationships I would otherwise neglect. The influence of technology in my social life could conversely be seen as a "crutch," and it is possible I would be forced to form substantive relationships in person instead if not for the Internet. While there certainly can be negative consequences of social technology, I would argue the influence of such technology is largely positive and has benefitted cultures that adapt their regular use. We make decisions based on information, and social media is one broad category of software that draws in practical information for consumers. This promotes a uniquely well-rounded environment for decision making. That said, information can simply be manipulated--a feature some technologies will taut as an asset, and others, a liability.

I am largely skeptical about meeting individuals whom I've met on the Internet. I feel anonymity makes it easier to mask undesirable characteristics, while simultaneously inviting unforeseen honesty behind the protection of the computer screen. I am curious whether I am meeting who I think I'm meeting, but in some regard, real-life interactions face similar concerns. Some contexts for forming friendships are more sketchy than others. For example, I might be willing to meet players I've befriended from a popular massively-multiplayer online game for coffee, but I would think twice about meeting someone from Craigslist, especially in light of news of "Craigslist killers" Anonymity allows individuals to hide their intentions, but certain contexts lend well to a natural interaction, where individuals are held more accountable, anchored to online identities (as with some dating websites, online games, etc.). The prospect of meeting online friends offline largely makes me skeptical.

I think there are benefits and trade-offs for on- and off-line relationships. I think real-life relationships lack honest discourse, and online relationships lack a sense of reality. For example, I have a friend from Arizona who I had video-chatted with dozens of times, but I did not have a sense of her mannerisms, how she walked, fidgeted, and played with her fingers when nervous until I met her in person. There is no adequate replacement for a real-life interaction. But by the time I had met her, I knew most everything about her--the truth without fear of reprisal real-life interactions imply.

Perhaps we, as a society, would benefit from creating venues for interaction straddling real-life and technology-mediated communication. In this way, we might benefit from brutally honest discourse social technology allows through anonymity, and yet still have a personal, intimate environment as an anchor.

Social Networking and Privacy

2. Social Networking and Privacy

Your task for this assignment is to record your thoughts on the prevalence of social networking. How often do you use social networking sites/tools like Facebook, Twitter, or FourSquare? How much time to do you spend texting, tweeting, or checking status updates on your phone or computer?
Do you think the cultural move toward social networking, constant access, and the loss of privacy it sometimes brings about is a positive/negative trend on the whole? What are some of the benefits and drawbacks of this entanglement between our personal lives and technology?  Have you ever "over-shared" or texted, tweeted, or posted something you have regretted? Do you ever worry about your privacy when it comes to using these tools?
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While I don't use Twitter or FourSquare, I use Facebook every day.
I imagine being more mindful about it influenced to me browse Facebook less often, but I recorded 32 instances of clicking on my Facebook icon in my Firefox browser. That said, it's still far too many.
Every time I have an idle minute online, I'll default to checking my Facebook for status updates, wall posts, or other content of interest my friends have linked. While these sessions typically don't last for more than a few minutes at any given time throughout the day, they are intermittent and absolutely a distraction. If my mind wanders even a bit, I find myself on Facebook. I have a similar habit of looking at the Wikipedia random page and then clicking unfamiliar links from there.

I have yet to "over-share," although it wont stop my friends from doing it on my behalf through Facebook tagging, or simply using my computer to post status updates. I might delete posts like this, but I'm aware that the information is essentially there forever, and can be available to those who care enough to dig it up. Because of this, I never post anything potentially embarassing or questionable. Your online reputation is very easily trackable, and some websites specialize in congregating data attached to your name and selling it (e.g. http://www.spokeo.com/). Privacy is definitely a concern.

This might not be the local IP.

The technology, in particular, software, is being packaged so conveniently that individuals with no significant computer knowledge (read: script kiddies) can steal identities over unsecured networks with software like Firesheep (http://www.pcworld.com/article/209333/how_to_hijack_facebook_using_firesheep.html). It is really easy to do this, making places like internet cafes or Starbucks suspect locations for identity theft. As a response, Facebook recently instituted full HTTPS support (read more here), protecting all information transferred on Facebook.com, should users choose to activate it. Denial of service programs (LOIC) make antisocial activity similarly easy, although they might need to organize others to attack websites. On the other hand, inexperienced users are prone to revealing their own information in the process to more tech-savvy users.

Care should be taken to retain anonymity through IP routing or proxy servers. Again, this process has been simplified for casual users (Tor). The language I've used might sound foreign, but this is all very straight forward for any user who is a bit interested and has fifteen minutes to kill. The simplification of complex software for the user-end is practical, bridging the divide between those who know and whose who don't. Blogger itself is an example of an a simplified user interface, so users unfamiliar with HTML can share and format their thoughts easily. Users should take care to understand the limitations of anonymity and the software they use.

I see the cultural move toward social networking and constant access as a relatively neutral cultural change. That is, there are positive and negative aspects, as with all mediums of communication developed. The medium itself isn't inherently bad or good, but the uses can be. For example, newspapers have been used to traffic information to a broad populace in western countries. This is a service to society. On the other hand, political mudslinging mudslinging in the 19th century used newspapers as a medium, which, arguably, is unacceptable by today's standards. Nonetheless, these trends continue on the Internet. The medium is faster, and anyone can have a say. On one hand, information is freely shared and given instantly. On the other, uninformed populations can have a wide net of influence due to computer networking.

The Internet and Anonymity

Applying war paint, or wearing burglar masks or Ku Klux Klan robes are all examples of protecting one's identity prior to engagement in antisocial behavior. In social psychology, this effect introduced by Leon Festinger in 1952 is called deindividuation, a process wherein normative behavior may cease when people are seen as a group rather than identified individually. Social scientists have identified numerous examples of this phenomenon, demonstrating in a variety of studies that our inhibitions tend to be lowered when we are not held accountable. For example, imagine you are in a classroom with five other students and your professor wants to discuss the topic. You don't feel as inclined to talk in a large classroom of thirty. We sometimes, therefore, do together what we wouldn't do alone. The anonymous environment of the Internet is no exception.

The perceived anonymity of the Internet may prompt individuals to lower their inhibitions because, hey, they don't know me. And they probably never will. This collective mindset has come to loosely be called the Internet Disinhibition Effect.

Examples of this effect at work online are in online "flame wars," which happen between users in a disagreement. An increasingly prominent population of Internet "trolls," or individuals who deliberately get users angry, are another example. Still more tragic examples of this behavior exist like cyberbullying amongst teens. In a few cases, this behavior leads to depression and suicide.

A couple of links concerning these particular cases (but this really skims the surface):
http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/TheLaw/teens-charged-bullying-mass-girl-kill/story?id=10231357
http://web.archive.org/web/20071118052137/http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/11/17/internet.suicide.ap/index.html

Who would engage in this sort of activity if others knew who they were?

Cases like this did not have a clear precedent until only a few years ago, prompting "cyber harassment" laws to crop up all over the country. Unfortunately, checks, balances, and our current political system at large do not adequately address a sudden permutations prompted by the Internet, among other social media.
 
We must therefore break deindividuation online to combat its harmful effects.

The Internet in its current form is not as anonymous as we like to believe, however. Most users probably don't know that their computers and their location are easily identifiable online. Your IP address can be used to geographically locate your computer. In criminal cases, IP addresses are sometimes used as evidence of culpable parties. If individuals knew that their IP broadcasts to most websites, which typically lack secure connections (the exception being some email services, banking websites), they might cease antisocial behaviors. For most users, therefore, it is to their advantage to keep restrain from antisocial behavior.
 Unfortunately savvy hackers can spoof IP information or put it to even more disturbing uses, again perpetuating negative effects of deindividuation.

We can see deindividuation reflected in the organization of limited-liability corporations as well. When individual shareholders are not accountable for the activities of a firm, even if they work for it, the bottom line, profit, sometimes undercuts human capital.

That said, there are positive effects of deindividuation online, such as a tendency toward openness in conversation with strangers. This disinhibiting effect isn't inherently antisocial. It should be noted that deindividuation does not always lead to antisocial behavior, and may in fact lead to prosocial behavior. For example, Johnson and Downing conducted a study in 1979 that found localized norms mediated the deindividuation effect. Their participants were dressed either in outfits reminiscent of KKK outfits, or in nurses' uniforms, and given a task wherein they believed they were administering shocks to another participant. Participants were significantly less likely to shock individuals when they were in a nurse's uniform than in a KKK uniform. At present, it's not clear what "uniform" the Internet gives users. We should strive to make it a positive garb, promoting prosocial behavior.

Media Diet

1. Your Media Diet

Your task for this assignment is to record your media consumption for 5-7 days straight. Take note of how many hours you spend reading, watching television, using the Internet, or engaging with any other forms of media. While you do not have to give an exhaustive account of every TV show you watch or website you visit, do note what types of books, TV, websites, etc. that you consume. You can also describe which particular shows you watch or sites you visit daily/on a regular basis. After listing your media diet for each day of the week (length of time, types of media), you should provide a brief analysis. Questions you might address in your analysis include: What does your media diet say about you? How do you think it might compare to the media diets of other people your age? What might your media diet suggest about American society more broadly? Are there changes you'd like to make regarding your media consumption? How might your social location influence your media intake?

 I recorded my media consumption for 6 days over the last week. I had a good idea of how much time I devoted to various activities, but the numbers I laid out still surprised me.

Please keep in mind that some of these activities intersect. I may be reading while online, or reading online, for example.

 Monday, January 10 -12 hours online, 2 hours reading social psychology journal articles. In general, I worked on homework using facilities like Angel, caught up on current events in the news, and looked into technology websites like Gizmodo and Kotaku. I chatted with friends on AIM and Facebook, and then played Starcraft 2 intermittently throughout the day. I checked email several times on Groupwise and Gmail.
Tuesday, January 11 - 13 hours online, 3 hours reading social psychology journal articles. Again, I used Angel, looked at news websites (BBC, CNN), technology websites, checked email, and played video games while chatting on Facebook and AIM.
Wednesday, January 12 - 11 hours online, 1 hour reading social psychology journal articles. All of the aforementioned activities online.
Thursday, January 13 - 10 hours online. All of the aforementioned activities online. I played Xbox for 2 hours as well.
Friday, January 14 - 8 hours online. All of the aforementioned activities online.
Saturday, January 15 - 9 hours online. All of the aforementioned activities online

Almost all hours of the day not spent out with friends or in class are in front of a computer screen in some capacity, where I continue talking to friends while completing school-related work. My roommates have a similar pattern of use, with most hours of the day either in class or online. I expect that is rather common among individuals my age -- or at the very least, a substantive number of hours.

In one way, I regard my pattern of Internet use as above average. That said, I don't think it's uncommon for Americans between the ages of 15-25 to spend almost half of the day online in some capacity. It's exceedingly difficult to not be connected, whether on your computer, phone, iPod, or a tablet, because the operation of most  communication mediums are increasingly contingent on connection. For example, most classes use Angel or ERes to facilitate class assignments or discussions. Even if someone had no interest in the Internet, they would probably be channeled in. That said, all of the previous media outlets are now online as well. For some, individual interests have not shifted, but the medium has. For example, my roommate watches hundreds of television shows and movies, but seldom on television-- almost always on his computer. While lying in bed with snacks.

With the current trajectory of Internet use, in particular, I see other mediums being downplayed in the future, or integrating the Internet. For example, Internet will be fully integrated into television in many capacities. The question I'd pose is whether this much connection is a good thing. I see this as a problem of evolution. That is, while our technology evolves every minute, we biologically evolve at a much slower pace. As such, people aren't built to sit around playing video games, watching television, reading, or surfing the web for an excess of hours per day.

The technology we use isn't inherently geared to force people to sit for hours. We can certainly make use of the Internet wherever we like. It's an issue of distributing that knowledge to individuals so that they will take care of themselves while consuming.

That said, I should probably take my own advice and get up from this chair for the first time in a while. I could use a bit of exercise myself.

Martin blogs about the Internet: Antisocial Subcultures

The Internet is a profoundly useful technology, allowing for instantaneous sharing of knowledge among individuals next door or on the other side of the globe. The Internet, in its current form, is certainly not anonymous, but many users engage in antisocial behavior in part due to perceived anonymity. This blog is devoted to examination of this activity on the Internet.