Canned Goods

Originally posted as a reply to a post by David on “real virtual worlds,” I feel like I broke with blogger etiquette by writing a lengthy reply, so I’ll move it here and leave it up to David to delete it.

“I hear where you’re coming from, and I agree with you on many points. I don’t know if the footprint is really reduced–seems possible, though. Sounds like a good study.

As far as the technology breaking down and someone not making the teleconference–how many times have people missed an event because of weather, traffic, or mechanical problems? I don’t think we can escape breakdowns of technology.

And why do telecommuters need to go to the office weekly? Really, I don’t know. [ADD: here’s a story I learned of on Steven Krause’s blog about meetings making us dumber.]

But, playing devil’s advocate (or simply the role of synthetic world researchers and participants) I would have to take issue with you distinctions between “real” and “virtual” worlds. Many argue that virtual worlds are just as “real” as the f2f world. [ADD: In at least two “kinds of human culture that encourage human sociality” according to Jen Dornan in her post on Terra Nova; however, as she outlines, MMOs are missing several other kinds culture.]

Castronova on the economic importance of these spaces (I believe his research showed Everquest’s GNP [of purely digital products] somewhere between Russia and Bulgaria). Turkle would say that people are developing/playing with “real” identities in virtual worlds, and some people who meet virtually (through in-game chat) go on to meet f2f (a few marriages have been documented, too). [ADD: I agree with Dornan; virtual worlds don’t appear to have all the types of culture that we find “in every human society,” but they so facilitate people connecting outside the virtual world.]

So, these synthetic worlds can and do build communities (of a different sort perhaps) simply because people who share interests and values can find each other more easily than in the “real” world. And in my own experience, I met a number of players who played side-by-side with their spouses and children and would attend the WoW conference to meet each other in the “real” world.

I guess, it’s hard for me to make a distinction between the “real” and “virtual” since in every case we are dealing with people interacting with each other. If it’s that I may not be “myself” in that space and experiment with new identities, I’d say that I’m always doing that in the f2f world too.

But, I agree, that building a local, f2f community has value. There was a recent story about an elderly gentleman being found sitting in front of his tv–dead for a year. His neighbors never thought to check in on him. However, what I’ve seen in WoW for example, is that the community does notice when someone disappears (made all the easier by the technology that records/reports a players last time in the world).

Heck, my blog is the way I’ve built a community with other Comp-Rhet folks who share my interests (and going to conferences to get facetime is a luxury I can rarely afford). If I relied on f2f, I’d be very, very isolated.

Wow. I’m glad you made this post, David. It made me do a lot of thinking.”