Canned Goods

In my section of EN201, we’ve been talking about intellectual property, copyright, and sampling, and now, we’ll be focusing on Henry Jenkins’ Convergence Culture in preparation for their research papers on knowledge communities, lovemarking, grassroots creativity and transmedia storytelling. I used Constance Steinkuehler’s “Cognition and Literacy in MMOGs” as a model for research that puts, to quote from Scot’s rhetorical criticism assignment, “theory and artifacts into dialogue with the hope of animating and extending our understanding of both.”

One of my students smartly asked how a MMOG could be educational.

So, since we’re talking about Jenkins’ work, I’ll post part of a talk he gave in Second Life and let him speak to this:

Also, for more info on Second Life, I point you to one of my favorite programs of all time, CBS Sunday Morning.

One of my students, Andy, linked the following video from his blog this week. Games being one of my interests, I find the concept of taking advantage of human “cycles” for computation fascinating–basically, getting needed work done by layering it under a veneer of fun (If I could only get those hours of Super Mario Bros back). The bit on circumventing captchas was enlightening, too–reminding me of WoW’s “Chinese farmer” problem–Chinese working from China in WoW to sell the goods (loot) to Americans.

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.”

The following is based on my experience playing a MMOG for the first time and my attempts to figure out why I, and other people, play video games:

Of significance to playing World of Warcraft or any MMO—for that matter, taking part in any community—is the realization that a player’s motivations might differ too greatly from that of the community with which they are interacting. While I share the same principles of player conduct with my guild:

• Maturity In Game Play
• Friendly Attitude
• Helping Others
• Enjoy Working As A Team
• Having Fun In Guild Chat
• Making Friends
• Progressing In WoW

. . . my motivations are primarily Immersion (discovery & escapism) as well as Achievement (advancement), mixed with a dash of the Social (socializing, relationships, and teamwork) (Yee 4). These motivations to play create tensions when inhabiting the virtual world with others (just as it does in RL)—at least on my part. Although I was initially fascinated by the idea of potentially interacting with thousands of people from across the globe, I realized I had no real interest in meeting real people who wanted to be themselves in a virtual world. I wasn’t playing to be a virtual version of myself. I wanted to be someone else. Just as I read science fiction and fantasy books as a child, teen, and adult with the intent of escaping the real-world and immersing myself in the narrative, the characters, and the other worlds, I play role-playing videogames with the same intentions.

And although both Bartle and Yee concede that one’s motives are undoubtedly mixed, their conceptualizations of gamer psychology fail to take into account how the game technology/environment influences players’ identities and the way they use the game technology. As in the case of my experience within WoW, researchers must also consider the game world as more than simply “a backdrop, a common ground where things happen to players” (Bartle). My lifestyle as well as the rules of the game created constraints regarding my interactions in the virtual world.

Further, in light of Sherry Turkle’s research on MUDs, a given player may, at any time, be trying out an identity, and so the resarch conducted by Bartle and Yee seems to become muddied. Bartle and Yee appear to see players as having a unitary identities that they bring with them into the game space; however, any study that attempts to nail down why and how a person plays an MMORPG may merely be taking a snapshot of the player at the time of data collection. How I played The World of Warcraft initially may change in the future. I might decide to be more social and begin my own guild. I might decide to become a rogue, delighting in picking pockets and ganking other players.

If I were to have been surveyed by Yee when I first began playing WoW my answers would have categorized me differently than if I were to adopt one of the aforementioned identies and retaken the survey. With the complexity that is apparent with any assessment of motivations to play, it seem most important that game developers and researchers simply understand that motivations vary from player to player and from one occasion to the next.

And, although pithy, the same goes for students as they navigate the world of school.

This will most likely be my last post on video games and learning for my course with Jim Gee and Betty Hayes, and, though I’ve written about what games can mean for education and composition, I’ll focus this post on peer review because peer review (in small groups) has often gone poorly in my classes–as a student and teacher. I guess I find it difficult to believe it when someone says that peer review works well in FYC (in small groups), Sure, I’ve seen some groups come together and have some great conversations, but it happens so infrequently that relying on it as a major way for students to get feedback on their writing foolhardy.

They need to be taught how to talk about writing, how to do peer review, and the best way that I’ve been able to make that happen is with using the writer’s workshop.

What’s the problem? Students don’t feel the need to do peer review if they are simply waiting for my comments on their drafts. I get paid to comment, right? So, we got motivation problems. We also have the problem of decontextualized writing. Is there really a rhetorical situation (situated learning; strong identity as writer; disciplinarity & genre)? Is there really and audience (feedback system; collaboration)?

Writing to learn is a great idea. I do it all the time and see the value in it. Heck, I’m doing it right now, as I type forward with an idea, backspace when I don’t like something and begin moving forward again; as I cut and paste one section to a new location; when I think it’d be cool to add an image, search for it, edit it, and post it into an already published post–revision. This here is another learning principle of games, from Gee: “Encourage a distinctive view of intelligence: Encourage players to explore thoroughly before moving on, to think laterally, not just linearly, and to use such exploration and lateral thinking to reconceive one’s goals from time to time.” Isn’t this what writing to learn and the move away from an emphasis on product is all about?

And you’ve probably noticed that I’ve moved away from my initial intended focus on peer review. Lateral, baby! Lateral! Not linear.

And so, I’ve focused on what goes wrong in FYC. But what does it seemingly do well in terms of the learning principles of good video games?

First, the process movement and the portfolio system of grading work to lower the consequences of failure. Drafting allows students to write a “shitty first draft” as well as a second or third. And the portfolio allows students to choose the best of their work, leaving out texts that were good experiments that didn’t work out as final products.

Second, FYC sort of incorporates “just in time” verbal information/feedback. It isn’t as immediate as in a video game that can flash “Use the left thumbstick to crouch”; I can’t be there when a student writes and suggest possible courses of action, but teacher and peer review feedback (especially marginal notation) can approximate the “just in time” effect.

Third, at least in the case of FYC at the UW there are cycles of challenge, consolidation, and new challenges. Basically, the problems are well-ordered. Students begin by writing about a topic with using sources they don’t already have (inside them); they learn to have an opinion, write about their experiences, ideas, and beliefs. Then they take the concepts of writing they’ve learned and apply them to the synthesis assignment which asks them to read a couple sources–and analyze and synthesize those sources into an argument of their own. This all leads to the research paper, where they take the principles they’ve learned to complete a larger project.

Alice’s work has looked at how video games designers begin with thinking about what they want the players to be able to do within the game: what should they be able to do at the end of the game? what are the goals for players?

And these ideas are what have always been the starting point for me as a writing teacher designing curriculum. What do I want my students to be able to do at the end of the course and how can I build a syllabus that gets them there?

Although I don’t think school (with all its required coursework) will ever be capable of generating the same interest and motivation as video games, we have to remember that not everyone likes to play video games, just as many of my students may never like writing (of any sort)–not that with an open mind they may coul not see what of value vg’s and writing have, but I’m the same way; I don’t have any reason to do algebra. I balance my check book well enough, and I haven’t needed to calculate where I’ll meet my wife if she leaves the West Coast on a train traveling at X mph, while I travel from the East Coast on a bus at X mph. I just read the arrival times on the tickets.

But all this stuff about interest ans motivation doesn’t mean we, as educators, can’t do our best to design curriculum that will hopefully facilitate the learning of content.

I’ve come to that point again where, after bingeing on WoW for a couple weeks, I’ve had my fill. I got revved up as I approached lvl 50 (those 40s lasted nearly a year–at the pace I play), but now it’s becoming a bore again. Reasons? I had entered two new areas of the world, and I was excited to explore them, but now I have. And I had found lots of soloing quests to complete, but now they’re nearly done.

But ain’t this like real life? Well, if not like yours, it’s like mine. I usually do things in clumps. I pick a project and do that ’til I’m done with it and move on to the next. For instance, in school I focused on just a few things: art, reading (not school stuff), and football; and I did these things to the exclusion of everything else (how did I make it thru high school?). It’s more difficult in grad school since there are many more responsibilites than simply your coursework. I won’t bore you with a list. You probably have your own.

“What does this (and my other gaming blogs) have to do with education?” Betty asks. In my case (because I can’t speak for others, and I don’t have any research to back me up here), I’d say that my bingeing is tied to my style of learning. I get an itch, begin to scratch and can’t leave it alone until it’s gone (or at least until the doctor castigates me, ties my arms to my sides, and bandages the wounds). Yesterday, for example, I scratched an itch I’ve had for several days–I started reading Asimov’s Foundation, and I read thru 100+ pages. If only I could get into my seminar reading like this!

Simply put, school isn’t (usually) about itches and scratching (except for those electives, I guess; luckily, I was able to take 1-2 art classes a semester during high school) unless you consider the itch to escape from your seat. And it doesn’t seem capable of dealing with learning/interest binges. But if one were to attempt to make school like a video game for folks like me, I suppose it would need lots of save points facilitating the waxing and waning of a student’s interest in a subject.

I’ve recently fallen off the wagon and become slightly addicted to WoW again. Can one be slightly addicted? Maybe I’m merely slightly obsessed. Well . . . in the least, I have really enjoyed playing recently.

WhenI had suspended my account in June of last year, I was a lvl 43 hunter and didn’t play again until the beginning of February (I had leveled up to about 47 during this time). Over the course of this semester, I became frustrated becasue most of the quests I had on my list to do needed 5 person groups, and I play solo much of the time. After completing such “mini-games” as make-yourself-some-cool-armor I came across some quests to solo that also took me to an new area to explore: Un’Goro crater (filled to the brim with angry dinosaurs that would like nothing better than eating the flesh from my Night Elf bones. Or perhaps they were just acting out their programming.

I entered the crater and found many quests that I could do solo that also rewarded player with several thousand experience points (XP) . I admit that I’ve spent nearly 15 hrs in the past week (to chagrin of my wife) leveling up to 51. And I want more!

But I have a stack of papers to grade tonight. If only I could get addicted to grading papers .

I’ll frame this post in a way that will hopefully keep me from seeming like I’m wasting my life away (part of believes I am, actually). I’ve been getting back into the swing of running again, and when that happens I feel a need to run even more and a withdrawal when I don’t. If one were to get addicted to running, we would most likely applaud that person’s dedication to physical fitness, but playing a videogame is different(?). There’s something about getting something in return for the investment of time, and maybe we need to quantify what it is that people are getting out of games.

I thought I’d give it another go yesterday and put together a group to do the instance, Uldaman. It took an hour, but it finally happened, nad it was a well-balanced group that might have taken us through the entire dungeon. But there were new problems: contrasting player intentions. A couple people wanted to simply kill things and hope for good loot, while three of us wanted to do the quests in there that, ironically, require killing everything and getting the loot. In addition, one pair started to whack everything, effectively draw several mobs to us at once–a very deadly maneuver.

Eventually, the other two got frustrated and left. This group lasted less than the last group. My solution, I decided to work on what you could call a mini-game. A a leatherworker, there’s a set of armor I can make, but I had to find the patterns (mob drops) and get my skill up, so I took to hunting, killing mobs that have a good percentage chance of dropping the patterns I needed and the scorpions that drop the leather and scales that I can use to make the armor (I was also able to complete a couple solo quests along the way).

It’d be nice to have a good group, but that requires joining a guild, and guilds mean a social commitment I don’t want to make. So my interests in games are based on my interests in Composition, and I’m focused on player motivation and types (Bartle, Yee), as well as collaboration. (there’s the whole thing about production and consumption too–player generated content, inside and outside of the game).

I’ve written in my gaming log about the tension between casual and hardcore gamers and that casual gamers would like to be rewarded for the time they have to spend within the games they play. A game like Halo does this wonderfully. You always feel like you’ve made progress and moving on to the next level or cutscene (revealing more of the plot) is the reward. WoW, at the higher levels, simply isn’t rewarding a casual gamer such as me in a way to keep me interested. Levels 0-20 are incredibly satisfying for gamers I’ve spoken with–either those who have the time to group or need to solo adventure. I was even able to reach 45 mainly through soloing.

However, without doing hours of research in search of solo quests, I have to enter areas of the game that require groups. Last night I sat down and put aside 2.5 hours just for this. The first 40 minutes went something like this “LFG [looking for group] for Uldaman!” That’s me repeating the message over and over in the LFG chat channel. I eventually got 4 people together, but this was a poorly balanced group: 2 hunters, a priest, and a warlock. We met at Uldaman, where the hunter other members decided to go in the back door, allowing them to get to the section they needed for their quests–leaving me with no reason to be there since I needed something from near the other entrance. I continued on with hopes to get a few good drops. Things quickly fell apart, as the priest wasn’t very good at keeping the hunter’s pet alive–the pet that was acting as our tank. Eventually, the group disbanded–no one having completed anything.

HALO log:
You might not think that a FPS would require a lot of strategy. Often, these games can be quite linear and have limited options available to complete a goal, and I can’t say that HALO doesn’t feel this way at times. But rather than a simple “blast everything!” approach (which you can try, and often die trying), HALO requires (at the higher difficulty levels) the player to conserve ammo and methodically plan attack approaches and use of weapons.

As I played in the role of Master Chief and understanding that he doesn’t (I didn’t) have stealth abilites, I had to plan ways to get to the next goal by killing just about everything in my path. For example, towards the end of the game there is a large skirmish between Covenant forces and the Flood. The check points (save points) in this area are far apart, requiring you to make it thru as long as 30+ minutes to the next save point. Sometimes it was just luck, many more times skill, that eventually got me thru, but the problem was that I was to immersed in the game world. I was playing as though my life was at risk. I couldn’t risk dying or getting to injured to complete the next level. After playing thru the game the first time, immersed in the role, I got frustrated once again by this section. After several attempts, I decided on a new tactic–run like hell!

I decided to sneak around the perimeter of the valley while the Convenant were distracted by the Flood and make a run for the Banshees (the small aircraft I needed to steal). After a few tries it worked. I didn’t need to expend mounds of ammo to kill everything, I just needed to not play as a “real” MAster Chief. I played it as though it were a game without any risk to my “real” person.

Sure it was cool to complete this task without all the work, but, on the other hand, it’s more satisfying to defeat the enemy (an big achievement); also, I like being immersed in the character. It makes it more real.