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Wed 12 Feb, 2003 01:45 pm
http://www.suntimes.com/output/lifestyles/cst-fin-emain08.html
Quote:February 8, 2003
By Nick Wadhams
Gone are the days when playing video games online meant simply playing a hand of poker or battling your buddies to the death in a giant arena you couldn't control.
Many games are now all about role-playing, and some players aren't participating to escape terrestrial life. They're getting on virtual soapboxes and organizing all manner of protest in cyberspace.
Gamers have protested the impending war in Iraq, started newspapers, gathered charitable donations--done myriad things they already do, or wish they could do, in the real world.
The line between online gaming and the real world ''is a lot thinner than people give it credit for,'' said Raph Koster, creative director of the Austin, Texas, office of Sony Entertainment.
At the new online community There.com, gamers can clothe their in-game marionettes and socialize with others. Already, some players, angry with the U.S. policy on Iraq, have organized a peace rally and clad their characters with the peace symbol.
Not Earth-shattering, to be sure, but exemplary of how thousands of people are using online games to project their real voices, or speak up as they might not in real life.
Players of EverQuest, the most popular online game in the United States with about 85,000 playing at any time, held in-game candlelight vigils after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks and even created memorials within the game's universe.
The latest to hit the market is the Sims Online, from Electronic Arts. Players have control over a character and act out real-life fantasies. They've built in-game restaurants, created several radio stations and even a newspaper.
Issues of how far gamers can push have yet to be fully tested.
Likely to push those limits is the forthcoming Star Wars Galaxies, which will put players inside the George Lucas popular universe.
''Somebody saying something in the game and being witnessed by somebody else can reflect not just on the game but on Lucasfilm and George Lucas,'' said Koster, a lead designer for Galaxies, which is due in April.
''If someone started walking around in the San Diego Zoo screaming profanity or handing out Nazi leaflets, the park would remove them from the premises. We need to be able to do that also.''
If gamers protest in online video games, do you think their words and deeds should be subject to free speech rulings? Or are these private clubhouses (much like Able2Know) wherein some restrictions can be applied by the managment?
In my opinion, people these days take their entertainment more seriously than they take real life, and this is not altogther so healthy. People need to start paying attention to what is being done to the world around them by the powers that are entrenched. If the way to get their ear is to walk into their pasttime areas and make a little noise, well then that's a good strategy.
Virtual realms being just another form of amusement park, I would not be surprised that people that manage these entertainment spaces are upset at the insertion of real world concerns into their enterprises. Nonetheless, they are inviting people to come and play, and if people bring with them bits of the outside world , that should not be a reason to exclude them. I remember when Disney would not let anyone into the magic kingdom if they had long hair... all while their Handsome Princes had sweet little pageboy cuts. Hipocracy is the name of that game. But then, I'm pretty much in the We Need a Revolution camp, and I don't think that most tv, virtual games, pop music, celebrity distraction and all that garbage are helping solve the problems that desperately need solving.
As someone recently said, we are entertaining our civilization to death.
In situations like that, my philosophy is always their house, their rules. If the management don't like what you're doing, they have the right to ask you to stop, tell you to stop, banish you.
Yes, Republic-The Revolution.
This is another manifestation of the way that electronics is blurring the line between reality and make believe.
Anyone using the entertainment forums or online gaming to spew their politically biased garbage should be censored at least and banned in multiple transgressions. The ONLY place for political commentaries is on a political forum. Those that seek to ruin others enjoyment of gaming by forcing personal (and usually backwards-thinking) agendas on them should be slapped squarely in the face and banned permanently.
I just think their energies could be better spent doing these things in the real world.
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