Freakonomics - Levitt 2006

Freakonomics, Levitt and Dubner, 2006

• Incentives are the cornerstone of modern life
• Conventional wisdon is often wrong
• Experts use their own informational advantage to server their own agenda
• Knowing wht to measure and how simplifies a complicated world

Incentives/deterrents can be economic, moral (I feel good about it) and social (pressure from society, shame). Experiment: The first rule was "Parents must pick up their kids before 5pm". When this rule was in place, only a few parents picked up their kids late. When changing the rule to "Parents who pick up their kids late are charged $3", many more parents picked up their kids late. Parents who used to feel morally responsible could now buy off their guilt. And the low fine signaled that it was no big deal to pick up your kids late. In the same "vein" of examples, paying people $5 to give blood results in less donors. Replacing the moral incentive by an economic one changed the way they saw the situation: while saving lives could justify the hassle/pain, $5 is not enough. People also cheat to abuse the incentive and get more for less. Cheating is more likely to happen for clear outcomes (e.g. sports or politics) than if the benefit or its recipient are not obvious.

Asymmetric information: people with exclusive info can cause fear (e.g. the USA don't know when terrorists are going to attack) and respect/gratitude (e.g. experts such as realtor agents know how much your house is worth on the market, or doctor can tell what disease you have). Internet is decreasing the information asymmetry. Experts need journalists to spread their opinion, but journalists need experts to write about new interesting/provocative topics.

What people say is not what people do. Examples: profiles on dating websites (most people rate their look "above average"), or voting for extreme right (people are ashamed?).

Four factors determine wage: specialized skill, unpleasantness, demand for the job, and supply of workers. That's why prostitutes earn more than architects per hour.

Risk: We suck at assessing risk: we measure it (implicitly) as risk = hazard + fear, while it should only be risk = hazard. When fear > hazard, we over-react. Hence the most hazardous risks are not always the scariest. Risks we don't have control over are scarier, while familiarity decreases fear. [This echoes the class on stress] Examples: heart attacks cause more deaths than terrorist attacks, yet people still eat fast-food. People fear more plane accidents than car accidents, even though they happen as often per hour spent in them.

[Except the first 2 chapters, I found this book focused too much on poor Blacks vs rich Whites.]

Hardcore/casual misconceptions

There are a few well-known gamer stereotypes out there. Let's review the misconceptions about those types and see which useful parts remain.

Hardcore

Dedicated, competitive, and often tech-savvy. Hardcore gamers are also social: they are in charge of their guild, debate on forums, and, more generally, want to be in. They do not only play the game, they also play the metagame. If they have a console, they may buy the latest console FPS or RPG, or at least try it out, and talk about it. If they only play MMOG, they watch for and try out betas, compare game designs, and complain about the lack of innovation. There might be console-fighting-game-only, MMO-only, FPS-only, and other types of hardcore players. Hardcore is an umbrella term for many and diverse player segments. A hardcore niche only makes sense with respect to a particular genre (e.g. FPS), game (StarCraft), or even gameplay mode (auction house golden boys of WoW). In a Marvel vs Capcom 3 tournament, the audience consists mostly of hardcore fighting-game players, not RTS hardcore players.

Pro gamer

Pro gamers are not hardcore gamers. First, they have a manager and are financially sponsored by a brand or a big game studio. Second, they do not share their strategies until they have applied them in tournaments. Lastly, although training is a key part of their success, they may actually play less than hardcore gamers because the metagame is often more important than the game itself. In WoW, for instance, the metagame for pro gamers involves tracking forum posts from game developers or playing only with the basic UI, as tournaments forbid UI addons. Pro gamer teams also track each other's stats.

Casual

Looking at online dictionaries, casual can have different meanings. For gamers, there's at least two distinct categories within the casual umbrella: occasional gamers, or unconcerned gamers.

MMO players who can play for a couple hours every other week are occasional gamers. They may be very focused and play really well during those few others, though. Post-hardcore gamers, who used to consider themselves as hardcore but have found a partner, just got a child, etc. have become occasional gamers. Others like to play games, but have little time to spend in them, and/or do not want to spend too much money in them. This last category of players is referred to as mid-core or softcore.

Unconcerned gamers do not play seriously. They know it's just a game, and the magic circle is often quite thin. As far as time is concerned, 1-minute games while waiting at the bus stop, in the doctor's office, during the commercial breaks, etc. may add up to hours of play per day. Of course, an addiction to Angry Birds does not sound as bad as neglecting one's kids to play Aion 18 hours per day. Short, easy (dumb?), and kawaii-graphics games spread out thanks to smart phone and Facebook apps. Some of those games eventually have a social component (e.g. trading resources in Farmville to complete quests), but it's not what makes them played.

Once again, many do not see the difference between midcore/softcore, post-hardcore, and unconcerned gamers. Casual is a large umbrella term containing many player types. So-called casual games such as Plants versus Zombies sometimes hide intricate mechanics (easy to understand, hard to master). A game like Mario Party 4 could be played very differently by four friends at a party: one could play nonchalantly because she's bored, another competitively because he rocked at the first Mario Party for N64, etc.

Conclusions

• The casual/hardcore distinction is not deep enough (and sometimes inaccurate). Models such as Yee's motivations of play in online games or Bateman's player patterns seem more relevant.
• I suggest the use of personas to conceptualize a typical player. Personas follow a player-centric approach based on qualitative assumptions. When market surveys and large datasets can be expensive, personas are cheap, and everyone in the team, from marketing to design or graphics can benefit from them.
• All players are social. The difference relies in how they are being social.

What MEUPORG can teach us

Yann Leroux wrote on March 27th a blog article entitled Ce que MEUPORG nous enseigne (what MEUPORG can teach us). It is an account of what happened on the Internet after a French TV journalist tried to explain what MMORPGs were, and somehow failed. Since the article is in French, here is a (rough) translation.

The MEUPORG story is very insightful. There is not only in it about how video games are mistreated in our society. There is also about how gamers are organized today and how a TV channel reacted to a crisis that happened on the Internet. The beginning of the story is quite ordinary:

1. Journalist Nathanael de Rincquesen has one minute to summarize a topic in Télé Matin. In one single minute, he can but only rush through it.
2. He relies on a news article from a French newspaper - Libération - and copying-and-pasting does not help thinking.
3. He stumbles upon an acronym.
4. William Leymergie, the host of the morning TV program, interrupts him mischievously.
5. The journalist continues in his error.

Elements of popular imagination have always been attacked by the media. Then, those media become the elite's spokesperson. But the 21st century has something different; opinions are no more confined in pubs or workshops. The Internet is one of the places where they are created, transmitted and spread. We have now entered an era of commentary economics. It can be rejoicing or deplorable, but it is a fact that should be taken into account. Unlike the past century, the Internet offers a place where opinions can sprout nearly immediately. Some people in the audience are next to their laptop or their smart phone. They are looking for interactivity and will look for online places where they can express what they want to say.

The birth of a meme

A first video is posted on Youtube, it is soberly titled France 2 - télématin - MMORPG . Among others, Korben relays it. The video is seen and commented by a considerable number of people. Starting with this first video, the MEUPORG meme is born. Images, websites, tee-shirts or Facebook fan groups, all relay the journalist's error. The first Youtube video is edited and remixed.

The traditional media have not yet seized the strength of this movement. France Télévision stood silent on Twitter. Journalist de Rincquesen has not yet realized his name is now attached to MEUPORG. The program forum thread is burning and the journalist's Facebook page is filled with ironical comments. Certainly, one might bet this buzz is nothing more than another flash in the pan which the Internet is used to. However, the movement is much deeper. It is not a riot, it is a revolution sign. For those who would not take seriously the puerile lol machine, maybe the Union pour un Meuporg Populaire (translates as Union for a Popular Meuporg, a parody of the UMP French political party name) will provide fuel for thoughts. Gamers are not teenagers entrenched in their bedrooms and isolated from the outside world. Most of them are young adults, aware of what happens in their society. And they know how to make themselves heard.

The media side

The TV channel is living what Mc Luhan coined as the medium is the message: the shockwave has hit it so strongly that it is as if it were anesthetized. France 2 strikes one as being unable to take measures and handle the crisis. However, no doubt about it: crises like this one will multiply and grow in intensity. They do not only concern TV channels. Currently, Nestlé is the target of such an attack on Facebook. Online places are places not only to gather a passive audience but also to question and protest. Some end up finding themselves among wolves when they thought they could shear sheep. Internet will be one of the places where our societies' malaise will seep out.

Every morning, 1.4 million people in average watch Télé Matin. That means the first video posted on Youtube has generated 54% (760.000 views as of August 2010) of their audience. Obviously, this video was not watched 760.000 times in one day - but the 1.4 million do watch the program every day. Anyway, such an increase in the awareness of the TV program or channel among Internet inhabitants would be most welcome if it were positively conveyed. Unfortunately, it is more about destroying the image of the journalist, the TV program, the TV channel and mainstream media in general. The community managers of the TV channel would be expected to intervene and help get out of the crisis. Some are missing the opportunity to show how useful they can be in such undesirable times.

[Literature] Digital Imaginaries: How We Know What We (Think We) Know about Chinese Gold Farming

In "Digital Imaginaries: How We Know What We (Think We) Know about Chinese Gold Farming (forthcoming in the June edition of firstmonday), Nardi and Kow first introduce what RMT consists of from the perspective of companies, players and gold farmers. They remark: It is no more or less strange to buy an item such as a piece of jewelry in Second Life, or Merlin's Robe in World of Warcraft, than to purchase a game of checkers, or a book (certainly a virtual experience) or really, anything we could think of that someone values enough to pay for.

The gold-farmer digital imaginary

Stereotypes are based on an intersubjective reality: we encounter people who are members of the stereotyped class, rather than imagining distant Others. Digital imaginaries are built through images, not actual individuals. Since we lack practical contact with the Others we are imagining, visuals concretize them.

The methods followed by journalists or researchers in their studies of gold farmers are seldom mentioned. As shown in the network graph above, only four authors have been to China, and two have conducted long-distance interviews with gold farmers. In 2008, Heeks guessed/estimated: There is a generalized assumption that the great majority of gold farmers are based in China. In the absence of any better evidence, we will go along with this and guesstimate that China has around 80-85% of employment and output in this sub-sector. The digital imaginary is based on these few sources. These sources do not bring a whole picture of the issue, but rather comfort the general stance taken about gold farmers.

Some videos of players proving they kill gold farmers can be found on YouTube. The Ni-Hao video conveys the player issues with gold farming. Nakamura analyzed the video and remarked that attacks are directed towards the Chinese culture itself:

Where did all the doggies and kitty cats go
Since the gold farmers started to show
Don't want to know what's in the egg roll.

Dibbel first coined virtual sweat shop as the place where the gold-farmer's life presumably takes place. In the digital imaginary, gold farmers receive low wages (10 cents an hour's good money when you are Chinese) for long days of work (12-hour shifts) and live in poor conditions. These conditions describe playbor, work that is also play.

A broader picture

Botting is often omitted from the imaginary of the Chinese gold farmers. Gold farming is supposed to be a dumb and repetitive work, not developing and using complex softwares. However, ubuy8.com, a consulting company, advised that gold farming companies invest 20-30 percent of their income on R&D [...] allocated toward the development of specialized bots, moving away from less effective generic bots. As the authors note, Botting does not play well with the notion of the virtual sweatshop.

The forensic analysis of the digital imaginary analyzed how and why Chinese gold farming is perceived as low-tech work-as-play. This digital imaginary persists for two reasons. First, the real-life anxiety and doubt that Third-World countries are getting more and more powerful. This fear is accentuated when Western players meet Third-World workers in the game: strangers invade paradise. Second, the complexity of hyperlinks establishes connections that lend confidence and assurance to the materials they propagate. Actually, there are only too few reliable sources still available.

Some contributors to the digital imaginary presume that gold farmers are actually farmers in real-life. The authors explain that Eighteen year old boys are not generally members of any specific workforce, and certainly they are not “farmers”—a difficult profession requiring the accumulation of years of expertise. People are nevertheless fascinated by the gold farming phenomenon. Gold farming is a mirror that reflects us back to ourselves as culturally superior.

[Literature] Cyberpunk views of virtual worlds - Neuromancer and Snow Crash

I have read Neuromancer and Snow Crash in French, so I am not giving quotes from these books. However, I am giving quotes from Count Zero, the second book from the same trilogy as Neuromancer. As for Snow Crash, the quotes come from digitalspace.com (I did not check them, but I can remember having read many of them in French).

William Gibson wrote Neuromancer in 1984. Neuromancer is the first book of the Sprawl trilogy, the last book of this series was published in 1988. Gibson's official website mentions With Neuromancer, William Gibson introduced the world to cyberspace. The cyberspace (also called "matrix" in the books) in the Sprawl trilogy is not accessible to everyone: only cowboys jacking-in with electrodes on their skull are directly linked so intensely that sometimes the feedback ate into his [a protagonist's] nervous system (Count Zero, p21-22). The visions inside the cyberspace are complex geometric forms inside a three-dimensional space, with planes, rectangles, lines and layers of ice protecting multinational companies' systems from cowboy - hackers ride a deck to enter the cyberspace (Count Zero, p104-105).

Neal Stephenson wrote Snow Crash in 1992. In this novel, nearly everyone can log into the virtual world, called metaverse: dating teenagers, business men and hackers. he sees two young couples, probably using their parents' computers for a double date in the Metaverse. He is not seeing real people, of course. This is all a part of the moving illustration drawn by his computer. (Snowcrash, p35). The connection with the virtual world is less intrusive for the users because they only need to wear glasses to see what happens in it. What the virtual world contains is more a Second Life-like reproduction of a city with bars and houses than a geometrical representation of big companies' software systems. Hiro is approaching the Street. It is the Broadway, the Champs Elysees of the Metaverse. It is the brilliantly lit boulevard that can be seen, miniaturized and backward, reflected in the lenses of his goggles. But right now, millions of people are walking up and down it. (Snow Crash, p24). Moreover, there is room for UGC: Developers can build their own small streets feeding off of the main one. They can build buildings, parks, signs, as well as things that do not exist in Reality (Snow Crash, p24-25).

Conclusion

The earliest cyberpunk vision of cyberspace is dated from 1980's - the term cyberspace was first coined by Gibson. Only few people access the cyberspace to hack systems. It seems that in the 1990's, the metaverse has become a more public place following the same rules as reality (eg gravity). I have not yet read cyberpunk novels dealing with virtual worlds and published in the 2000's. However, movies like eXistenZ (1999), The Matrix (1999-2003), Avalon (2001) [see my post about some of the aspects these three movies share] or Paprika (2006) seem to have accepted that virtual worlds are accessible and comparable to the real world. Moreover, these movies have raised issues to the public: becoming locked/imprisoned inside virtual worlds, being able to make the distinction between real and virtual, or using the technology to achieve personal goals, whether morally good (helping clients solve their psychological problems) or bad (governing the world!).