Consistent Message: SL is/isn't a game

What's my mindset then?

Jonq, you have a decent point about SL not changing just because you call it something else. If we were to go on a philosophical tangent, we could have a nice discussion about etymology.

In any event, while its true that your experience won't change - you have already been in SL a while. (ha! I just deleted "play SL"! I admit!) How SL is presented to new residents and people considering joining is a whole different issue. Because they don't have the direct experience with SL, the only thing they have to go on is the description. Suddenly, what you label it as becomes very dominant in forming an impression of SL.

I thought what I think is indicative of what I say.. but I just said that.... but I thought it first, and then I typed it... but maybe I typed it before I said it.... I tend to say things after I type them to make sure it sounds like I think it should...

...but that doesn't... maybe I didn't think it through....

Siggy.

(I also do a very good 'who's on first' for discerning customers)

I just say:

Everquest is to MUD

as

Secondlife is to MOO...

That gets the point across to my friends who like to spend leisure hours on their electronic devices which are hooked up to the internet..

Then again, my nephew did come up during his visit and say 'cool... what game you playing'....

Imagine how enthused he would have been if I tore him a second asshole over that.. instead I said 'Second Life... and they even have a teen grid'

(If I was on the teen grid I would have the fear as soon as that lil bastard gets a better computer).

Siggy.

And what about the ppl that are already in SL and think of it as a game/entertainment?

What will become of us?

Are we to be outcasts? Or rehabilitated and expected to conform to this new way?

Which brings up a good point, When I invite ppl to SL now what exactly do I tell them it is, if not a game.

Wow I wish this day had never come, ack bummer.

We're f*cked

No seriously - it is to diff people what it is... if to me, or you, or anyone else it's a game.. then short of 8 hours of torture consisting of being tied to a chair, a chamber pot on your head, 2 floury baps down your trousers and an angry chihauha.....

.... there aint nothing anyone can do to change that - other than shout from the bastions 'IT'S NOT A GAME' to the empty air... and thats about all it is.

Now if someone were to 'classify' me into a 'mindset' because of that.. well... let em!

Doesn't change me, mine, or my game, one lil bit..

Question : Does the (insert bible thumper here) on your doorstep REALLY make you believe you're going to hell if your an athiest? No... you listen to him till he stops being cute then close the door in hem's face.


Siggy.

I noticed your post in the Hotline, Enabran, and thought you made a good point.

I'll tell you what I think is the important point here, which is being entirely overlooked.

And that is that a Linden doesn't need to come onto the Hotline and tell a relatively new player - who is maybe posting something that hits a little too close to home and is too close to a taboo subject for comfort - and chastise him for using the term "ingame."

THAT is the crime here. You don't run off new players by condescendingly explaining to them that their grasp of English is somehow amiss. Especially when they very likely got the idea that SL is a game because it is promoted on the game sites, and in articles about . . . guess what . . . GAMES.

That's my first point. My second point is I have a great deal of distaste for forcing politically correct language in cases where no one is being hurt . (I'm in favor of politically correct language when the incorrect version is hurting people).

I have even greater distaste for anyone who thinks they are going to determine for me what I am going to call something. In fact, I purely refuse to go along with it. I will stop calling SL a game the day it stops looking and feeling and being not very much different from other games out there.

And they pull all mention of it from every gaming web sites, AND they make sure that any reporter reporting on online games does NOT include SL in their story.

Now if they want to indoctrinate their beliefs into every Linden employee and make it a rule that the ghastly word "game" never pass their lips, then fine, they can do that. What they can't - and shouldn't - do is try to get everybody else to go along with it.

When the day comes where most people don't consider this a game, then it won't be referred to as a game. Until that time should come, you can't force it, and you only turn players off by trying to.

coco

For the hell of it I looked back in the archives about SL and how it was marketed as a game.

"If you don't know where you have been, how do you know where your going?"

In the begining it was marketed as a game.

Second Life preview on GameSpy

All along its been marketed as a game. So you might now understand why I am shocked over this news.

Cat

"but its just a game, come on"
R: "maybe for you but its paying my studies"
"hey refund me, it costed me 600L$ and i dont use it anymore"
R: "but its just a game, come on ^_^"

Most times the 'its just a game' comes out when ppl either;

a) f*ck up or
b) Lose a forum argument



Siggy.

Which is my point, really.

The term "game" offers semantic challenges that guarantee this hairy little argument crops up repeatedly. To me a game is structured and has specific goals. Other's have a broader definition tied in with "play" - which is a pretty free-form word itself.

When I script or build in SL, I am playing. Then again, when I was managing an IT department, I considered that a form of play, too - it was fun to do. Either could be called a game for similar reasons.

So, arguing the semantic isn't going to get anyone anywhere. So, let me try and bypass that with metaphor:

SL is akin to the sandlot near the neighborhood I grew up in. It was the mercado where merchants did some very serious business. They had booths and kiosks and trailers they brought every weekday and traded, sold and bartered. Playfulness was frowned upon - I know, I was frowned at quite a bit. However, on the weekends, it was the perfect place for baseball, hide-n-seek, "house", and standing around socialising with the rest of the neighborhood urchins.

In other words, SL is a place. That's it. We use it like we do any other place. People that hang around and chat are just as right about how to use the place as those who play trigo as those who sell clothes as those who trade land as those who script...

That being said: I still have a bit of a problem with calling SL a game, simply becasue it engenders expectations that are not appropriate. This is something we build. Games are things a company builds and players pay to play. When something is lacking, those players have every right to look to the company that created the game to fix the hole. In SL's case, unless it's some core tool that's missing, it's up to us to fill needs and desires.

Language is how we get ideas across to one another. I belive that using the term "game" to describe SL misses the larger point. SL is a place: The sandlot where all sorts of different things go on, not just games.

"GamePro
Heh, anyone who gets GamePro (I have NO idea why I get it, I don't even own a new console system, but for some reason, I must be getting a year's free subscription or something), there's a preview of Second Life in this month's issue. It's pretty much the same thing we've already heard, of course.
__________________
-Datura"

GamePro Article posts in the archives

.
01-15-2003

Jillian is much, much better at making this point than I am. Exactly right.

Again, remembe the context of the article I linked - this is for the general public, not geeks who know a MUD isn't wet dirt, and a MOO isn't what a cow says.


Fallacy: False dichotomy. (Or straw man, whichever you prefer to call it)

There is a middle ground. You could have added "It's an online world" in your statement to your nephew. I doubt his rectum would suffer any lacerations due to that.

That article makes it perfectly clear that SL is not exactly a game.

But you do have a point - at its infancy, SL was nothing more than a game. It really wasn't until IP Retention and land holdings in 1.2 that you really had any potential for more.

March 08, 2005
Cory On Stage at Serious Games

Yesterday the Serious Games Summit kicked off, and our very own Cory Ondrejka gave a presentation about Second Life. An interesting and thorough summary of the presentation can be found on theWonderland blog.

-- Robin Linden

Cory Ondrejka
VP of Product Development for Linden Lab
BUILDING SERIOUS GAME MMPS USING SECOND LIFE

"Gameplay: There area no traditional RPG elements in SL. You do not level up. People are competitive about the metrics, but is it a game? We ask our community this occasionally, and it’s split about 50-50 either way. .... "

Cory Posted that in March of this year, so something changed in the last 5 months. What?

To wit he would say 'a game?' - you aint me and I aint you.... and thus doth nature balance herself.

And why would I add that anyways? To me it's a game!

If I were to respond in the usual manner of the forums, I would be taking him by the throat and screaming in his face - using all kinds of pendantry and all the big words and terms I could think of.

Thats the way I see it, you can call it a gingerbread man if it makes you feel righterer though.

(While it is true that the manner in which an argument is presented will affect whether people believe that its conclusion is true, nonetheless, the truth of the conclusion
does not depend on the manner in which the argument is presented. In order to show that this fallacy is being committed, show that the style in this case does not affect the
truth or falsity of the conclusion.)

That is heresay, you don't think it was a game after 1.2. LL didn't say that, and as of March 08,05 they still felt it was a game.

March 08, 2005
Cory On Stage at Serious Games

Yesterday the Serious Games Summit kicked off, and our very own Cory Ondrejka gave a presentation about Second Life. An interesting and thorough summary of the presentation can be found on theWonderland blog.

-- Robin Linden

Cory Ondrejka
VP of Product Development for Linden Lab
BUILDING SERIOUS GAME MMPS USING SECOND LIFE

"Gameplay: There area no traditional RPG elements in SL. You do not level up. People are competitive about the metrics, but is it a game? We ask our community this occasionally, and it’s split about 50-50 either way. .... "

Something changed in the last 5 months. What? Not my style of game play. I don't realy care for being told that suddenly SL is no longer a game. More so I don't like how these changes are occuring and being implimented.

What exactly has changed since March that suddenly is suppose to change SL? I don't see how it has affected my game.

Wow you know what is realy a trip I almost feel like my money isn't wanted by LL, because I don't percieve SL the way some ppl do. How the hell is that good for the sucess of LL?

Cat

Why is it so hard to believe that SL can be a game to some, and something else to others? Obviously LL understands that gaming is important or they wouldnt have Game Dev contests, at the same time they promote content developers that do not creating gaming in SL. It is not an either or thing, both can exist. SL in and of itself is not a game, but it can support gaming and attract the gaming crowd. I don't undstand why this is such a complicated concept to grasp.

That be my point precicely...

I offer this as my humble analysis (ooh I said anal!) of the situation:

|<------------------------------ SOME PEOPLES VIEWPOINT---------------------------->|

as you can see it's quite large... and can see others ideas may not be the same... where as others could be diagrammed as

|<GODDAMNITI'MRIGHT>|

I think there is room for everyone. It's a few Linden's saying it's not a game. One in this thread. So there is no longer any doubt, as to how LL feels.

Fine it's no longer a game, ok now what?

But in the end, does that really matter?

It doesn't to me... Some people think Pollack is art too... but I still think its a madmans paint spill.

Siggy.

The essential problem is the "game"rs are stating "it's a game" not "it's a game to me".

To all people, it's a platform. And to some people, that platform can be a game.

Imagine a Venn diagram - "game" would a circle inside a larger circle "platform".

Well Siggy I would realy like to think it doesn't matter. However I'm sitting here thinking, ok so what's next then? It's not a game, what the hell is it then LOL. A marketing tool? Naw sorry not interested. Not a marketing tool? Ok so what is it?

Well to you...

I could put it in a bigger circle called 'My bedroom'....

Shakespeare said all the world was a stage too..

Bottom line: Who cares?