Play Community Diaspora: Puzzled and Puzzed, until their Puzzlers Were Sore

In the second section of Communities at Play, Pearce talks about the specifics of the Uru Diaspora. She recounts the entire history of the group, from the genre of the Myst series to the actual Uru game to the eventual immigration to new communities. Each step in the process is couched in its relation to the virtual environment as well as to the social contingencies of the group.

One of the particularly interesting parts of the story is the way The Gathering of the Uru (TGU) was the extent to which the original game shaped the culture of the group. The Myst series, focused on puzzles and logic games, had previously been a single player adventure, and so the change to a multiplayer environment was a drastic change. As the players became accustomed to interacting with one another, they inflected the passion from their singular adventure into their group dynamic, so as to make just as rich and developed a world as it had been for their own personal experience. These group members valued the ability to solve puzzles, and enjoyed the idea of a non-violent game. Later, when the group was forced to move, there was a similar puzzle solving mentality, and the community valued logical debate as well as practical innovation. Pearce describes that even when the group met in real life, there was an underlying ethic of solving the spatial challenges of the environment. The fact that the group valued intelligence (as they conceived of as a break away from violence) also contributed to the fact that the group stayed together, as the original game had a stronger focus on solving individual puzzles than to compete against one another for status. While the section certainly covered how the group stayed together, it would have also been interesting to learn why members left. What aspects of the group’s vision turned some members away? What aspects of the new There environment or Second Life environment appealed more to some (graphic designers, builders) and less to the players of the original game (problem solvers)?

Another point of interest is the decisions of where to go once Uru was shut down. Though the group came together on an online forum, they desired to see one another again, and to play in a new spatial environment. Some wanted to build their own new virtual environment, while others wanted to enter an easily accessible already-built environment so as to not lose the group’s momentum. While some members of the group began playing with the construction of a new environment, many members moved to either Second Life or There in order to play. The group argued over which environment should be the “real” environment, as Second Life offered more building tools, but There offered a richer range of character expression and the ability to see great distances. In the end both communities were inhabited, and Pearce even include pictures from the eventual There, Second Life, and Custom virtual worlds. Pearce goes into detail about the management style during these times, which was often handled by neutralizing the situation and letting people chose their own service to join.

 Again the history of the community came into play, but this time in a way which was removed from the group’s relation to the original game. Because the group had already lost their previous virtual homes, they became very mindful of the game’s political situation. Several members of TGU were on There’s Member Advisory Board, and the group collectively petitioned There when it seemed as if it was about to go under. This is all to say that the group was not only a product of the game, but was also a product of its own historical background.

The dynamics of Pearce’s writing, though not what I would usually read or write, do particularly well in describing the community as a group of refugees, coping with similar concerns as “real world” refugees. There were some moments which weren’t incredibly surprising, such as the group’s grieving period and anxiety over the loss of their avatar, but there was an interesting discussion when it came to the physicality of finding a new space. When the TGU-ers, or, Uruvians, came to There, they were met with the same arguments as an immigrant in a foreign land. Though they weren’t hostile, there was worry among the Therevians that the Uruvians would take over because they were intelligent, focused, and took up a lot of space. It is this last issue which is the most interesting, as we usually conceive of “cyberspace” as this infinite cosmos where anything is possible, often forgetting that there are physical servers that have to hold the data, and thus a limited amount of physical space. Pearce’s description locates the special dynamics of gameplay communities in a very similar way to the spatial dynamics of the “real world.”

Questions:

A large part of this section is dedicated to identity, and how people are connected to their avatars. What are the benefits of Minecraft avatars over Second Life Avatars and vice versa?

Where in Second Life, There, and Uru all feature the third person view over the first person view, Minecraft does the opposite, putting the player in first person over third person. How does this effect gameplay and the community with consideration to Pearce’s arguments?

Would you write a poem about a game? If so what kind of game would you write it about and what would the tone of the poem be? Is poetic written expression an extension of playful communal activity? (And if so could we consider humorous wordplay within the same logic as Pearce’s ludisphere?)

Images @:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/b/b0/Uru_box_art.png

http://images.icanhascheezburger.com/completestore/2008/11/26/128722039193034385.jpg

https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgho7JPgkmPt4nbenV6-ka4DCRgyUMv37gSb2dWp33jicYN0FcEbHXGgJQ6CKQRgl9QLI8qc8KITLUqGnPBETtwFScF-R654Xv6Gj6BUQ0MfvSb1HRs6B9mUeB6aGl89UVqxHoZXIhokWzP/s1600/diaspora.png