Theft, murder, custody battles over virtual goods; I admit I've become terribly blasé about all of them. I barely blinked an eye when another battle went to court recently over the relative real-world value of virtual goods or when I was alerted to one in which losses are counted but property is not in a court in Shanghai.
But more recently I started thinking beyond the property angle. Spurred on by a passing conversation with Ben Sawyer from Digital Mill and the Serious Games Initiative, I began thinking about the importance of shared experience in virtual spaces like Massively Multiplayer Games, and how these may breach offline legal boundaries in ways that I am in no way trained to tackle or even to pontificate. But I'll try.
Before I explain what Ben proposed, I'll give a bit of background on what I view to be the importance of shared experience in virtual worlds for offline life.
I gave a talk last week about one of the reasons I think virtual trade exists: trust. Researchers argue that the existence of established (and utilised) economic systems in online games demonstrates the trust that users/players have in one another: to deliver, to be honest and to reciprocate (if necessary). But it also has repercussions beyond economic motivations. The design of goal-oriented game virtual worlds, from EverQuest to Star Wars Galaxies to World of Warcraft, explicitly ensures that people socially interact. It encourages repeated interaction and ultimately the formation of close groups of often very tight friendships. In some cases, the friendships that emerge are reportedly more significant than offline relationships (see, for example, the work of Ba, Ducheneaut, Moore & Nickell, Yee; and for a great typographical distinction between game worlds and social virtual worlds, see Raph Koster's recent post here).
I propose that one of the reasons for this is shared experience. The goals of online games are tied in with drama and tension. People are jointly active in the defeat of enemies; they work together towards success and they share their spoils - sometimes even in joint stores. When they're done with a successful raid, members of the party might ask people when others around to do it again. And if they turn up and everyone works for the common goal (whether you win or not), it's more likely to happen again. And so on. And thus, a bond based upon shared experience is born - which can extend to different spheres, from playing together in different worlds or to networking in the real one. There's a reason the digital elite call World of Warcraft "the new golf". It's because you've chosen to spend your free time with a group of people in a way which demonstrates your commitment to that person or to the team. You get to know them in a deep kind of way.
I'd argue that this is a different kind of bond than one based upon chatting in a chat room. It's task-oriented. It's based upon doing. It's not, "So, what bands did you see lately?"; it's, "Hey, do you remember that time when we did...". The former can lead to shared experience (and sometimes retrospectively offer examples of it). Another important layer in group formation for the WoW set is that the group is united against an enemy. There are clear distinctions between "us" and "them".
A final reason which I believe contributes to the strength of bonds developed in online worlds is that the interaction takes place on the internet. According to quite a lot of internet research, which is perhaps far too much to explain here, the anonymity of internet interaction has implications for the openness and honesty with which people talk about themselves with other people (see for examples the work of McKenna, Bargh & Green - oh and so many others...). The quick bonds which are formulated between people because of the shared successes are enhanced by the unhindered ways which they talk about themselves, and believe others are too.
OK, now that I've covered the reasons hanging out with people in WoW may be more significant than hanging out in person, I'll get to my point.
What happens when parents get divorced? Say Parent A is given custody of Child and Parent B has visiting rights at weekends or holidays. Parent A doesn't play Online Game X but Parent B does, and plays for a couple of hours every night with Child. Does that undermine the judge's custody decision? Child isn't spending time with Parent A when s/he is hanging in Norrath with Parent B, so if Parent A losing out on important time with Child while Parent B and Child are experiencing enhanced shared experience, what implications does this have for future custody rulings?
Taking a more clear-cut (and probably less-emotional) example, what about virtual stalking? Or virtual restraining orders? As identities in cyberspace are mutable, real selves can be hidden by virtual selves. It is not the role of commercial companies to ensure that Account A is allowed to speak with/be within 10 miles of Account B, surely Account A playing with Account B under different cover is in breach of the court's judgement? When will we see restraining orders including time spent in a virtual world?
I don't have the answers. I'm just posing the questions. If anyone can help, please do let us know.
