No, Castronova is not another Mario and Ludium is not a game. But they might be at some time in the future.
Edward Castronova is an Indiana University assistant professor of Economy who investigates synthetic online games and 'worlds' (Runescape, Sims) and particularly all transgressions between these worlds and real life. Soon, artificial worlds may become more real than we think, and real life may turn out to be artificial in ways we never imagined.
Castronova has written reports, papers and a book. Links to these can be found on his Indiana Uni homepage . For those who have no access to the New York Times website I copy a review of his book below.
Recently Castronova also organised a conference called Ludium, in which attendants explored whether they could engage in meaningful acedemic work within the framework of an online game. The results can be seen on the website of his newly established Arden Institute.
What do the experienced gamers in this forum think of Castronova's theories?
The new York Times
December 18, 2005
Generation Xbox
review by HUGO LINDGREN
Here's a theory that may be neither original nor empirically defensible but feels true: The more fun an activity is, the less interesting it is to read about. War producces great journalism; water-skiing does not. Can you guess where video games fall on this spectrum? In the last few years, a great many words have been expended to report on this flourishing cultural phenomenon. Most accounts begin with a hyperactive presentation of statistics, which we will not rehearse here. This is all you need to know (and perhaps already do): Video games have grown into a huge business, outpacing the movie industry and bulldozing childhood as we knew it. We adults are not safe, either. Whether they admit it or not, you probably have friends who can be found awake at 2 a.m. disemboweling orcs, foiling terrorist plots and scooping up fumbles and running them into end zones.
It is the opinion of Edward Castronova, author of "Synthetic Worlds," that such electronic experiences are not merely a hedge against boredom but a profound indicator of where the entire world is heading. Online, off-line; reality, fantasy - these distinctions will cease to matter as more and more of us pass our time in virtual environments. Economies will evolve as we pay real money for virtual goods and vice versa. Conflicts that begin online will spill into the real world and back. Laws will be written to protect our newfound interests.
Castronova's vision has elements of both utopia and dystopia. But mostly he is bullish. Life in these alternative zones may eventually become so fulfilling, he contends, "that a fairly substantial exodus may loom in the distance." He means this, really. Like the Irish and Italians who left their native lands in the late 19th century to come to America, gamers could create a genuine human migration, away from the real and into the virtual. What will be real then?
The specific object of Castronova's scholarship is Mmorpgs, the inelegant acronym for "massively multiplayer online role-playing games," which can involve hundreds of thousands of players plugging in from all over the world. A disproportionate number of these games revolve around dwarfs, wizards, quests and magic lands, though the content is becoming ever more diverse. These days, there's a Mmorpg out there to suit the interests of just about anybody. One game, The Sims Online, merely simulates suburban life, and it is madly popular.
Castronova is an economist who teaches telecommunications at Indiana University, and among academic economists he is a bold contrarian, if only because he dares to take computer games seriously. My oh my does he take them seriously. In dense, lifeless prose, he sledgehammers away at his major themes, constantly pausing to review the material he's just covered and preview what is to come. His sweeping conclusions are intriguing - get ready for governments sending agents into virtual worlds and waging war with avatars! - but he's not a vivid enough writer to animate most of his futuristic abstractions.
In "Smartbomb," Heather Chaplin and Aaron Ruby try harder to entertain. They've organized their history of video games as a study of ambitious individuals, breaking it down into a series of breezy, magazinelike profiles of uneven quality. A lot of the original reporting seems to take place at gaming conventions, which is not where one imagines the really interesting stuff happens. But the stories are pretty good, even when they don't break new ground. Rereading the legend of Nolan Bushnell and the founding of Atari is like hearing a bar band play a spirited "Twist and Shout" - enjoyable, but no additional points for Degree of Difficulty.
In two spots, though, Chaplin and Ruby really score. In their chapter on Mmorpgs, they sensitively profile David Reber, a 30-year-old Californian who spends every free moment chained to his computer, acting out a series of intense fantasy existences that provide him with the companionship and sense of achievement missing in his real life. Just as Castronova would predict, Reber withdraws from the real world as his fantasy life deepens - he has lapses at work and when Chaplin and Ruby last check in with him, he's moved back in with his mother.
The other winning portrait in "Smartbomb" is of Will Wright, the creator of SimCity, as well as its offshoot The Sims, and a new simulation called Spore in which players guide a new creature from its biological origin onward. In an industry that mimics Hollywood's craven predilection for cheap, gory theatrics, Wright stands apart as a humble philosopher in love with the potential of games to expand the human experience. Though Chaplin and Ruby don't have much to say themselves about the significance of video games, they wisely hand matters over to Wright, who foresees a future that might just keep us all staying up past 2 a.m. "I think one thing that's unique about video games is not only that they can respond to you but down the road they'll be able to adapt themselves to you. They'll learn your desires," he says. "It might just be that games become deeply personal artifacts - more like dreams."
Hugo Lindgren is the editorial director of New York Magazine
