Online games increasingly a place for protest, social activism

You can see Anne-Marie Schleiner's Velvet-Strike project at
opensorcery.net.

If like myself, you don't game much, the screenshots will give you a good
idea.

http://www.opensorcery.net/velvet-strike/

Shoot love bubbles,
Brett

On Mon, 10 Feb 2003, Ryan Griffis wrote:

> i know this has been cross posted (i pulled it from
> Nettime) but thought it was worth reposting for those
> that haven't read it…
>
> NICK WADHAMS
> Canadian Press
>
> Friday, February 07, 2003
>
> NEW YORK (AP) - Gone are the days when playing video
> games online meant
> simply playing a hand of poker or battling your
> buddies to the death in
> a
> giant arena you couldn't control.
>
> Many games are now all about role-playing, and some
> players aren't
> participating to escape terrestrial life. They're
> getting on virtual
> soapboxes and organizing all manner of protests in
> cyberspace. Gamers
> have
> protested the impending war in Iraq, started
> newspapers, gathered
> charitable
> donations - done myriad things they already do, or
> wish they could do,
> in
> the real world.
>
> The line between online gaming and the real world "is
> a lot thinner
> than
> people give it credit for," said Raph Koster, creative
> director of the
> Austin, Texas, office of Sony Entertainment.
>
> At the new online community There.com, gamers can
> clothe their in-game
> marionettes and socialize with others. Already, some
> players angry with
> the
> U.S. policy on Iraq have organized a peace rally and
> clad their
> characters
> with the peace symbol.
>
> Not earth-shattering, to be sure, but exemplary of how
> thousands of
> people
> are using online games to either project their real
> voices or speak up
> as
> they might not in real life.
>
> Players of EverQuest, the most popular online game in
> the United States
> with
> about 85,000 playing at any time, held in-game
> candlelight vigils after
> the
> Sept. 11 attacks and even created memorials within the
> game's universe.
>
> Such games have become "online petri dishes" to show
> how far people
> will go
> in wedding their real and virtual lives, said Amy Jo
> Kim, an
> online-games
> designer involved with There.com.
>
> People have been attacked in real life for killing
> other contestants
> playing
> Lineage, the world's most popular online game with
> four million active
> subscribers. And hundreds of players have gathered
> within the game to
> protest software glitches.
>
> The latest game to hit the market is the Sims Online,
> from Electronic
> Arts.
> Players have control over a character and act out
> real-life fantasies.
> They've built in-game restaurants, created several
> radio stations and
> even a
> newspaper.
>
> And they are not shy about complaining.
>
> Freelance writer Tony Walsh didn't like a deal
> Electronic Arts made to
> insert a McDonald's kiosk into the game, so he
> organized a protest.
>
> Other gamers have no trouble co-opting games entirely.
>
> To protest the possibility of war, Anne-Marie
> Schleiner designed a hack
> for
> Counterstrike, a popular first-person shooter. With
> "Velvet-Strike,"
> players
> could display virtual posters with such messages as
> "Hostage of an
> Online
> Fantasy" and "You are your most dangerous enemy."
>
> It led to some confusion among gamers who didn't want
> reality creeping
> into
> their fantasy world, Schleiner said.
>
> "It was interesting, disturbing and entertaining to
> get so much
> negative
> feedback from all different directions - some pure
> old-fashioned
> misogyny,"
> she said.
>
> Issues of how far gamers can push have yet to be fully
> tested. Like
> movies,
> games are often based on brands, and designers aren't
> necessarily
> willing to
> have their brands co-opted.
>
> Likely to push those limits is the forthcoming Star
> Wars Galaxies,
> which
> will put players inside the George Lucas popular
> universe. That creates
> a
> problem, because the Star Wars world is one of the
> most cherished
> creations
> in the history of fantasy fiction.
>
> "Somebody saying something in the game and being
> witnessed by somebody
> else
> can reflect not just on the game but on Lucasfilm and
> George Lucas,"
> said
> Koster, a lead designer for Galaxies, which is due in
> April. "If
> someone
> started walking around in the San Diego Zoo screaming
> profanity or
> handing
> out Nazi leaflets, the park would remove them from the
> premises. We
> need to
> be able to do that also."
>
> Should free-speech values extend to the online world?
> Will there be a
> future
> lawsuit from someone who claims they were unlawfully
> barred for
> maligning
> George Lucas?
>
> Walsh, for one, believes gamers should have the very
> same freedoms in
> cyberspace that they have in the physical world.
>
> "Why shouldn't people protest?" he said. "Why
> shouldn't freedom of
> speech be
> as alive in the Sims Online as it is the real world?"
>
> Copyright 2003 The Canadian Press
>
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