More gaming thoughts

In reading the previous discussion on gaming, it brought to mind an article I read a while back in regards to why people play video games... for the life of me I can't find the article again, but the author made some excellent points. If I am remembering correctly, one of his main points was that we play video games because they offer us an escape into freedom of choice that we are not allowed to have in real life.

I believe he hit the nail on the head there. In video games no one tells us what to do, we get to make our own choices and live or die with them.

I believe this is a potentially powerful medium for us to get our ideas across to a very wide and diverse audience.

I have been playing EVE lately and enjoy it, to the extent that it does indeed give you some form of freedom in a very large universe, yet when you start to become with the game you realize that it is centered around the "old world order" and the European view of society - big bad corporations (of course sponsored by the state) who war against each other for a larger slice of the governing pie.

From our view we see the same old state structure behind the game... a game of big government supported corporations, mercantilism, guilds, and taxes.

I love the potential of the game, I dislike the framework of future civilization is built on.

It is my fervent hope that someday, someone somewhere will develop a libertarian/anarcho-capitalist video game that will truly show the power of the freedom of choice, markets and association.

I think it's an idea who's time has come, what do you think?

Wow that is an interesting idea. The idea that we enjoy the game because it gives us the freedom of choice is a good one but I would take it one step further and say that it is the freedom to chose without any guilt/ consequence's. Which is maybe why violent games are so popular. You get to choose who lives and dies but never have to feel bad about the decision. no?

I think that's a good point on the surface of the argument, and I think if we dug just a bit deeper, we could find even more common ground. For instance - In EVE, if you steel or kill there is the very real probability that at some point, one of the other characters will get even with you, whether they do it on their own, hire a hit-man, or you anger a corporation that the player belongs to. Sure, it may take them a while, but there are those people out there that will hold a grudge (righteously so) and hunt you down like a rabid dog. So there are consequences.... Even on the larger scale of war, there is a very real financial loss. My argument with EVE is that those consequences are not severe enough to truly discourage bad behavior (like war). I am not talking about the creators of the game coming in and banning an account, but I am talking about things like skill points being lost (which represents a very real commodity - time - which can't be replaced regardless of the money invested) rather than being transferred to a new clone (new spawn). Having said that, I am not sure what the answer to the proper consequences are. I imagine if the consequences are too high, then the creators of the game would lose subscribers... not an ideal solution either. But there must be a balance that would work, because as of now, a person could get away with a lot if they had the time and money to invest. As for the topic of guilt, I think you may be a little closer to home, but I think the argument is modified by the fact that video games are based on endless resources and no real property. Not much to feel guilty of when you are not really destroying anything that isn't free anyways, or something that won't respawn instantly. You own what your player is using at the moment, but in most FPS, once an item is purchased, it is yours forever, and even when you die, there is a new you and you have all of your same equipment (or until a new version of the game comes out). I am not so sure if a MMORPG system - like EVE - encourages the same behavior, and if it does, it certainly isn't to the same extent. I do believe that there is a difference in attitude. In EVE, you don't see people haphazardly jumping into combat, it is a calculated risk (for the most part) because they don't want to lose their cyber property - which represents very real effort (and the very real and limited commodity of time) on the players part. I think this returns us back to the first argument, about consequences. Speaking for myself, I can say that when I play EVE, I am a very conscientious player. I have never attempted to destroy or steal another persons property, as I realize that even the artificial property does come at a very real cost to the player (time invested in the game, or actual money spent to purchase items in the game). I am fairly confident that I am not the only player who feels this responsibility and, yes, even guilt, if a inappropriate action has been taken. For these reasons, and many more like them, I believe today, more strongly than ever, that the time for a libertarian video game has come. It is a medium that can reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions, and truly teach economic sense and sanity through real (gamer life) experiences. I long to see a free market in a video game, let the players choose for themselves which medium of exchange they would like to use. Allow gamers to chose a fiat system if they so choose (like the ISK in EVE), and you would see their system collapse all on it's own (as EVE's economy is proving), just as we see it happening globally non in RL... just as history teaches us it will. I think the parallels would be too great to ignore. In a game the size of EVE, you could have a working scale model for people to experiment and learn with. Additionally, EVE has it's own Quarterly Economic Newsletter the EVE QEN which would in itself be a great educational tool, if the developer would simply start asking the correct questions about why the economy functions the way it does. Who knows, perhaps the developer, who's country (Iceland) just went through a banking meltdown, may come to see the logic behind a free market economy. I am of the strong opinion that if you freed up the economy in a game like EVE, you would see the more successful banks and corporations as the ones that deal most fairly to it's members, you wouldn't need a game developer trying to play the part of the FED and backing a fiat currency. A wonderful life lesson. Top off an exciting and free market game with an educational QEN which would explain why things are happen the way that they do, and I believe you would have a game that could be both recreational and educational, something that could reach, and wake up many people that are currently caught in the matrix.

There have been games with libertarian ideas or themes, Bioshock comes to mind. No one has made a virtual world that is a libertarian paradise yet. I just started working on this idea. Right now, I am working on the prototype and technology base while saving up to fund the start up a studio. Once the prototype is stable, and possibly a small round of angel investing, my friends (partners) who also have game development experience will join the team. It will be a few years before we are ready for a commercial launch. The game will be a persistent virtual fantasy world, where players can build cities and civilizations. One of the choices the players will have to make is the form (or lack of!) governance for their city. I fully expect free societies to be wildly more prosperous and popular than the more centrally controlled senate or monarch based governments... but I don't want to eliminate the choice. I want the players to discover for themselves what model of governance is best for humanity. There are definitely von Mises and Rothbard influences in the game design :-)

That is a brilliant plan. I am not sure if it will help or not, but Robert Murphy wrote an article (http://mises.org/daily/4807) where he mentions a way to raise funds via the internet called The Point (http://www.thepoint.com/doc/learn_more). I would love to see your game developed, and would contribute through something like The Point. Keep up posted please.

I had great hopes for Fallout New Vegas. I didn't play the first iterations of the game, but the new one looked very promising for an anarchist experiment. Its more story driven than EVE, but I was able to single-handedly kill off two of the major governmental factions in the game. One the NCR (New California Republic) a warmongering old world government that is now too big to function (actually now they're too small to function because they're all dead), and the other The Legion (slavers and warlords). The writers seem to just bring in new versions of the same entities. Now I have a new Legion army to kill off, and I'm running low on freedom bullets. I was actually trying to break the game from a story stand point, but I guess the developers had planned for that. I saw a Drew Carey, Reason TV episode about Second Life. I thought they had some very anarchistic elements to the game, just not enough fascist killing to draw me in. http://www.reason.tv/video/show/second-life I think the dev's of Second Life removed some of the choice elements that made the game so attractive, so I'd definitely play a more ancap game if one is ever made. Cheers,