1] Required Representational Rights
Gamers/users should be the #1 consideration when open debate or dialogues occur over freedoms, parameters, and limitations being considered in virtual, online, and gaming spaces. A country has no diplomatic powers and abilities to impose values, laws and beliefs into legal systems of other countries without force, likewise, non-gaming bodies and non-users should not have any sway on the representations, applications and various uses within gaming and online communities, but only those engaged and familiarized with gaming and online communities and the associated dilemmas.

2] Anti-Harassment Clause
Gamers should not be persecuted for lifestyle, race, gender, or political/religious affiliations.

3] Civility Law
Any forbidden criminal activity or inciting of criminal activity is detrimental to the gaming atmosphere and apparatus and is not allowed. Any such illegal occurrences must be reported. A space for reporting illegal activities must be provided. Investigative means should take place to ensure public safety, and that remarks and actions excessively defaming and harmful should be punished by membership revocation. Those that make false claims should receive equal punishment.

4] Fair Use Law
The online or game world may be used to facilitate anything the real or present-day world can without violating any of its said laws.

5] Freedom of Restriction Law
There shall be no overt means of censorship by any organization whatsoever. There shall be no restriction put in effect that would deny expansion, the use of inter-related tools, the access to funding, or the penetration into school or other real world spaces and environments.

I tried to combine my own beliefs regarding gameplay and persistent worlds with the realistic challenges faced by the owner-stewards of these communities. We’ll see whether or not it worked.

1) Right of Access – Qualified players (for instance, those paying monthly dues, or those who abide by the established code of conduct) have the right to access and interact with the game world in manner that is both convenient to them and consistent with the experiences of other players. The manufacturer may not deny this right to qualified players, and must meet the burden of proof when denying service to unqualified players.

2) Right of Protection – Players, as members of the virtual community, have the right to protection from harm and harassment at the hands of both other players and the manufacturer itself. To this end, measures must be taken to ensure that rules are established, and that penalties for transgressing those rules are created and enforced. These measures include the establishment of a player code of conduct, which outlines expectations and forbidden types of gameplay and communication, and an agreement with gamemasters regarding game session monitoring and dispute arbitration.

3) Right of Service – Players, when issues arise, have the right to a customer service experience that is expedient, courteous, and useful.

4) Right of Freedom – Players have the right to explore and test the boundaries of a game’s code without fear of retribution. By the same token, manufacturers must be willing to adjust their bug-testing practices, and keep sensitive pre-release material out of the game world or on test servers until it is ready for actual public consumption.

5) Right of Property – Players have the right to own persistent digital property within the game world. This ownership is governed by the game’s code of conduct, and the material itself is non-transmittable. Attempts to transmit in-game material through unsanctioned channels are considered violations of the spirit of this right.

1. Right to Choose When to Play
All players have the right to play when and only when they choose to play. The game designers will not impose any mandatory attendance events or times, or a minimum time logged on. The right is in reference to expectations imposed by the game company itself and not to any expectations imposed by in-game groups and guilds with which the player associates.

The first half of this right recognizes that play should, for the most part, be voluntary. Players must be able to choose when to play. Forced play is not play.

In addition, all players have the right to enter the game at any time at which the servers are available. The game company will not impose any time frames during which only certain players have access to the game world.

2. Right to Play Creatively
All players have the right explore different ways in which to play a game. The game designers should not attempt to enforce any narrative script or role upon the player. Players have the right to test the boundaries of the environment and processes of the game.

The essential creative character of play should ultimately derive from the player rather than the game itself. The purpose of the design of the game is to assist players in their creative role.

3. Right to Understanding Rules of Change

All players have the right to access to documented procedures that detail the decision and implementation procedures used by game designers in making changes to game rules and contents that will affect the value and effectiveness to the player’s avatar and possessions. These procedures will be strictly adhered to by the game designers. Any relevant changes made by the game designers that to not comply with documented procedures will constitute a breach of contract on the part of the game company.

This right arises from the fact that the player’s avatar and in game possessions represent a real world value to the player both in terms of the time investment by the player and the real world market value of those items.

4. Right to Recourse
The game company will establish a panel to which gamers who believe that Right # 3 has been violated can bring their grievances. The panel will decide whether to reverse the offending changes, recompense the player for an agreed upon monetary or in-game reward, or to decide that no breach of contract has occurred.

If the panel rules that no breach has occurred, the player has the right to take their grievance to a real world court without retribution from the game company.

The purpose of this right is to ensure enforcement of Right #3 and to acknowledge the fact that the player and game company have entered into a real world contract that must be adhered to by both parties.

5. Right to Equal Choices.
All players have equal access to all classes, races, and items in the game. All players should begin game with equal choices chances of success within game. There should be no priced choices/advantages made available by the game company, nor should there be any advantages/disadvantages pertaining to real world characteristics (nationality, religion, etc) of the player.

While the membrane dividing the game world from the real world is porous, the architecture of discrimination (economic disparity, prejudice, etc.) should not be intentionally coded into the game.

No readings for this week: I’d wanted to spend time discussing broadly the social characterization of games, gaming, and play by Congress, business communities, communities of faith, and so on, but I think that the more productive thing to do is reserve time to (1) talk further about player’s rights propositions, and (2) further discuss your game design. On Monday, we’ll discuss additionally the way that several major players in game design have characterized the ideals of game play.

We’ll still review Sutton-Smith’s Ambiguity of Play on the 28th (not this Monday, but next). It is a modest text, but nearly every paragraph is worth reading twice. Reserve ample time for its review.

So after thinking about this for sometime, here are my five rights gamers deserve, regardless of the situations:

1. Freedom from bullying or verbal/textual abuse

Castronova discusses the importance of play, in that it only “serves it purpose when it is play, and therefore not serious” (p.250). Castronova’s argument I believe is applicable to this right because I think for the tenets of play it is important that there be no outside forces that prevent gamers from experiencing the full benefits of play. When exterior forces disrupt play and it’s ability to be enjoyed, the concept of play is corrupted

2. Freedom from persecution from Internet providers (ie net neutrality. Internet providers cannot discriminate based on the amount of bandwidth usage)

Ok, so this may not be grounded in any of the readings, but it is a current event. I may be biased for this one, but I don’t believe that internet providers should be able to discriminate against those who use online capabilities to their full advantage.

3. Freedom from having personal information sold to outside users AND 4. Protection by the developer from malicious software.

For both #3 and #4, I think that Huizinga’s idea of the “magic circle” applies greatly. In each Right, the personal gamer’s information usurped and gamer’s ability to play is being hampered by external forces. The magic circle of the gaming environment is broken by forces either trying to corrupt the gaming platforms or taking the gamers person information to use for other-than-gaming purposes.

5. Protection of and rights over their creations.

Gee talks about video games as an art form. I’m use Gee for this example because conventional artists have control (for the most part) over their works, whether in the form of a painting, novel, script, etc. Video games should be the same way. While developers create a different type of paints, brushes, and canvases for gamers to use, when they create a character and avatar, individuality and artistic expression go into the works. Additionally, Castronova talks about the value of virtual properties, saying that assets in synthetic worlds are “clearly property and the product of individual effort” (260). I use this to defend a person’s character/effort as intellectual property

Here are my rights of players. I’ve taken some language from both the Bill of Rights and the U.S. Patients bill of rights.

Right to play fairly and in a civil manner
Developers can charge for access and require certain technology in order to play
Developers can institute policies and guidelines to ensure playability
Developers cannot prohibit access for any reason other than in-game behavior

Right to receive a full disclosure of current game policies in their own language
Includes notification when game policies are changed

Right to a fair, efficient, and transparent process for resolving differences with other players and game administrators
Includes a rigorous system of internal review and an independent system of external review
Requires all bans to be made public, which includes a statement by the banned player

Right to peacefully assemble in the game and petition administrators for a redress of grievances
Players cannot be censored or banned simply for discussing suspensions or criticizing the game
Developers can create a separate space for the exclusive exercise of this type of speech
Civil disobedience that purposely breaks the functionality of the game can be punished

Right to expect a reasonable level of service
Excessive downtime, loss of items, server crashes, etc., can be grounds for requesting refund of access charge

www.gamepolitics.com is a site worth checking out. There’s lots of different post about how games are being viewed, and accepted in various groups, communities, and organizations.

One of the posts
(http://www.gulfnews.com/nation/Government/10206220.html
shows how the game GOD OF WAR was being received and distributed in the United Arab Emirates, a nation I thought was fairly accepting to the west but I guess not.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120847452708124683.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Here is another story of democrats going wild in Second Life by demonstrating at online rallies held for candidates. Apparently Obama supporters aren’t hesitating to crash Hillary events and Hillary supporters are being equally disruptive at Obama events.

And one more link on education evolving in Scotland’s curriculum.
http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/gaming/a93743/games-design-to-be-taught-in-schools.html

There is other great postings that I will only make mention of since I don’t have all the facts on hand. There is much discussion and consideration in many posts on whether stances on games, media, and censorship are going to play a role in voter’s decisions this upcoming election. Points of reference being made like one having to do with the VP candidate in the Green Party making some defaming and baseless remarks about video game links to school shootings. There is a story on Singapore establishing its own rating systems that gel with its own cultural leanings. And there is a really interesting story…OK, one more link.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYObhzZgzv8&eurl

Its of Resident Evil 5 coming out later this year and its will likely to be THE MOST CONTROVERSIAL GAME TO DATE, not for its obvious gore and graphic violence but for the fact that it takes place in Haiti or Africa or someplace, and the people/zombies you’re killing are all black and poor and throw in the mindless factor…well, you’ve just set yourself up for a visit from every Reverend Jesse Jackson crazy there is. So once again, the debate will begin again this year on whether games go too far, how they are a mind controlling apparatuses established by whites or the bourgeoisie capitalist pigs, you name it, to usurp authority and oppress….ugh
-Luke

Richard Bartle blogged the other day about a roundtable he chaired at an indie game designers’ conference on “Government Interference in MMORPGs.” Discussing an issue we pointed to yesterday but did not pursue very far, he writes:

The way it worked, I presented a number of scenarios in turn, ramping up each one of them to see when (if ever) the situation would become so intolerable that it would stop the attendees from ever wanting to develop an MMORPG.

“Some [hypothetical scenarios] were irritating,” he recalls, but for the most part, the developers agreed it wouldn’t make them quit the business. Governmental worry over money laundering was a typical example: “[G]overnment requirements for tracking every single transaction to prevent fraud fell into this category: it adds a huge overhead [both to bandwidth and developer responsibilities], but it’s something people can just about live with.”

Notably, there were two exceptions to developers’ willingness to work with governmental oversight:

If a real-world government decreed that players had to be elected to the live team, and that the recommendations of these players had by law to be implemented, then that was a step too far. Developers simply could not operate MMORPGs under those circumstances.

Further,

…if players were given real-life ownership of their characters or their characters’ in-world inventory, then developers would draw the line. They’d be so hamstrung by such a law that they wouldn’t be able to create MMORPGs if it applied.

To my mind, the important issue here is how these are not matters of human rights or “digital dignity.” The remarkable thing is that even “indie” developers are engaged in Realpolitik: The “Rhetoric of Freedom,” as Sutton-Smith will call it in The Ambiguity of Play, is simply uninteresting to them.

My vocabulary is clearly grounded in that rhetoric, as I have argued for play and ludic space as guarantors of freedom. Sutton-Smith rightly points out that mine is an imperfect and limited perspective: It is part of the privilege of the academy to worry about these esoteric issues.

Still, it is interesting (and ominous) to note that Bartle is of a similar mind. He concludes:

Many of the [developers] at the roundtable… were completely unaware that there was even the possibility of either of these two situations becoming a reality. This contrasts with the views of the players, academics and lawyers who have promoted the enactment of such laws, but who seem oblivious to the effects they would have on designers and developers.

“Are we heading for trouble, here?” Bartle asks.

Addendum: Anthropology professor and sensible midwesterner Thomas Malaby points out that a more refined sense of property law and participatory governance is important in this conversation. Of these two matters, he writes:

“ownership” is not necessarily an “all or nothing” proposition (in fact, my understanding is that it is *rarely* that, if ever). … Similarly…. we can imagine any of a number of ways in which users can be involved in (world or even world-maker) governance, some of which are being tried (or at least floated as necessary to the world makers’ legitimacy).

Which is true. But for my money, the matter of equal interest is the developers’ imagined willingness to afford a government the kinds of in-world power that governments typically demand. Partial freedom is always servitude.