Richard Bartle

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Last Monday, March 10rd, 2008, Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics hosted Richard Bartle, veteran game-maker and author of the first book on the design of MUDs, Designing Virtual Worlds.

Broadcasting live on SLCN.tv from CMP Amphitheatre at CMP Isle 1, this event covered how current worlds embody the tenets of his book and analyzed the extent to which the current state of virtual worlds reflects the hopes Bartle had for this medium when he co-developed the Multi-User Dungeon.

Richard Bartle's classification system rating online multiplayer gamers by the degree to which they are are achievers, explorers, socializers and killers. This framework seems to apply strongly to immersionists, or those who derive value from the experience within the virtual worlds. However, the framework does not seem to apply as strongly to augmentationists, who value virtual worlds because they provide an environment and technology to advance their real-life strategic goals. Perhaps augmentationists are missing because most MMOs are role-playing games. However, I contend that leaving out this segment is a tragic mistake as even the most closed, role-playing virtual worlds contain a segment of augmentationists: the game developers themselves.

Consider Bartle's attitude about his own gaming. As Richard Bartle clearly put it, "I’m not playing to have fun. I’m playing to have designer fun, which isn’t the same thing as player fun." He continues:

I just see the design, I don’t see what’s going on in there. I mean right now I’ve got my Second Life screen consists of a very, very large text window obliterating everything behind it. So I can see what’s being typed on the different channels, but I don’t get to see all the pictures because I’m not particularly interested in the pictures. Whereas, if I were playing Second Life [for an] immersive reason, then I would want to see the pictures because that’s part of what’s projecting me there. But because I understand all this kind of stuff, that’s not a factor to me because it’s like I see underneath what’s going on. The magic’s not there. So although I really envy the people for whom the magic is there, my fun comes in making the magic, not in experiencing it.

This begs a question: How different are game developers from other augmentationalists active in virtual worlds? Clearly there is a power differential, but it is worth noting that the driving force behind Bartle's virtual world activity is actually quite similar to that of many participants in the Metanomics series. Perhaps some attend each week to hear Rob's soothing voice, but my impression is that many of us are active in virtual worlds because of its meaning to our real lives.

For example, Rob and I are active in Second Life for explicitly augmentationist purposes. Rob has been offering a directed study course on Business and Ovesight in Second Life since August 2007 and has used the medium to advance his research agenda, in part through the interviews that take place weekly in the Metanomics broadcast. Similarly, I was attracted to Second Life as a medium to conduct economic experiments at astonishingly low cost (at the cost of an ambiguous external validity). There are undoubtedly countless other examples among those who have constructed part- or full-time professional careers around their Second Life activities who escape the predictions of Bartle's model which assumes all players seek immersion in virtual worlds.

The primary policy implication of this reasoning is that virtual world features valued by immersionists are clearly not the same as those desired by augmentationalists. Augmentationalists are driven by their real world ambitions and require an ability to establish property rights over their own player-created content. In closed worlds explicitly designed for immersion (e.g. World of Warcraft), there exists a natural conflict between in-game augmentationalists who would benefit from a more open virtual world and the game developers who recognize that non-immersive activity (such as RMT) can spoil the immersive value of their world. However, in relatively open worlds like Second Life, perhaps it is immersionists who are out of place and ill-served by the developers. The net result is that this inherent conflict seems to provide an opportunity for businesses to serve the needs of these divergent groups.

METANOMICS WELCOMES RICHARD BARTLE
MARCH 10, 2008

ROBERT BLOOMFIELD: Welcome, everyone, to Metanomics and to this four sims amphitheatre on CMP Islands one, two, three and four.

Before we jump in, I’d like to point out that United Business Media has reorganized CMP. So what has been called CMP Metaverse, the folks who brought us the Life 2.0 Conference, is now Think Services, a subsidiary of United Business Media. I’m sure we’ll hear a lot more about this next week for the Second Life 2.0 Conference, which takes place right here on CMP’s four islands, from March 15th to the 21st.

Next week Metanomics will be part of Life 2.0. My guest will be Nick Yee, the research scientist at the Palo Alto Research Cen-ter, a recent Ph.D. from Stanford’s communication department and one of the cutting edge researchers examining the sociological dimensions of Virtual Worlds.

This Monday, March 10th, 2008, at 11:00AM-12:00PM SLT (2:00-3:00PM EST), Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics will host Richard Bartle, veteran game-maker and author of the first book on the design of MUDs, Designing Virtual Worlds.

This interview will cover how current worlds embody the tenets of his book and analyze the extent to which the current state of virtual worlds reflects the hopes Bartle had for this medium when he co-developed the Multi-User Dungeon.

More information, including background reading and event location information, is available after the jump.

On March 10, 2008, at 11:00 SLT (2:00 EST)
Professor Robert Bloomfield and Metanomics will host

Richard Bartle

Location TBA

Richard Bartle is the author of Designing Virtual Worlds , and was one of the co-designers of the "MUD," the Multi-User Dungeon, which forms the basis of virtual worlds today. "The MUD was to MMORPGs what the Beatles were to rock and roll. And by all accounts, Richard Bartle was (and remains to this day) a man ahead of his time. "