The world of gaming has always fascinated and puzzled me. I don't consider myself a "gamer" by any means. I generally stopped playing video games when I started university, but I did have one arresting experience of online gaming. Several years ago I started playing a MMORPG called Shadowbane after a gamer friend told me I could play it for free. This was true. It was an older game the company continued running "pro bono" on its servers. I created an avatar, I got quite good at squashing virtual spiders and the like, I even attracted the attention of a guild and joined up so that I could play with others. At the guild level, much of the play involves capturing and securing "mines" from other guilds in order to amass imaginary resources.
One day, about six months after I started playing, the company decided to free up its servers and, much to the irritation of my guild, destroyed the world of Shadowbane and everything in it. I remember feeling a slight sense of loss, but dismissed it. I hadn't really lost anything. Or had I?
Reading the Coleman & Dyer-Witheford piece caused me to ask myself once again, "Did I lose anything the day Shadowbane went bust?" and has helped me put words to that loss. I never really paid that much attention to the economy within the game (probably because I wasn't paying any money for it, at least not directly). Thinking back, using the contexts described in the Coleman article, I suppose I lost much more than I realized. I lost a diverting pastime, but I also lost the identity that I had build up in the online community, I lost the equipment I had forged or won over the course of those six months (which in the context of the game had value). I had also lost the time that I invested in it. The phrase "Time is money" is usually accredited to Benjamin Franklin, and I realized now how much I lost by investing my time into something so ephemeral, something that was never really mine. I also better understand why my guild members got so upset. But on the other hand, I still retain the memories and experiences. So I suppose my time wasn't really wasted.
Sources:
Coleman, S. & Dyer-Witheford, N. (2007) Playing on the digital commons. Media, Culture & Society 29(6): 934-953.
Shadowbane. (2015, July 16). Retrieved October 24, 2015, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadowbane
Aww man, Brandon! Did you ever play Neopets?? I used to play it after school for years in elementary school. I loved the concept of UGC (before I knew it even had a name). You created your own avatar, which was also your "pet" you had to feed, take care of, etc. After reading Coleman and Dyer-Witheford's article, I realized that I too experienced a sense of loss after being unable to sign back in. I had indeed put much effort in finding the "secrets" of the game, and had amassed quite a few "neopoints". I realize now how valuable the game was to me. Having never had any formal talks on money management, I see how Neopets introduced me to the concept of saving your "neopoints" (very important for a grad student!!), and fostering a community (I too was in a guild)! Video games can be an amazing place where one can be build their own sense of community and personal identity. However, when commodity comes into play, I feel that it cheapens the endeavour. Soon after I forgot my password, I visited a Toys R Us where I was shocked to see gift cards for neopoints. My grade 5 self was officially "over" neopets after that.
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