Chapter 15. Glory and Shame: Powerful Psychology in Multiplayer Online Games

by Jonathan Baron , Executive Producer for Microsoft's Xbox Online (jonbaron@microsoft.com)

KEY TOPICS

Buzzword Snow
A Unique Audience
A Unique Medium
The Power of Shame
The Problem with Glory
Pure Meritocracy: The Ultimate Glory Game
Cumulative Character Games: The Devoted All Go to Heaven
Achievement Versus Development
Summary: Development over Achievement

AUTHOR NOTE

An earlier version of this article appeared on the Internet about a year ago. We asked Jonathan if he'd like to take a look at rewriting it for this book and he graciously accepted the commission. Jonathan has been a fixture in the online game arena for over a decade , first with Kesmai, then EA, and now as the executive producer for Microsoft's Xbox Live online console gaming service. He has also been an aide to Barney Frank of the US Congress, is an accomplished aircraft pilot, and is such a great speaker that he is regularly asked to present at the Game Designer's Conference and Electronic Entertainment Exposition, the two most important trade conferences for computer game developers.

Jonathan reigns as the Philosopher King of persistent worlds (PWs) and sometimes as our conscience. In this article, he clearly lays out one of the fundamental issues of PW design and management: how to create interesting relationships with the players.

When you play a standalone computer game, you experience challenge, release, escape, frustration, and satisfaction, but you cannot experience glory. Glory can only take place with an audience. Similarly, no computer game can shame you, again because shame requires that other people be present. But it takes more than merely the existence of other people in your environment to create opportunities for glory and shame ”you also need a relationship with those people, one of either knowledge or recognition. This is why server network games that involve dating , such as Unreal , offer no special embarrassment when you perish or when you prevail.

Having large numbers of simultaneous players in an environment that records and preserves player records and actions transforms player anonymity into pseudonymity; I want my alter-ego to be persistent and known because I care about the people I'm playing with, and I want them to care about me. The only entertainment medium that offers a true sense of belonging is online gaming, and it's a powerful lure. Online games build relationships among players through conflict. It is the managed conflict of the online game that accelerates the development of bonds among total strangers. These bonds are real because the way we react to stress is like a fingerprint : it demonstrates who we are at our core .

The problem is that games designed by developers who are unaware of the medium's strengths and underlying mechanics often unwittingly create emotionally charged possibilities of glory and shame in a game world. As long as the conflict is too strong and the emotions too extreme, online gaming will remain esoteric at best. It all springs from the same misguided notion: that online is just a feature. Quite the contrary; online is a medium apart from all others, that fortunately or unfortunately has been initially expressed in the milieu of computer gaming. This can be seen if you contrast the two as in Table 15.1.

Table 15.1. Contrasts: Single-Player Versus Multiplayer

graphics/15tafig01.gif

The fortunate aspect of online entertainment's current alignment with computer gaming is that computer games are interactive. The unfortunate aspect is that computer gaming, like static media, such as motion pictures and television, feels the burden to deliver a story. The chief purpose of storytelling is to elicit emotion, which the players in a good online game will do on their own and feel more intimately because they are there. The virtual nature of game worlds be damned : The human heart cannot distinguish between emotions felt in a virtual setting from a physical one. So powerful are glory and shame that they have bound cultures together for centuries, motivated countless people to risk their lives, and driven countless others to end theirs. Thus, while this provides an emotional depth to true online gaming, it must be employed with thought and care, if employed at all.

Let's explore how glory and shame work in online gaming, note their consequences, and show how they influence the underlying community culture a game creates. Glory and shame also offer a clue to why multiplayer gaming has yet to achieve a prominent place among entertainment media.