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"Something for Bell"

An article about what we were discussing a couple of weeks ago with Baudrillard "Simulation and Simulacra" and the notions of reality and alternate realities:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3135247.stm

A bloke making a living selling items for a non-existent, online world.
Does this count as an "alternate reality"

The same as any software.

It's IN THE COMPUUUUUDERRRRR!!!

I don;t see the difference between buying a "cloak of the fetid wind +7" or buying Windows XP - Home edition.

One is just more popular than the other.

Nobody is saying sad loner or even should he be.
How does it exist? You cannot hold it, it possesses no form. It is a series of code, it does not exist outside of that coded world. An axe that is not an axe, merely an avatar for something.

*scratches head*
I'm losing myself here...

Eh?

Of course the items exist. Items from gaming worlds that are sold on sites like eBay often take tens or even hundreds of hours of internet gaming time to acquire. There is then a very real trade-off between spending hundreds of hours of your time and spending some of your own cash.

It's not about being a sad loner (although I don't agree with the practice myself), it's about knowing how valuable your time is to you, how much you want to succeed in the game, and what you're willing to pay to get there.

It's no different to selling off a "save game". Just because it's not something that you can hold in your hand, doesn't mean it doesn't exist. It is, after all, electronic data, and is therefore very real indeed.

That's basically what I was thinking Bell. Doesn't exist outside of code, yet people part with "real world" money to progress in a non-existent reality.

But then to that person, it does exist, has tangible quality and obviously effects them emotionally, otherwise why shell out ££ for items/characters?
So to them, it does exist, but to me it doesn't?

I'm no sure where I'm going with this. Time for a fag

Yeah, we already went through that one, but someone will.
Good film, interesting ideas basically cadged from Baudrillard.

We were trying to apply it to the world around us, what can be defined as "alternate" reality, or if it's merely our perception of what goes on that alters.
Or something. It's Monday and too hot to be smart

Cheers for that Goatboy, still haven't gotten round to reading the Simulation Simulacra thing yet- with all this warm weather it's hard going reading a near endless piles of books and printouts !

It does count as alternative reality, in a way. The guy sells items which don't exist, in a sense that a sword is not a sword, merely code given a visual representation that allows people to comprehend it. Ultimately that's all that online RPG worlds are, code, dressed up. The illusion is that they exist, and the only way to perpetuate that illusion is via the supposed realism of the world, or more correctly, making the world respond the way the players expect, which isn't really the same as realism.

What such virtual and alternate worlds come down to is exchanges of compute code, generated by user actions, inputs, and the people who first coded the world. The guy in that story is relying on people who use the game world believing in it enough to purchase items which they presume will help them in the virtual world of the game. Some people will believe in that world enough if they associate with it - i.e form friendships, enjoyment whilst playing it, something memorable happens to them during play, or just the chance to be someone else.

The key over riding theme is that players seek to get something out of it which they do not get in the real world.

Another article shows how around 20% of Everquest population plays a different sex to their real one, and another article found that male cahracters, when sold online, fetch more than female ones even if of lesser power than a female one on sale for less money. Again, in Everquest, there is little other than representation to define male and female, hence gender barely exists, but because so many are used to interpreting images to be what they appear to be, then the illusion of gender in a game is created.

I'll shut up now, thanks for the link again :)

*waits for some tw@ to mention the Matrix*

Yep, and that fits with a discussion me and Bell were having about the perceptions and understanding of realities.

Why pay cash for something that doesn't exist outside of a simulated world with it's own economy?

Hang-on. I read through that twice, but something still escapes me. How does he turn the stats and data from an online game into real cash? He does do that, doesn't he? If it's all contained within the confines of the game then it's no more than a role-playing experience. But if people are willing to pay actual hard cash to buy stats and goods that he's amassed within the game, then I'd say that they were pretty sad individuals - kinda takes the point out of playing the game.

An article about what we were discussing a couple of weeks ago with Baudrillard "Simulation and Simulacra" and the notions of reality and alternate realities:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/3135247.stm

A bloke making a living selling items for a non-existent, online world.
Does this count as an "alternate reality"