For quite some time now, I've kept a curious eye on Eve Online - a massive multiplayer online game set in space (several thousand star systems worth of it to be more specific). What do you do in Eve? Make your mark as a miner or space trader. Sell yourself out as a hired gun to protect others or join up with a pirate group to pillage and steal. You know... typical space stuff =)
But what peaked my interest in Eve (in addition to that typical space stuff) is the fact that it is relatively sophisticated by MMO standards, largely in regards to its treatment of in game economics - there is even a quarterly newletter). So I probably shouldnt have been too surprised to find that formal democracy is now also going to play a part in the game.
Eve is currently in the process if implementing what is known as "The Council Of Stellar Management (CSM)" - a democratically selected group of players, whose purpose will be to represent the player base to developer, CCP games. CSM members are elected during a 2 week vote period, and ultimately chosen by the popular vote of members of the Eve community. The Council (which is very odd to say) then serves out 6 months terms as the formal liaisons between the Eve player community and CCP. And, at least theoretically, one's ability to succeed as a council member would be predicated on ones ability to accurately represent the voice of whatever player constituents might have voted for them, in an effort to improve the overall game experience. Almost like a real politician. Almost ;-)
Just about every modern MMOG I've ever heard of runs focus groups or supports community managers (in addition to public forums) in order to solicit feedback from their player base. But this is the first time I've ever heard of a company selecting its player spokesman Democratically. And frankly, the notion of elected in game politicians is somewhat remarkable to me on a whole host of levels.
I'm very curious to whether or not Eve's experiment with Democracy will work, though regardless I think it will yield some very interesting lessons. But in the spirit of this blog, this latest move only serves to reinforce my belief that using an MMOG as an educational tool could be an absolute goldmine in a huge number of areas, from sociology, to economics, to management and business, to virtual communication and team building, to political science and more. A true virtual world built with the fun, interactive, forgiving aspects of a game, but supported and driven by real, thinking, individually motivated people. The ultimate learning simulation. The fact that its a game will be our little secret.
Assuming I havent totally lost you already, then you're probably wondering why do this? I mean there are classes on political theory, classes on economics, classes on leadership and team building. What does using an MMOG bring to the table? I'm getting a little tired, so I'm just going to bullet list it =)
Of course there are some fairly obvious problems and questions involved in doing something like this - questions that Bart Pursel and I wrestled with many moons ago. But with the added element of Democracy that Eve is trying to add, the flames have been rekindled to try and find a way to make this work.
Time to brush the dust off this idea and do some thinking.
Image from http://mmorpg.qj.net
But what peaked my interest in Eve (in addition to that typical space stuff) is the fact that it is relatively sophisticated by MMO standards, largely in regards to its treatment of in game economics - there is even a quarterly newletter). So I probably shouldnt have been too surprised to find that formal democracy is now also going to play a part in the game.Eve is currently in the process if implementing what is known as "The Council Of Stellar Management (CSM)" - a democratically selected group of players, whose purpose will be to represent the player base to developer, CCP games. CSM members are elected during a 2 week vote period, and ultimately chosen by the popular vote of members of the Eve community. The Council (which is very odd to say) then serves out 6 months terms as the formal liaisons between the Eve player community and CCP. And, at least theoretically, one's ability to succeed as a council member would be predicated on ones ability to accurately represent the voice of whatever player constituents might have voted for them, in an effort to improve the overall game experience. Almost like a real politician. Almost ;-)
Just about every modern MMOG I've ever heard of runs focus groups or supports community managers (in addition to public forums) in order to solicit feedback from their player base. But this is the first time I've ever heard of a company selecting its player spokesman Democratically. And frankly, the notion of elected in game politicians is somewhat remarkable to me on a whole host of levels.
I'm very curious to whether or not Eve's experiment with Democracy will work, though regardless I think it will yield some very interesting lessons. But in the spirit of this blog, this latest move only serves to reinforce my belief that using an MMOG as an educational tool could be an absolute goldmine in a huge number of areas, from sociology, to economics, to management and business, to virtual communication and team building, to political science and more. A true virtual world built with the fun, interactive, forgiving aspects of a game, but supported and driven by real, thinking, individually motivated people. The ultimate learning simulation. The fact that its a game will be our little secret.
Assuming I havent totally lost you already, then you're probably wondering why do this? I mean there are classes on political theory, classes on economics, classes on leadership and team building. What does using an MMOG bring to the table? I'm getting a little tired, so I'm just going to bullet list it =)
- it supports the scientifically proven* Stubsian method of "Fun First Learning Later" (*not necessarily scientifically proven)
- it simplifies the opportunities for the study and exploration of highly complex ideas (do you have any idea how hard it is to completely study a real economy? Or democracy?)
- it allows students to practice abstract concepts through real (albeit fake - wtf?) exercises. How do you teach students to be leaders? How do you teach them to communicate well? These are abstract ideas that conceptual learning can only take to a point - experientially learning is key. Think of an MMO supported learning experience as an extension of problem based learning.
- It allows for this experiential learning while taking advantage of one of the key strengths of games as learning tools: failure is far easier to learn from when you have a reset button
- it extends the potential. Its very difficult to run, say, an economic system in a class of 30 people. Or even 200 people. Imagine if you could somehow use a world like Eve (with more than half a million people) as your playground. Or perhaps you create an instance of a world - an academic version of Eve Online where the players are first year econ students from major universities all across the world.
Of course there are some fairly obvious problems and questions involved in doing something like this - questions that Bart Pursel and I wrestled with many moons ago. But with the added element of Democracy that Eve is trying to add, the flames have been rekindled to try and find a way to make this work.
Time to brush the dust off this idea and do some thinking.
Image from http://mmorpg.qj.net
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