[Air-L] Need help: virtual worlds and games grass-root rebellions

[Ren Reynolds]

I gave a presentation on the topic of rebellion / protest in virtual worlds at the Edinburgh Interactive Festival in 2007.

It certainly used to be the case that the just about all virtual worlds had at least one significant protest at some point. What's more these protests tend to take specific forms which in part is cultural (see also the carnivalesque approach being taken at many G20 type demos) and party in response to the technical nature of the system (if you put a lot of avatars in one space you can bring down the server).

The reasons for protest tend to fall into the following categories:-

• Governance (of the virtual space)
• Mechanics (of the virtual space)
- - Money
- - Power Imbalance
• Political (relating to some external issue)
• Griefing


A quick history of significant protests would include:

1993 / 1996  LambdaMOO - more of a quiet revolution where the sysops first gave control then took back control from the users
1996 / 7 UlitmaOnline - 'lag protest' due to bugs in the game not being fixed (possible the first use of mass creation of lvl 1 naked vomiting dwarfs)
2003 EverQuest Warrior Protest due to game imbalance 
2003 Second Life tax revolt due to creators of Second Life imposing a 'tax' on certain user action (interesting use of Tea Party visual tropes) 
2004 Star Wars Galaxies Credit Dupe (my personal favourite as there is an amazing forum thread of the protest being covered live, in character by and in-game reporting team)
2005 World of Warcraft game mechanic (return of naked dwarfs)  
2006 Second Life French National Front Protests users protested against the presence of the French far right party
2006 World of Warcraft GBLT issue (including gay curse in pink outfits)
2007 Habbo Hotel Patriotic Nigras (4Chan /b/ et al) 'AIDS in the Pool) take down's of Habbo (see also Gia take downs), mainly just standing by the pool in a swastika formation  - these are jus for the lulz
2007 Fantasy Westward Journey 'Kill the little japs' protest - 80k players protests as a racist guild name was banned (not players were protesting FOR racism)

I've not updated but I'm sure there have been similar incidents subsequently.

See also things like:
Kolbert, E., Dept. of Gaming: Pimps and Dragons : The New Yorker. Available at: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2001/05/28/010528fa_FACT 
Mnookin, J., Virtual(ly) Law: The Emergence of Law in LambdaMOO: Mnookin. Available at: http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol2/issue1/lambda.html.


ren



On 10 Oct 2010, at 22:09, Bridget Ward wrote:

> I don't believe this posted the first time I mailed it. Sorry if it's a double post!
> 
> Alejandro,
> 
> I'm actually working on this topic for my dissertation work. There are A LOT of examples out there. The blog Terra Nova has covered many of them and has some interesting insights into the area (http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2005/02/the_right_to_as.html). I would browse through their back posts as well. 
> 
> Additionally, Bruce Robinson has done quite a bit of work on this topic as well. I know he has a book chapter:
> Title   Labour's Second Life : from a Virtual Strike on Union Island
> Book    Virtual Social Networks: Mediated, Massive and Multiplayer sites'  
> Ed: Niki Panteli (Palgrave)- http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/reader/023022928X/ref=sib_dp_pt#reader-page  
> 
> If you would like to contact me off the list I'll be happy to pass along some of my publications on the topic as well as additional information I may have.
> 
> Bridget Blodgett
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org [mailto:air-l-bounces at listserv.aoir.org] On Behalf Of Alejandro Tortolini
> Sent: Thursday, October 07, 2010 10:56 AM
> To: List Aoir
> Subject: [Air-L] Need help: virtual worlds and games grass-root rebellions
> 
> Dear AoIR-lers:
> 
> I need some help. I was invited to participate in a conference for games
> developers and multimedia artist, and I´m thinking to talk about user´s
> rebellions in online games and virtual worlds. Reading the Celia Pearce´s
> book "Communities of play" (excellent reading) I found a mention of a WoW
> rebellion, in 2004.
> Can you suggest me some other readings about this kind of grass-root protest
> movements? Also any pictures?
> Thank you very much =)
> 
> Alejandro Tortolini
> Science and technology journalist - Teacher
> 
> Buenos Aires, Argentina
> Contact Me [image: LinkedIn]
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