Blog Assignment 4

I was never one to get into MMORPGs. Mainly because I felt it was silly to pay a monthly fee and the fact that its on a huge server with several other players never really appealed to me. My brief stint into MMORPGs was when Ragnarok Online was first introduced, and even then I didn’t get on the server that much to play.

In Edward Castronova’s book Synthetic Worlds, he describes the way MMORPGs work. With how they are set up, and how different users can interact. The first chapter is written as a brief introduction to those who are not familiar with MMORPGs. It goes into detail about the Terms of Service and Code of Conduct that is established on MMORPGs. And on page 53 he lists several MMORPGs and breaks it down into the number of subscriptions, release dates, subject and headquarters. Although I expected to see Myst on the list, seeing as that MMORPG has a huge following.

Castronova covers various aspects of online games through his book such as the social, political and economical points. Reading through the Free Commerce chapter, Castranova brings up excellent points that I never thought of before. “Every synthetic world has an economy, without exception” (pg 173). Every MMORPGS, even console games, have an economy within it. Where you have to do something to receive money. And thinking in a broader aspect, the worlds within games are modeled after reality and just have different elements that make it into a synthetic world. Honestly, I never thought of an MMORPG as something closely related to our world till this point. In fact, it should’ve been obvious. But I guess when one thinks of a game you just think of the fictitious aspects as opposed to the similarities it has to our world.

It also makes me think of how people use synthetic worlds to escape reality. But when you look closely, that synthetic world is very similar to our world except that you have more control over things than you would in the real world. Looking at that from a psychological aspect, you can’t help but side with people who want to escape from their every day life to a video game where they are a bit more in control. But that doesn’t necessarily condone people to ignore their lives for a synthetic world.

While personally for me, I don’t see the enjoyment out of playing an MMORPG. Even when playing a console game, I cannot sit there and play all night, yet some people can do that without sleeping or eating for long periods of time. Not to mention the fact that you have to spend money on the subscriptions and other add-ons. But of course in our society we are always looking for the negative, always believing that it’s “too good to be true”. People look down on those who play these games for long periods of time and ignoring the outside world. Maybe it’s their way to cope with things that happen in real life. Castranova is trying to make a point that the synthetic world could be taking over reality and I disagree with him. Synthetic worlds are becoming a part of reality by giving another means for people to find relaxation and communication with others as long as certain limitations are enforced.