joaoflux / digital / analog / culture

I went to see the “Open Worlds Panel” at “The Philosophy of Computer Games Conference” at the University of Potsdam. The panel was started with a straightforward and, due to the right amount of Douglas Adams style british humor, quite entertaining keynote by Richard Bartle. He he explained two concepts of openness in the context of computer game design. Developers use the term openness when referring the freedom of players to do things outside of defined tasks, while players often use the term when referring to the freedom to change the game.

I was a bit disappointed that he did not mention a third notion of the term, which is common in software desigen and refers to the openness towards other systems. Especially when talking about online worlds where residents can acquire possessions, it seems to a logical question to ask, if and how items can be transferred to other worlds. I would even go as far as looking at the general system of capitalist economy (including legislation) as just one more virtual world. Interoperability with it should in my opinion be seen as part of the game design.

Unfortunately the panel did not go into discussing any aspect of openness at all. This was of course not much of a surprise considering who was on the panel: Frank Campbell, Chief Business Officer (CBO) at MindArk PE AB, Swedish creators of Entropia Universe, Dr. Mirko Caspar, Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Metaversum, Dirk Weyel, Chief Operating Officer (COO) at Frogster Interactive (responsible for Marketing, Sales und Business Development).

The Moderator, Prof. Ulrich Weinberg of Hasso Plattner Institute, who otherwise failed to ask a single interesting question, amused himself by making fun of everybody’s titles when introducing the panel (”a C and an O with some other letter inbetween”). Looking at the titles bit more critically before inviting them might have been a good idea. This way the chief officers only gave their little marketing loop (Mirko Caspar of Metaversum getting nervous every time a question touched the topic “business model”).