I used to be on Mars till the GNE prototype shut down.

It “nullifies the boredom and noise involved in getting from one place to another. It keeps the world out and cocoons you…. The device’s earliest critics feared it would discourage social contact and ultimately cut us off from one another. They have, I am glad to say, been proved right.”

What are they talking about? The much-feared Sony Walkman.

I could say that MMOGs are a harmless form of escapism. Less damning than television and certainly less so than alcohol or drugs. But, that is only a half-truth. To say “harmless” implies that they are also valuless, somehow an obstruction to what is real and practical - a diversion or digression from more honorable pursuits. But, at their best, they are also a form of collaborative, creative play. Who is to say that the value of an online creation, of an abstract theatrical play, of humor, of guarded social exploration is less or more so than writing a job report or a thesis which may in the end be filed away, unused, unread. Who assigns this value? Does it matter whether a sense of purpose was manufactured by us or by others?

The boundary between what we deem play or even self-delusion and what we deem as the Real world is an artificial one. Our world is self-created, we invent a small new world when we chat with our friends, immerse ourselves in a book, dress up for a costume ball. Games, like music, like art, like gourmet obsessions, expand our world. I did not discard my friends and abandon them to the GNE. The reverse is true: I made new friends. Here, I agree with waggish: “In truth, multiplayer games are the first world, a new manifestation of things to consume…”

I played the game pretty intensely (and I promise you, I am All About Intense when it comes to geeking out about this kind of stuff) for a week and then stopped. I’ve never been back. Jesus fucking christ - pies?! I’ve got a roundtable to organize, grant apps to get in, an RPG to write, a dissertation chapter to finish, a concert coming up, the Levinas reading group, reading Talmud with the Rabbi, reading Levinas with von Aschenbach, fucking putting up with Ali in rehearsal…. aggh! My own life is busy enough! Now I’ve got to make pies?! Click the ‘buy ingredients’ button fifty times and hour and then the ‘make pies’ button fifty times? Just to raise money to buy a house? No way, man - I’ve got rent and a dissertation in this world to worry about.

Um, ONLY level 3 after a week of playing? And… uh… why bother making pies when they grow for free? 100% profit, bay-bee! ;)

“Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.”
-Anais Nin

I made many friends in the game, and we keep in touch without it. I have learned from all of them. But, no, I haven’t discarded my real life friends. My relationship with my family is also still alive and well.

That article…funny bit about the pies. I found the “this world sucks so much there is no where we want to go but online” argument interesting.

I mean, sure, there is no real world store where one can buy one of millions of Jasons. Plurp probably couldn’t run around in real life carrying several chickens and squeezing them randomly. I suppose you could say “The world sucks! I can’t carry Jason around and spank him!” or “What sort of society won’t let a grown man stand in a public place squeezing chickens without judging him for it?” But you might as well wish the world also had a GOD dropping blue papers (worth money!) randomly before announcing it. These things just don’t happen in real life. There can’t be any comparison.

GNE gave our imaginations play. It gave us a place to go with our creativity and ideas. It was an outlet, not a replacement for the real world. That article categorizes it with all the other “MMOGs”. It being the only one I have ever enjoyed, my experience is limited. But I’ve always thought the GNE belongs in a category all its own.

Well said, pixel.

I agree 100% pix. It’s an interesting read, but mostly a bunch of bunk. My life pretty much rocks right now (well, it pretty much always has, maybe I’m lucky) and the state of the world isn’t something I really concern myself with.

I just like playing games, and socializing and being creative just makes it that much more fun.

Yeah, I met this guy. I don’t remember his GameName, but I can recall him calling me Simple Simon. I was on the way to a party at the time, and he offered to sell me some pies. I thought I’d try a couple of slices first to make sure they were kosher, but this guy was having none of it: he wanted to see some evidence of my ability to pay first. (Good for him, I suppose, because I was broke at the time).

*or*

Simple Simon
met a pieman
going to the fair.
Says Simple Simon to the pieman
“Let me taste your ware!”

Says the pieman to Simple Simon
“Show me first your penny.”
Says Simple Simon to the pieman
“Indeed I have not any!”

The only reprocution from MMOGs is problably going to be a new treatment center for addiction….and a new addicts name thingy….AA,NA,MMOGsA,CA. oh well its all worth it isnt it?

Off topic:

I love this little gem of wisdom from Mr. Golub: “I’ve chosen to be happy and poor.”

As if, for everyone, this is a simple lifestyle choice.
“Oh Buffy, I’m so tired of being wealthy and miserable. Let’s do happy and poor for lunch!”

Gosh, when that questionnaire came around asking if I’d rather be unhappy and wealthy or happy and poor, I must have mixed up the checkboxes because I ended up unhappy AND poor. Whoops!!

This guy is clueless about more than just the GNE.

(disclaimer: AG is an old friend of mine.)

Shiri, the choice exists. Alex, like me, has chosen to be an academic. He and I both have skills that, with a little effort, could be parlayed into much more profitable careers (that’s not saying much - “fry cook” is a more profitable career than “mathematician”). But we chose this.

AG (again, like me) may have shortcomings, but (unlike me) cluelessness is rarely among them.