So, who really owns the computer games people play?

One thing I've always found fascinating about online games with persistent worlds (games where the world doesn't change, but lots of people can interact together in the same world) is the concept of who actually owns the content. I don't mean the overall game itself, because that is obviously owned by a company that made the game, but the specific property that each character owns within the game.

Think of it this way: If you're an elf who owns a +5 Sword of Death (I'm sure some game has something named like that), and you log out, that sword is still in your in game inventory somewhere. When you sign back on, that sword is still there with your character. Some other player doesn't get to just go into your private inventory and steal it (unless you're playing some twisted game where you can do just that, but I have yet to see a successful one that has survived longer than a few hours with that kind of play style). So, do you really own that sword, or is it the property of the company that makes the game?

That's an issue that has been argued back and forth since the creation of games like Ultima Online, long before World of Warcraft and the latest Star Trek Online. The game companies will always argue that THEY own the property within the game, and that you are just playing in THEIR world (Sony Online Entertainment used to make that argument of "You're in OUR world now" on their marketing materials for Everquest). But that's an easy argument to make before getting into the nitty gritty. A customer IS paying money for the experience of playing the game, and there is a somewhat legal precedent that as long as the company honors its commitments (meaning all of your stuff is there after you leave and return to the game), your business arrangement remains. There are any number of customers who have ended their business arrangement with a company when the company has lost their equipment (thus, they have felt a breach of unwritten contract was reached). Therefore, in legal terms alone, a company that runs a computer game may have been making the accepted agreement of honoring that unwritten contract by continuing to take money for services. The challenge is convincing a judge of exactly what those "services" actually were.

But that's going further than I wanted with this post. What I was really wanting to talk about are these people who sell their accounts, convinced that the property within the game is theirs. I actually find myself somewhat fascinated by the advertisements they make on Craigslist and other such places. A lot of these ads involve the most popular game on the block, World of Warcraft, and way too often someone tries to sell his or her account for hundreds of dollars. What caused me to want to write about it was how someone actually had the nerve to write: "You are paying me for the time I put into making this character." In other ads, I've seen words such as: "I wanted to get something back for all of the time I put into building this character."

Now, I play World of Warcraft, and I have a lot of fun playing the game, as I believe many other people do as well. Not once have I ever thought that I was producing work, that my tribulations were actually part of the process I must endure before I have a commodity that I can now sell back to another customer who will value the time I've have endured in this game. No, I had fun doing what you do when you play a game, and never was it thought of as work. Oh sure, the quests might have been difficult, and I might have been frustrated from time to time, but it's not a job, and trying to convince someone that he needs to pay me hundreds of dollars for my account because of my "work" is just ridiculous.

But I see it all of the time. What is even more interesting is that selling one's WoW account is not authorized by the Blizzard, the company that owns the game. Nor is buying or selling of gold, the currency used in the game. Yet people still do it.

And I've often laughed at the arguments people make to justify it. Here are some of my favorites:

1. It takes a lot of time to accumulate money in the game. I work hard in my regular job, so I should be able to use that money to save time in the game because unlike the kids who play this game, I don't have as much time to waste on the game.

If it's wasted time, then don't play the game. Part of the challenge of the game is being able to accumulate wealth in the time that you're actually playing it. Being a CEO of a company OUTSIDE of the game shouldn't suddenly make you a god in the game. Cheating in the game is cheating in the game.

2. Buying gold (or a character) doesn't hurt anyone else, so why should they care?

Buying gold actually causes massive inflation in the game so that those who play the game must pay outrageous prices for items they buy from other players. Essentially, that CEO with his outside money is making it impossible for anyone to play the game without investing outside money into the game to bring the game back to an even playing field. It does affect other players, and it ruins the experience of the game. Also, Blizzard has pointed out that people who partake in the gold selling community also contribute to illegal programs in the game that are used to accumulate money through exploits. It also causes a lot more hackers to play the game who go after legitimate players and take over their accounts, selling their goods when they take over their accounts and then going onto the next victim.

There are a lot more points to make about this, but the main point is that virtual worlds are living worlds of their own that do much better without outside stimulation that brings outside forces into the inner dynamic. While some games welcome microtransactions that benefit the game making company, virtual economies do not benefit from profiteers who try to link outside money with internal money economies. Even the microtransaction models of some games out there ruin the experiences for normal players. This type of behavior practically destroyed the Ultima Online housing market because you couldn't get a home unless you were able to buy it through Ebay, back during the hey day of UO. When new housing opened up, that Ebay market died almost overnight. People who used to make $150 for a keep (large house) could no longer get that, so they let those properties just collapse, and then players were able to place homes for the price of housing that existed within the game. It practically changed the market within the game overnight, which was a great thing.

Anyway, that's my rant for this topic today.

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The audience as shadow

You might say I've come to a conclusion of sorts. I realized that the whole online thing isn't really working for me. I have a blog, but no one really reads it. I have a Facebook account, but no one really communicates with me on there, and all I end up receiving are notifications of how someone is having a bad day or how someone found a lost turtle in Farmville or something stupid like that.

For me, the whole online thing never worked out. Never found a girlfriend online. Never found conversations. Never got into online gaming, aside from MMORPGs. Really nothing on the social fabric has been my thing through online.

Yeah, I play World of Warcraft. And I still will. I'm just going to take a different direction on everything else.

I'm not leaving online. I'm just dumping everything social networking that's online. Never worked for me. Adds more frustration than anything else.

I shut down my facebook account yesterday. Figure no one will really notice. Or care.

Over the next few weeks, I'm going to start to shed my web site as well. I've been paying $10 a month for YEARS to a company that has been getting my business that amounts to me talking to myself. Sure, I have a friend or two who reads the blog, but honestly, I can hold a coversation with those people in person. I don't need a blog to communicate with them.

The website was an experiment in beta for me because it was how I was going to keep in touch with my writing fans. They never materialized. Neither did my career as a writer. I've been writing for vanity alone, and I'm the only one pretty much reading it. What's the use in that? It's like keeping a diary and leaving it out all of the time in hopes that someone will accidentally read it. What kind of game is that?

So, I'm going to be shutting down my web site over the next few weeks. I might blog here and there much as a smoker still tokes up every now and then but knows that he shouldn't, even though he swears he quit the habit a long time ago.

I've found the whole social networking experiment to be interesting, mainly because it works for some people, but it didn't work for me. I'm a writer, not a blogger. I need an audience. It's never been about me or about writing for myself. Without an audience, well, I'm nothing. It's like being in the 1991 August coup in the Soviet Union, being Boris Yeltsin and then trying to stop the coup by talking to yourself in the shower. It might make you feel better at the time, but if there's no one listening, it doesn't do any good. If Yeltsin never had his audience, all we'd know about him and those days in August was that some fat Russian guy danced on a tank. But then, we'd probably not even know that. He'd just be some fat guy with a lot of things to say and no one to hear him.

That's what I feel like. I have a lot to say, and no one ever bothered to listen. Oh sure, a few did, but they were just being polite. And I reciprocated by listening to them. That's social networking, not writing. Never been my thing. It's like small talk. Never did it, and it's probably why I don't handle dates well. I hate small talk. It leads to nothing and is irrelevant. I hate irrelevancy, which is exactly what my web page has been all of this time.

I stared this web site with the idea that the audience would eventually come around. It never did. I thought I had a lot to say about politics, being a strange, anarchist political scientist. No one ever bothered to listen. You have to be someone with media clout. That's not me. I write humor. People find that irrelevant. So nothing comes of it. I thought I had a lot to say about writing, but no one cares, and everyone else ia a writer. Just ask them. They think they are. So who cares about what another one has to say? I thought I had a lot to say about communication theory, but again, no one cares.

And like the Pearls Before Swine cartoon where the pig is constantly being reminded by the rat that his blog is irrelevant, I'm tired of pretending it's ever going to change.

So, if you have any final comments, please do so soon, because soon there may not be a place to do so. It's okay if you don't comment, however. I'm kind of used to it. I can go off into the sunset without the attention. I'm kind of used to it.

If this ends up being my last post (which is probably not the case), I wish you all well and hope you find what you're seeking in whatever venue you seek it out. I'm saving myself $10 a month and going back to realizing that only my stuffed animals ever really cared what I had to say. And sometimes I suspect they're just being kind because they have to live with me.

Stuffed animals can be that way sometimes....

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Criminal nabbed through World of Warcraft account

The story is here.

Turns out that police sent a subpoena to Blizzard, which runs World of Warcraft to track down a fugitive who was trying to escape justice. Now, I'd be all for this particular turn of events if the fugitive had actually done something OTHER than a drug crime. His crime was dealing in multiple controlled substances.

I'm not into drugs, nor have I even dabbled in it. Been against them personally for my entire adult life. But I am not a fan of criminalizing drugs; always felt the solution was to treat the addicted rather than put them in jail.

Unfortunately, way too many resources are spent chasing drug crimes, so that other things are left behind. And even worse, drugs are so visual in our society that it gives avenues of criminal behavior the go, rather than treats it as a symptom to be cured. If gangs are going to do bad things, I'd prefer they stuck to actual crimes so that police went after that sort of stuff. Unfortunately, in this society, that's never going to happen.

Too many careers are made on the enforcement of drug crimes, and that's not a boon for an enlightened society.

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I think I'm getting better

Today is the first day where I've actually been able to read while wearing my glasses. For those who haven't been following my blog or facebook notes, I've been having trouble seeing with my glasses on because of a medical condition. The belief was that over time the condition would start getting better (hopefully) and that my sight would start getting better as well. That was weeks ago, and I was really concerned during this time. Today, however, I've actually been able to read normally unlike previous times in the recent past. There's still a bit of fuzziness, but that just means there's still more to adjust, but for the moment, let's just say it's so much nicer being able to read this way and not get a headache every fifteen minutes from not using my glasses.



Not much else going on. My thesis is still going through its Kafka-esque journey of approval from the Graduate Deparment. My God, I never thought ONE person could make it so difficult for a thesis to be accepted. Turns out she "lost" it last week by placing it on her file cabinet, or her desk, or wherever it was in her office. Kat had to point at it and say "there it is", and the women STILL tried to blame Kat for her own screw up. And this is the school that said I wasn't "qualified" to work there when I applied to be an employee while attendng UOP. Apparently, the word "qualified" has a lot of humorous definitions at University of the Pacific.



So, I am assuming I graduate this month. Who knows? They'll probably do something else really stupid. Everything else up until now has been a nightmare with this process. Why are they doing this? It's not like I was an enemy of UOP or the Graduate School at any time? Everyone else seems to be doing just fine with the process. Is it because I'm not physically there and unable to micromanage the process, so they figure I'm easy pickens for screwing with for no reason whatsoever? I don't really understand this.



As for here, my boss is having me create something a little different than I am here for; he wants me to create a debate teacher's program, so that we can train English instructors, specifically the Korean ones, to teach debate as well as English. After my initial uneasiness with the project, I'm actually developing the plan forward. I briefed two of the teachers on Wednesday, and while I can see them being a bit apprehensive (they have zero debate experience whatsoever), I kept trying to reassure them that this would not be a problem, and that with some work, they can actually do pretty well with this. What I don't think they realize (or maybe they do) is that the completion of this project will make them a lot more employable in South Korea, because there are a few schools that do the English/Debate thing here. It's really hard to find qualified people to do it, because a rational debate teacher isn't going to want to go and ALSO teach English for three days of the week. Yeah, I guess I'm really not always the most rational person.



That's about it. Wanted to share some slightly better news than usual. Been doing a lot of complaining lately, although I had a good reason to be doing so. They don't really share any of the same holidays with the US here, so what we do get off is Christmas and New Year's. Unfortunately, both of those days fall on a Thursday, which is my normal day off, so that means they won't be anything special for me when it comes to work. They don't give compensation days or anything like that. I'll just have the normal days off, and have to console myself with the fact that at least I'm not having to work on those days as well. Being in a different country can be a bit frustrating sometimes.



I weighed myself yesterday, and I'm at 147 pounds, which is somewhat near (or at) my ideal weight. My clothes don't fit anymore, and that's a problem because everything I have to wear is many inches too big. I really don't have the money to go out and buy new sets of clothing. This means tightening my belt, which is also a bit of a problem because I've run out of notches to tighten up with, so I either have to buy a new belt, or I'll have to do what I did when I was poor: create a new hole in the belt. But can I really complain, however? I've lost a lot of weight, and it's not some crash diet where the weight goes right back on once I stop being on the crash diet. This is the normal way I eat every day now, and my weight has melted off as a result. I'm kind of happy, foodwise, so there's really no reason to complain.



I sent my novel, The Ameriad, to Ricia Mainhardt's Literary Agency, and I'm still waiting for a response. She's having one of her readers take a look at it, so we'll see what happens. I've received mostly rejections from everyone to whom I've sent my other stuff. As soon as I finish the final edit on Rumors of War, I intend to start sending out query letters to agents for that one as well. It sucks that it takes so much effort to get published properly, but I'm hoping that once it happens, it will all have been worth it.



So, how am I occupying most of my free time? World of Warcraft. I figured that if I can't escape Korea and go to America, at least I can escape Korea and go to Azeroth (the land of World of Warcraft). I've been playing on the Horde these days with my hunter, and he's now 43rd level. I'm in a pretty decent guild on one of the Oceania servers (playing here because at least that way I'm closer to the same time zone as everyone else). Yeah, I know some people treat the game as some geek thing, and that's all right. But it does occupy a lot of free time these days, and believe me, it's been a lifesaver over the last few weeks, because things haven't really been all that great, and sometimes it's really nice to have something like that to take your mind off of real world things.



That's pretty much it for now. I'm at work right now, about to get ready for Writing and Composition classes with some middle school kids. One positive thing so far about being here is that I've found myself really liking the kids. They may get annoying at time, but that's because they're kids, and that's what they're supposed to do. But they like me, and I feel they respect me as well. I listen to the classrooms of other teachers, and the kids seem almost completely out of control. In my classes, they participate, and we get along without that loud, racuous noise I hear from the other classes. I'm not sure why it doesn't happen in my classes, but I'm not a strict teacher either. I do make them laugh a lot, and I think that has something to do with it. It also took weeks of working with the kids before they started to warm up to me; I have one of those strange senses of humor that takes time to get used to. One day, with one of my classes, it seemed like things were never going to get better (it was feeling like a bad class), so I just started talking about how squirrels are evil, carry machine guns, and one must always be on guard to warn if squirrels might attack. That, alone, did it. The kids have so much fun with this little joke, that sometimes they'll answer questions, using squirrels as the prompt to lead them to answer even more questions. The thing was: I wasn't planning to use this dumb joke as a starting pointi to anything, but it just worked. Another day, I talked about mind-controlling teddy bears, and it just worked great with another group of kids. It's partly because it's absurd, and kids often live in an absurd world where things don't always make sense. It creates a strange bond between the teacher and the students, when both can joke about the same thing, yet still manage to get the work done that is required. Anyway, I'm just pontificating about something I don't really understand anyway.

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Way overdue for an update

I realize it has been over a month now since I last added an entry, so I figured I'd just kind of recap what's going on.

1. No real job so far on the horizon. I've been trying, and I have not been very successful. I keep ending up as the "second choice" of colleges, but never the first choice. San Francisco State went with one person over me. Casper College went with the other person over me. Pacific University in Oregon went with the other person over me. They often call me to tell me that they wished they could have chosen me, but in the end, they didn't choose me. My prospects are looking really dim these days. I almost got Hillsdale College, and I probably would have got it, but I had problems with my flight, so they ended up having to give it to one of the other people who actually showed up for the official interview in Michigan. I don't really know what to do at this point. I'm not finding any success, and it's almost August now.

2. Working temporarily. I'm working for EF, which is an English teaching school that works through the University of Phoenix. It is one of those jobs that lasts only a month, and by the end of this week, I'll be completely unemployed again. Before that, I was working a temporary month or so job with the county as an election trainer. That, too, ended, so little by little my little gigs are drying up.

3. Overseas might be my only hope. I'm currently looking into working in South Korea, teaching English or debate. We'll see how that turns out.

4. My computer stopped working last week. Apparently, my power supply decided to stop working, or blew itself out. I had to take my computer to a shop to actually get it repaired. To be honest, even though I've been a computer technician before, I misdiagnosed my own computer and didn't realize it was something as simple as a bad power supply. So, I replaced that and added another gig of ram to my computer (bringing it up to 3 gigs of ram). Cost me $200 that I didn't really have, but what can I say?

5. My writing hasn't been going very well lately. I am at one of those stages in my writing where I have a novel formulating in my head, but it's not ready to come out yet. This happens to me a lot with my novels. Unfortunately, it leaves me wanting to write, but not feeling comfortable enough to write yet. I have a working title of this next project that seems to be around the corner, entitled: She Talks to Penguins. Believe it or not, it's actually a very serious project, and something a bit different from what I've tried to tackle in the past. Considering I've tackled adventure, suspense, science fiction, fantasy, epic comedy and romance, this is more of a slice of life kind of novel, which I never actually imagined I would be writing. I guess it is more consistent with some of my recent work, which included my short story "Simple Girl" that took second place from the Stockton Arts Commission this summer; for the record, my romance story, "Buried Memories," took first place from the Stockton Arts Commission the year before. "Simple Girl" was more of a moralistic type of story about a stereotyped girl who everyone seems to ridicule behind her back, but in the end she was really the wisest character in the story.

6. Relationships. None. That's never really changed. I had a conversation with Kat yesterday when we went out for a beer at BJ's, and we talked about that same subject. I guess I don't really know what it is I'm looking for these days. In the past, I was involved with some pretty strange women, dating anything from a crazy girl from Hong Kong who desired to kill everyone in the human race, fondly referring to me in a loving manner as "the last victim"; a professional dominatrix who didn't understand why men found her so intimidating; a seriously toxic semi-supermodel who used to leave the table after we eat to vomit up everything she just chowed down; several best friends with whom I may have or may not have been actually dating at the time (just couldn't figure it out and blatantly asking just gave me vague replies); a couple of 18-20 year olds, who put out airs that they were much more mature for their age until we started dating and then suddenly they were really 18-20 year olds in maturity as well; and well, a couple of others that were great but just weren't either looking for me, or not there when I was finally looking for them.

So, we somewhat concluded, or at least I did, that I'm looking for someone intelligent who can stimulate me intellectually. I don't find myself looking for the same thing other men are looking for. Sure, an attractive woman is great, and I'll spend an eternity looking at a beautiful woman (Shania Twain, I'm looking at you right now...), but there has to be more to it than that. And that's so hard to find because I think too many women are socially stigmatized by what other men are seeking that they're all convinced that most men are interested in them only for sex. And that bad disposition gets reinforced by bad choices they make in trying to find that guy who is "just like you but not you".

There have been a couple of women who have come along but they're just not interested in me, or in a relationship at the moment. Some of them have been perfect for me, and I felt I would be perfect for them. But those relationships have remained strictly friendships because they're seeking someone else, even though I sometimes suspect that they don't know what they're seeking either. What's funny is that no matter where I go, and I do go numerous places in my life, I always end up with at least one or two really close female friends who are never interested in anything beyond friendship. And my jury is still out as to whether or not that is a good or a bad thing.

7. The Shoulder. It still hurts. I can barely move my arm still, and the pain has actually spread to my right shoulder as well, so I have little full mobility, and it hurts when I try to stretch my arms behind my back, like when I try to put a belt on my pants. With that said, the pain has become lessened somewhat, and I do feel that I've been able to get a bit more sleep at night than I use to. I am heading in for a surgery consultation this afternoon, and then in August I'll actually have the surgery itself, where they stretch the shoulder into a position and then supposedly, that "fixes" the problem of "frozen shoulder". I'm hoping so because it's been over a year, and this situation has really sucked a lot.

8. Tabula Rasa. It means "clean slate" but it's also the name of the game I've been playing religiously with the spare time that I have every day. It's an online game, like World of Warcraft, but it's so much not like World of Warcraft. And that's what I was seeking: Something NOT World of Warcraft. The premise is that the Earth has been conquered by an alien race called the Thrax (or the Bane), and we've regrouped on other planets where we're trying to win back our freedom from Bane oppression. It's so much different than other games I've played, and it actually feels like you accomplish something when you play. Plus, the important thing for me, is that it has a very rich story interwoven into the fabric of the game. That's rare. The game was designed by the creator of Ultima (and Ultima Online), Richard Garriott. Great game. I highly recommend it.

9. The Thesis. My second draft was given to Marlin almost two weeks ago. I haven't heard back on it. It's 115 pages approximately, so I can see why it would take some time to read through and correct it. I'm hoping there's not much more to do, because I really want this over and done with. I've been in school way too long. Plus, I need the stupid degree so I can show that I have something in return for the two years I spent here at the University of the Pacific.

That's pretty much it for now. Wish I had more to add, but that's a mouthful alone.

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What's going on?

Yes, I'm still looking for a job. Summer's halfway over, and I'm still looking for a summer job. How's that for ridiculous? I really only need to figure out how to pay for one more month (August), and I should be fine. I've managed to scrape up enough to make it the months prior to that, and let's just say that it hasn't been fun.

Relationships. Well, the one with Rhea ended, mainly because it wasn't going anywhere. In the beginning, it was suffering because she felt I wasn't committed. I became committed to the relationship only to realize that she wasn't. So, we let it just fade away. Currently, I'm starting to see someone who is a lot younger. Yes, I'm breaking my rule of NEVER dating someone younger than 27, but we'll see where this goes.

I have an appointment Monday with a temporary agency that specializes in computer work placement for long term work, so let's hope something good comes of that. I did manage to get through the whole process of SFO for the job I wanted, and as I mentioned previously, I scored 1000 points and was Number 1 on the list. Subsequent attempts to contact human resources have resulted in friends with no benefits with their voice mail system, and no one has called me in the two or three weeks since I received that notification.

That's mainly it. Haven't had a lot of time to play World of Warcraft, which was becoming my major passion, but I'm thinking that's probably a good thing overall.

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