Transmedia storytelling again.

First part here.

Second part now:

I was earlier skeptical of Jenkin’s initial reponse regarding the essentials of transmedia storytelling; now, having read the next two installments of that response, I continue to think Bordwell has the upper hand in these matters.

I must admit, however, that I am not entirely sure of my reaction, since Jenkins seems to divide his argument into portions discussing transmedia storytelling as practiced by transmedia “artists” and as practiced by those more anonymous, less artistic folk who most seem to contribute to his broader notion of “participatory culture.’  Being more of the latter than the former (I fear), I will try to concentrate on the folk portion of the argument.

Bordwell earlier promoted, in general, the sanctity of certain media story forms (most obviously regarding the film medium, of course), but he also advanced the notion that stories and storytelling are not quite so plastic and open to cultural manipulation and control as Jenkins seems to require.

Jenkins’ response to Bordwell, essentially, seems to offer a list of how vast and varied stories and storytelling might, in fact, be.  This variation might, for instance, include the sort of limitations that Bordwell describes, but this variation might also, upon occasion, soar beyond those limitations.  Or, in other words, Jenkins admits to limits to stories and storytelling only under the conditions that those limits are limited.

Well, when all is potential, all is possible, I suppose.  But, simultaneously, where all is potential, nothing really is.

So Jenkins’ notion of the limitless potential of stories and storytelling is a concern if you happen to believe some things really are (and, conversely, that some things really aren’t).

I think stories and storytelling really are.

While Jenkins sees the story as a sort of “mother ship,” I see the story more as template for building mother ships.  Lots of little strange and alien things may flow from the mother ship, but only mother ships flow from the template.  (Jenkins may want to relegate such a story function to the “plot,” btw — his position on this remains unclear to me.)

That story template – that thing in our heads that distinguishes stories from not-stories – really is, despite and regardless of any participatory culture thrashing it about.

Where do we find the reality of that story template?  Not in story potentials, I don’t think, but rather in story limitations – where reality is much more likely to intervene.

For instance:  The story template includes the goodguy-badguy scenarios that allowed, famously, 60 Minutes and now, commonly, other fact-based news shows and productions to convert many and disparate facts, issues, and perspectives into a more produce-able, predictable, and palatable form.  This story template is, as others have noted, a “folk theory of causes” (cf.  narrative psychology, linguists such as William Labov).

Jenkins may have us believe that these folk causes are interminable – with which I would agree.  Yet they are causes nevertheless.  How these causes are used to subsequently promote and persuade is an interesting topic of study – e. g., the study of politics – but the inevitability of the formal template from which these arise and wiggle is quite terminable.

For better or worse, we have the capacity to draw inferences, conclusions, stories, and causes regardless of the data and observations from whence these are drawn.  Some have, at one time or another, called this capacity our “imagination.”  I wonder if this is what Jenkins is referring to when he notes the capacity of audiences to fill gaps (sometimes), explore “freedoms of interpretation” (sometimes), and engage in the many other varied activities of “participatory culture” (at all other times?).  Could we perhaps simply collapse all these activities into “using our imagination”?

In this collapse, what would “transmedia storytelling” lose, I wonder?  And what would stories and storytelling therein regain?

Deja vu recursively applied.

I listened to Ian Bogost’s keynote speech, Videogames are a Mess, at the 2009 DiGRA conference in London recently, and I found that speech interesting and intelligent and, ultimately, disappointing.  Bogost suggested that competing game theory assumptions and disparate game research methodologies could all equally co-exist if we just grin and bear it.  (At least, I think that was his recommendation.)

At the end of that speech, I was reminded of two things.

1)  The joke about the guy who goes to the doctor and says, “Doc, it hurts when I do this!”  And the doctor says, “Don’t do that!”

2)  An article by Robert Craig, published ten years ago in Communication Theory, that said pretty much the same thing that Bogost said.

You can get the gist of Craig’s article here, here, and, especially, here.

At the time, I wrote a response to Craig (Myers, 2001), in which I called Craig’s position, basically, a relativist position that, while amenable, ignored real problems and solved nothing.  Craig wrote a response to my response (Craig, 2001), in which he said, basically, that if we would just be a little more pragmatic about these sorts of things, our situation would improve.

Well, it’s ten years later, and I don’t think anything’s much improved.  And, apparently, in feeling the need to offer a similar solution to a similar problem, Bogost doesn’t think so either.

My guess is that, ten years from now, when all the pragmatists and all the flat ontologists will have again come full circle, we will have another keynote speech delivered and/or another meta-model paper written about grinning and bearing it.

And then we all get old and die.

Comments on transmedia storytelling.

The interdependent group of scholars who debate such things as “transmedia storytelling” has left a recent series of interesting tracks.  Here is that trail:

First, read this post by David Bordwell: http://www.davidbordwell.net/blog/?p=5264

Then, read this response by Henry Jenkins: http://www.henryjenkins.org/

I will not carry you through the Bordwell argument above, other than to say that argument appears to undermine one or more tenets of the Jenkins’ platform.  I am, for this reason, interested in both the tone and the content of Jenkins’ response, which remains incomplete.  Currently, I find the first installment of that response (posted in the link above) lacking in direction and confidence.  I would not state this at all except that it then allows me to acknowledge simultaneously and in contrast, without prejudice, that Jenkins seems a much better blog writer than Bordwell.

I would like to emphasize only this portion of the Bordwell argument:

Storytelling is crucially all about control. It sometimes obliges the viewer to take adventures she could not imagine. Storytelling is artistic tyranny, and not always benevolent.

Likewise, or so my argument goes, culture is all about control.  This is precisely why culture and storytelling and, indeed, any sort of educating or indoctrinating are anathemas to play.  To play is to gain control or, in situations in which control is given (temporarily) to a game during game play, to relinquish control only freely, only willfully, only temporarily, and only under the odd and strict conditions of the game rules.

The attempt to wrestle the story from the storyteller and to assign control of that story to the readers of the story (i. e., within Jenkins’ “participatory culture”) seems to make sense only if we continue to deal with stories and storytelling.  This makes sense, in turn, only if we continue to deal with, as Bordwell puts it, tyranny.  For it is not only the storytelling that is the tyrant; the predetermined outcome of the storytelling also must tyrannize:  the story form itself.

Can we have a “participatory culture” without stories and storytelling?  I don’t think so.

Can we have play and games without stories and storytelling?  Yes.

From this position, I find it somewhat strange that Bordwell would, in the end, most directly challenge Jenkins only with this:

Gap-filling isn’t the only rationale for spreading the story across platforms…

The critical issue in transmedia storytelling is not whether gaps exist prior or gaps are filled anterior.

The critical issue must be, as Bordwell earlier indicates, control.

Reflections from DiGRA…

…that are class-discussion related.

Hmm, let’s see.

***

We will soon be discussing “scholarly” publications and comparing those to non-scholarly (e. g., more popular and widely read) publications.  One of the (supposedly) primary advantages of scholary publications has been that these are vetted through a formal “peer review” process intended to insure and validate their quality and significance.

We will discuss more details about this peer review process in class.  However, let me make a couple of comments regarding current challenges to this process originating in new media forms.

These two challenges revolve around, first, the definition of “peer” in “peer review,” and, second, what we might call the tenacity or momentum of non-peer-reviewed online publications.

1.  What’s an “expert”?

Peer review is commonly based on a limited number of (three, for instance) expert opinions actively solicited for that purpose.

Wikipedia article reviews, on the other hand, are based on a much larger number of voluntary participants/editors who may or may not be experts on the topic(s) of the articles they review and edit.

While Wikipedia has recently moved to more tightly limit and “expertize” those who edit articles, the extreme version of a Wikipedia-like editing process remains in contrast to the principles of peer review.  Let’s avoid nuances for the moment and contrast these two processes simply as the “expert” vs. the “hive-mind.”

The traditional belief is, of course, that the expert is the better source of review — not the massive, anonymous hive-mind of the (occasionally unwashed) crowd.  But was that preference simply based on the relative inability to access the collective hive-mind through old media forms?  With newer, more connected, more immediate, and more responsive media, the hive-mind of the crowd becomes increasingly accessible — and proves surprisingly accurate when compared to the accuracy of the experts.  See, for instance, here.

2.  The persuasiveness of the popular.

The tenets and beliefs of popular culture are frequently at odds with more objective realities.  Our notion of the comparative characteristics and values of human “races,” for instance, has been more often colored (figuratively and literally) by superficial skin tones than by any fundamental differences among human genotypes.  For this (and other) reasons, “scholarly” discussion has commonly been kept separate — and, as occasion warrants, protected — from discussion in non-scholarly contexts.

In new media contexts, however, the barriers separating scholarly (isolated and “elite”) belief/knowledge and non-scholarly (widespread and “popular”) belief/knowledge have become less distinct and more permeable.

An extended example (probably overly protracted, but it is on my mind based on the recent DiGRA conference):

Take a brief look at this description of game player types.  That description traces a discussion of game player types that begins with a 1980 publication by Glen Bacow.

In 1990, I did a statistical analysis (Q-study) of game player motivations — see my research archives page — that summarized game player motivations as 1) playing to seek a challenge, 2) playing to socialize, and 3) playing to escape.  While I did not reference Bacow in that article, I did reference the most pertinent scholarly studies of the time, including Thomas Malone’s important work on player motivation and “fun” — from 1981.

Some time later — 1996 — there was the publication of the now well known (as a result of widespread promulgation through web-based sources — e. g., see here) “Bartle player types.”

Subsequently, it seems — due to the popularity of the “Bartle types” configuration (formally similar to “What Sort of… Are You?” online quizzes) — that more sophisticated statistical analyses of game player motivations have found reference to these “Bartle types” obligatory…

• http://www.liebertonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1089/cpb.2006.9.772?cookieSet=1
• http://dmitriwilliams.com/Whoplaysfinal.pdf
• http://www.igi-global.com/newsletter/november08/IJGCMS.pdf

…without any corresponding obligation to acknowledge or reference earlier work on the topic.  And this pattern of referential obligation continues — as the recent DiGRA conference demonstrated — despite, curiously, much of the newer research invalidating much of Bartle’s derivations.

Circumstances like this one, particularly involving scholarly research investigating new media topics — such as computer games — demonstrates the extent to which scholarly research must now interact with and, in that interaction, potentially become guided and structured by that which is popular and widespread, regardless of the means by which that widespread popularity has been obtained.

The ability of the web to promulgate persuasive ideas of the popular, regardless of their origin or validity, can be both a boon — if the ideas are original and valid — or a disaster — if those ideas are based on rumor, innuendo, and/or the banal.  This has always been a problem for journalists to deal with and overcome; it is increasingly a problem for scholars and scholarly publications to deal with and (hopefully) overcome as well.

Little Miss Manners, Little Big Misrepresentations.

Interesting set of papers here: http://gamephilosophy.org/ (see “Program”).

But these papers seem to me, largely due to their typicality and associated predictability, though still interesting from afar, somewhat drearier up close.

E.g., there is this one, which is reminiscent of the Twixt situation:

Dual Wielding Morality: World of Warcraft and the Ethics of “Ganking” 
Stacey Goguen, Boston University, USA.
(manuscript)

The argument therein discusses the “morality” of the ganking (“pvping” would be a more neutral description) of a funeral (“player-created event” would be a more neutral description) within World of Warcraft.  The specifics of the event are apparently documented here (reference taken from the paper):

“Funeral Ambushed.” Worldofwar.net. Created by: Scrapples. 09 April 2006. 01 May 2009
<http://forums.worldofwar.net/showthread.php?t=366556>.

Goguen’s argument, as I interpret it, is this:  The WoW game allowed pvping to take place, so that pvping was, basically, okay.  However, the pvpers interrupted real (“non-game-constrained” might be a more intelligible description) sorrow of the players people attending the in-game funeral.  Therefore, according to Goguen, reality must trump the game and…

Unfortunately, as long as we remain in interaction with other people, we never get to fully escape our status as moral beings. (p.9)

Thus:  We are trapped inside our moral-being cage, says Goguen, and the game cannot save us.

In the paper I will soon present at DiGRA 2009, I (once again, potentially tragically) defend the sanctity of the game against assaults such as those Goguen would mount against it.

Obviously, I must muster my strength.  However, let me ask here and now — briefly — these two things:

1.  Goguen seems to assume that the necessity of being subject to our status as moral beings requires us also to be subject to a singular sort of morality (e. g., “be nice to people attending funerals”).  Is this true?

2.  How critical is analogy to Goguen’s argument?  (There is a very compelling story of water pistol play in Goguen’s short essay, for instance. (p.7))

By this latter, I mean to what degree is an in-game funeral critical to our acceptance of our irrevocable moral-being status?  Suppose, for instance, an in-game funeral for Ted Kennedy had been interrupted — same result?  Suppose an in-game political fund-raiser for the Democratic party had been interrupted — same result?  Suppose an in-game anti-pvp rally had been interrupted — same result?

Suppose an in-game REPRESENTATION of an in-game funeral had been interrupted — same result?

***

Goguen does not pay much attention to the matter of representation in games.  I believe how games transform representations is critical to their function as games and their uniqueness as aesthetic objects.

Sometimes, cynically, I also believe that those who ignore the importance of game representations would simply like to control them.  They would like to control the meanings of funerals and pvp and, in fact, the game itself.  Perhaps they feel justified in controlling these representations because they consider themselves moral beings.  I, on the other hand, would like to think that we should (must) have some capacity to question whether or not those who represent themselves as moral beings are, in fact, actually moral beings.

Do we have that capacity?  Is that capacity, in fact, a game?

Let’s all sing like the birdies sing.

In prep for the fall semester, I have removed this blog’s open comments feature.  All comments now need to be moderated and approved.

Too bad, really.

Open comments are the way to go, and that is the way this blog has gone for a long, long time.

However, when all the online comments you receive are unmoderated and anonymous (while, simultaneously, all the comments you send are not), then things get a little lopsided.

When anonymity is used to smear and hide and oppress, what are you doing to do?

Too bad, really.

My daughter sent me this one…

http://xkcd.com/386/

***

Yeah, that’s about right.

wat u gonna do

re The Ethics of Computer Games

In The Ethics of Computer Games (2009), Miguel Sicart makes an interesting argument.

But that argument is different from mine.

Let’s set the stage…

Players engage in unethical actions in computer games because those actions have meaning within the game for the player-subject. Killing the prostitute after having sex with her [in Grand Theft Auto] is the most rational  approach: the player gets her energy level topped up, and she recovers the money. From the perspective of the game, it is an action that can be beneficial for the game experience. Furthermore, it is not compulsory—only players who voluntarily explore that possibility will be exposed to it. Similarly, the acts of violence in Killer 7 are only meaningful to the player of the game, and they are so because they represent the challenges that have to be solved in order to progress in the game.  (p.196)

Sicart builds his argument around what he calls “ludic phronesis.”

I define ludic phronesis as the moral wisdom that is developed as players experience games, which is used in evaluating the actions and dilemmas players are confronted with when playing and when being members of the community.  (p. 112)

“Ludic phronesis” appears similar to what I have earlier called on this blog (Suits’s notion of) “lusory attitude.”  According to Suits (and me), this attitude separates the game from the real world, based on the game player’s voluntary acceptance of what would be, without that acceptance, arbitrary conditions of performance and play.

Sicart, however, does not wish to separate the game world from the real world.  He wishes, as is the current fashion in game studies and analysis, to preserve the real-world “learning” that takes place during game play.  Ultimately, he believes that games are tools for teachers.

Based on this desire and this belief, Sicart chooses to conflate games and simulations.  In fact, his argument hinges on it.

the presence and importance of computer power and simulation capacities are relevant for understanding the ethics of digital games… (p. 16)

I prefer to make clear and important distinctions between games and simulations — based on the different ways these two different aesthetic forms use representations.  In brief, my argument (forthcoming in Play Redux) is that simulations are bound by reality and convention, and games — fortunately for us all — are not.

From my point of view, the game exists in a liminal state that does not merely, as Sicart suggests, allow us to experience the unethical in order to ponder its real-world relevance.  Rather, the game exists in a liminal state in which objective and explicit game rules have the same moral authority as more subjective and implicit real-world values.  In other words, the values of the game do not merely refer to real-world values, they question, doubt, and, within the boundaries of the game rules, replace those values.

In Play Redux, I try to demonstrate how this is a more profound (and more accurate)  position than Sicart’s.

The big lie: Let’s blow it up.

This is about a message that has appeared over and over again, posted on anything that Google can reach.

When you read it below, how many of you out there will have already seen it?  More than a few, I bet.

It’s a message that was being used as an indication of how Twixt played inside City of Heroes.  In effect, it’s a message calling me a liar.   It’s exactly the sort of supra-game, rumor-mongering. anonymous attack that plagued Twixt during his time in-game.

The first time I saw this message, a “Paul G” had posted it on my blog — after having copied it, I believe, from the CoH forums.  Because it was so obviously untrue, I thought it was nothing more than an attempt at play — and I responded in kind.  Then, after finding it quoted and taken as gospel around the web, I realized its more devious nature, and I gave it a more serious response (though brief, since, at the time, my attention was elsewhere).

It’s a fairly long message, so bear with me; and like most well-constructed lies, there is some truth to it.  But not much.

Let’s blow it up.

I’m actually a CoH player who PvPed both with and against Twixt (I am not any of the players named, and my verbal interactions with Twixt were quite limited).

Actually, I believe this much, though Twixt played for a long time, under many different circumstances.  So, many players might make this claim.  And, if that claim, like this message, is posted anonymously, there is little I can do to refute or confirm it.  I have noticed, however, that most of those who criticize Twixt’s play most harshly are those who have never competed with Twixt inside RV.

I’d like to clear up a few things that seem to be missing. Note that I am, in no way, discounting the seriousness of death threats,

Death threats = bad.  Got it.

but maybe a little more understanding of what really took place will allow people to relate better to the frustration.

Amen.  Let’s go.

1) Twixt’s actions in PvP translated to an investment of time. By teleporting (the action described) villains into a row of firing squad computer-generated enemies,

Here the message uses the “firing squad” description of npcs taken from the overly dramatic Times-Picayune newspaper article.  That article was written by someone who has no personal experience with pvp inside RV.  NO player inside RV — EVER — referred to npcs in this way.  It is misleading to do so.  At the time Twixt played, npcs in RV were very trivial opponents.  I’ve addressed this in greater depth (toward the bottom) here.

he would give the other character debt.

It’s impossible for Twixt (or any other character in CoH) to “give” another character debt.  Characters only get debt inside RV when they are killed by npcs.  If you don’t want to be killed by npcs, then you certainly don’t have to be.  There are areas in the zone where you are perfectly safe, where no one — no opponent such as Twixt — can touch you, ever.  There are also plenty of areas in the zone — about half — where, even though Twixt might be able to kill you, there are no hostile npcs.

In fact, it is very hard to kill characters in RV at all.  The game design has long been slanted toward defense and the ability to run away.  Even if you are engaged by multiple npcs, for instance, if you know what to do (which is basically no more than run away), then you can run away.  It’s trivial.  And, importantly, these choices are entirely under your control.  Despite the claims of those who are defeated, there is no “insta-win” in CoH/V.

Plus, entry into RV is limited to player-character levels 40-50.  At level 50, you get no debt no matter what you do.  Doesn’t matter.  And there is NO game-required reason for levels 40-49 to set foot in RV.  None.

All game goals — badges, loot, etc. — are as equally available to players at level 50 as they are to players at level 40.  For this reason, almost all toons in RV during Twixt’s play were level 50.  The only game-related reason to be in RV prior to level 50 is to power-level your character.  And this only works, of course, if no one is trying to kill you.  In RV, however, things — like Twixt — do try to kill you.

1.This debt would impede the character’s ability to gain experience by cutting it in half for a certain period of time.

In a worst case scenario, there would be a 50% reduction in xp gained for a limited period.  But, you still gained xp and your character still progressed towards the next level (unless, of course, as most characters were, that character was already at level 50).  Also, enhancements — somewhat rare — could diminish this penalty below the 50% level.

Thus, anyone who suffered from what Twixt did would pay for it by having their progress cut in half the next time they got the opportunity to play. A full portion of debt could take upwards of 3 hours of nonstop play to be worked off.

This is an outright lie.  If it took any player 3 hours to work off single death debt, that would have been the world’s worst CoH player.  It would take 10 minutes — tops — to work off that amount of debt.  And that’s if you weren’t trying to work the debt off.

Imagine you go play miniature golf. Directly in front of you is a group of 10 children who have no idea what they’re doing. You are unable to skip past them, and as is allowed, they refuse to let you pass. Due to this inconvenience, you only get to play 9 holes (or 4, if you’re only on a 9-hole course). Would you be frustrated? I sure would be. They didn’t break the rules, but they hurt the fun of my outing by specifically robbing me of the time that I had dedicated to accomplishing my goal. It’s not much different than traffic, bowling balls getting stuck in the lanes, people talking during a movie, or any other issue that would rob an individual of their free time. The individuals causing your frustration may not be breaking the rules, but they are affecting your enjoyment.

I really do not know how to respond to this miniature golf analogy.  This seems a much more relevant example of what the players inside RV were doing to Twixt than what Twixt was doing to them.  For other analogies, see here and here.

2) Twixt’s account of what took place in the PvP zones he visited just plain isn’t accurate.

This is a lie.  What I’ve claimed was and is accurate.  I have the logs to prove it.  There’s nothing more I can say — other than maybe put up or shut up.

People did chat because many of the players had played together prior to the release of City of Villains (CoH was released in May of 2004 while CoV in October of 2006). Most of us already knew each other.

“Chatting” is a gross understatement of what happened.   Certain guilds (supergroups) and other socially connected cliques of players in CoH could totally dominate and control the RV pvp zone for their own benefit; they camped that zone and refused to allow others, non-guild members, random players, Twixt, to play either the game as it was designed to be played OR to participate in their farming schemes.

For instance, it was very common practice for players with multiple accounts to use two or more characters, heroes and villains, to monopolize the heavies within the zone so that they could only be used for farming — with little risk or interruption.  Whether there was RMT involved in all of this, I don’t know.  But the practice of these farming individuals and groups inside RV was totally consistent with gathering loot for RMT.  They farmed the zone for their own benefit and harassed any who dared interfere with this process.

However, that didn’t result in a lack of fighting.

Another lie.  The “fighting” that occurred in the zone among the farming groups was on the order of  “you kill me, Ill kill you, you kill me again.”  This appeared to be done primarily to gain pvp badges without the risk normally associated with achieving those badges.  The same players who monopolized zone resources also controlled and regulated these false fights — harassing and chasing from the zone any who would disturb them.

Many times, Twixt would simply teleport people from battles already in place to his computer-generated death squads.

Again, there are no “death squads” inside RV.  There were, in isolated pockets, large groups of npcs that a single level 50 character could easily farm for loot.

He’s presenting the situation as if he was the only one using the zones correctly when, in actuality, he was just the only one manipulating loopholes

I’ve heard this accusation many times before, and I am still waiting to hear what “loopholes” Twixt manipulated.  This accusation is a lie.  I’ve dealt with it previously here.

to allow him to generally be mean to other players.

In this case, “mean” is used to label any sort of play that interrupted farming, RMT, leveling characters for sale, or practices so similar as to be identical.  The players who did these sorts of things were not — are not — stupid.  They were/are perfectly willing to hide their activities under whatever politically correct shield is available to them.  If, for instance, it benefits them to be “nice” and for their opponents to be “mean,” then those are the labels they use.  If it benefits them to be the “majority” (even if they are not), or, if it benefits them to be a “community” and for their opponents to be “griefers,” then those are the labels they use.  Based on my experience, this labeling strategy is very effective.

That’s the biggest reason why he was despised.

Twixt was despised — by those who lied and those who were persuaded by their lies, which was most.   He was admired — and lauded — by others.

3) Twixt commonly made fun of players he killed.

Another lie.  I’ve addressed this directly here.  NEVER did Twixt taunt an opponent he had just killed.

He did not simply say random hero-supporting things, he oftentimes bragged openly after using his computer-generated helpers to kill someone.

See the link immediately above.

Like any other competitive situation, bragging and talking trash will earn people talking back and becoming more upset.

Twixt was barraged with obscenities, harassment, and lies — which gave me the opportunity to determine what was and wasn’t considered an appropriate level of “trash talking” inside RV, and to act accordingly.  While some of this talk did seem to be approved by NCsoft and judged by their moderators as a normal part of the game, much of what was directed at Twixt, specifically, was not.  Indeed, this sort of anonymous post that I am discussing now, filled with lies that question not only Twixt’s play but my reporting of that play — calling me a liar — could be, under very similar (if not identical) circumstances, defamatory.  It is my suspicion that, because players are allowed to break game rules with impunity inside the RV pvp game (indeed, inside MMOs, in general), because these players are protected by their anonymity and by game companies interested in revenue more than propriety, these players now seem to believe that they can get away with the same sort of thing in real life.

He worked to goad individuals into becoming angrier at what he did.

A lie.  Unless, of course, this refers to Twixt’s insistence that the pvp game inside RV be played according to the rules of that game.

He mentions the forums as a place where people speculated about parts of his life, but he seems to have left out where he posted kill-logs from his time spent in PvP zones.

I have not “left this out.”  I’ve referred to this many times, including in my paper.  Posting the kill logs, as I mentioned in the paper, was a last ditch effort to confront the lies and distortions of Twixt’s play with the facts.  As the paper notes, that attempt was a failure.

He posted quite frequently on those boards, and he went out of his way to fuel the hate that developed for him.

A lie.  Twixt posted extremely infrequently as Twixt.  It was only in (approximately) March of 2008, for instance, that Twixt posted the kill logs.  This was after more than a year of play in RV.  Prior to that, Twixt, as Twixt, posted nothing on the forums.

Professional athletes who do such a thing are widely derided by the media and fans. Twixt worked hard to generate hate, he was not simply an innocent victim.

Professional athletes — particularly minority athletes — have long been exposed to harassment very similar, in some ways, to the harassment  Twixt received.  I mentioned in the paper the parallels between Twixt’s treatment and the treatment of minorities by a dominant culture interested in suppressing, among other things, the creativity and skills of those minorities.

4) Twixt died. A lot.

Twixt died a lot because he played a lot.  He died much, much less than did his opponents.  I have given objective evidence that documents this.

Twixt perfected his method of generating debt for other players

See the comments above regarding the importance of “debt” inside RV.  Twixt’s goals, as I stated many times, were “kill vills, win zone.”  He did his best to accomplish those goals.

by dying a whole lot along the way. Statements like, “But no one could stay alive long enough to defeat Twixt…” completely misrepresent what happened.

This is partially true.  If players had no intention of trying to achieve the rules-based game goals, then they could stay alive forever.  There were plenty of techniques and strategies available to ALL players within RV that could keep those players safe from attack.  On the other hand, if those players tried to accomplish game goals, then Twixt opposed them — and defeated them.  Those players then died much more often than Twixt died.

5) Twixt’s research plays a role by examining another realm of society, but his results are predictable.

My interest has long been in games, not game players.  I became interested in game players inside RV because they prevented me from playing the RV pvp game — not because I was interested in their (I believe demonstrably false) claims that they represented a sacrosanct online “society.”  Hiding behind this label of a game “society,” by the way, is then similar to hiding behind the label of “being nice.”  The players harassing Twixt were “nice” only when it suited their purpose to be so; likewise, they were a “society” only when it suited their purpose to be so — and in name only.  My observation was that “mob” would be more accurate than “society.”

It’s a shame that Twixt is the face of the CoH PvP and gaming community.

I played a game and wrote about that experience.  In fact, I would still like to play that game, but I am prevented from doing so by those players who would control who does and doesn’t play inside RV.  I continue to believe this is unfortunate for us all.

He presents a very one-sided tale that some folks, such as the writer of this article, have apparently bought into entirely. A whole lot of good takes place in that community,

My conclusion in the paper was that this “community” is self-serving.  This means that it will do “good” to preserve its status; it likewise means that it will do “bad” to preserve its status.  The treatment of Twixt is an example of the latter; I would not be surprised if there were also examples of the former.

but apparently, writing about that just wouldn’t sell a book.

Twixt is not the subject of the book referenced in the newspaper article.  You can read a little about the topic of that book here.  I suspect that book will be of very little interest to those CoH/V players, who, after many years of play, still do not have a good understanding of the rules and mechanics of pvp play inside RV.

Just a brief shout out…

… to the CoH/V Fightclub Police.

Go, go, good team!

***

Two years ago today, it had been a slow week.  (Leveling up on Infinity, as I recall.)

***

2007-INSIDE RV   1-Aug  2-Aug  3-Aug  4-Aug  5-Aug       
Twixt deaths       1      0      0      0      0       
vills killed
(no drones/npcs)   3      2      6     13     10       
turrets taken     47     51     25     68     76