Free The Proteus Paradox by Nick Yee Page A

only hijack our psychological wiring to encourage superstitious beliefs and rituals, but the plausibility of supernatural beliefs helps propel and sustain these superstitions. Our social training and brain wiring follow us into these new worlds. We think of technology as something that promotes rationality, but technological constructs can actually promotesuperstition. And as we’re playing games, we’re also being played, driven to dance in virtual boxes.
    Superstitions in online games reveal several surprising aspects of game design. First, game designers often don’t have complete control over the social systems they create. In the case of
Dungeons and Dragons Online,
players rejected the developers’ statements that conflicted with their own beliefs on negotiating with treasure chests. And second, players are actually creating a great deal of game content even in the virtual worlds in which they ostensibly cannot create game assets as we traditionally define them. Players are not able to create or modify creature models or change the code in an online game, but superstitions can create new experiences and social interactions for many players. For them, these superstitions are as much a part of their gameplay as the elements hardcoded by the developers. In a way, superstitions are free content for game developers; they are stories that require no additional resources or effort to create.
    We tend to see superstitions as irrational, even primitive. And it’s hard at first to see how ritual dances can be a good thing. But the key to every good story is engaging with the audience. A predictable story with no surprises is boring. The television and filmmaker J. J. Abrams refers to the use of a “mystery box” as a storytelling device to engage the audience as a story unfolds. Thus, in his monster movie
Super 8,
the audience never sees the monster until the last ten minutes of the movie. Until that point, the audience is actively engaged in guessing what the monster looks like based on the clues left in its destructive wake. And when the fans of TV show
Lost
were not watching the show, they spent a great deal of time thinking, talking, and posting on forums about the show’s mysteries. Although superstitious rituals would be a bad thing in the jury room or the classroom,I would argue that they are indicators of engagement in online games. Whether it’s a story or a video game, nothing engages an audience like a mystery they can help solve. On the other hand, irrational behaviors are inherently hard to control. In chapter 5 , we’ll see how volatile beliefs have led to racial profiling in online games, but to understand how those beliefs emerged, I first need to explain why online games are so much work.

CHAPTER 4 THE LABOR OF FUN
    Until I played
Star Wars Galaxies,
I never knew how absorbing industrial entrepreneurship could be.
    The late afternoon sun was making me uncomfortable under the hooded robe and thick Wookie fur. The wild wheat field had been slowly depleted over the past week. Other surveyors had come and left their own automated harvesters—ugly metal installations that slowly blanketed the river delta. This wheat strain had a superior decay resistance, and I had frantically stockpiled it for my production of biological effect controllers. My pharmaceutical factories had ground to a halt three days ago owing to the break in the supply chain, but now, with this new wheat stock, I was hoping my luck was turning around. My clients were flooding the mail console, and if I couldn’t deliver new stock soon, I would probably lose many of them to a competitor.
    I turned to the sound of the approaching swoop speeder bike. It was that annoying donkey-faced Bothan again. I wondered if Laza ever slept. I had to planet-hop to find a new wheat source, and the quality was unlikely to match this wild strain. Perhaps a jump to Naboo first? I glanced at Laza, who was emptying his