Assignment Blog: Week 4

I can't help myself...this week I HAVE to choose to post about the reading by Marie-Laure Ryan, “Immersion versus Interactivity: Virtual Reality and Literary Theory” found at http://www.humanities.uci.edu/mposter/syllabi/readings/ryan.html (um, yes, I just cut and paste that from the syllabus).

I've always found it fascinating just how "real" a "virtual" world can be. I realize that Ryan is comparing it primarily in a literary context (which I'll get to below) but first my own thoughts.

Most of the world has now seen or been forced to see "The Matrix" with the fantasically expressive actor (*cough*) Keanu Reeves (seriously? does the boy have more than 2 facial configurations and one tone of voice?-yet don't get me wrong, I do love his movies). That, of course, would be the modern view of a virtual world becoming so immersive, so exclusive of the actual, so in and of itself Real that it is accepted by all (or nearly all...save those "outside" the Matrix) as the real world. Indeed it plays on the senses, has that special mix of predicatability vs. randomness that Ryan says is important and which mimics real life enough that it becomes indistinguishable (earlier versions of the Matrix not plausible enough because they were too 'ideal' were, in fact, rejected by the captive humans) to the point that humanity is able to live its entire existance in this "Matrix" without ever experiencing life outside of it.

I don't want this blog to wander off on a tangent, but I once spent a considerable amount of time analysing in this case which world was real. Even if a few people disagree, if the majority agrees one version is the real world, who's really right? Don't the few then represent the "insane"? Treating the non-initiated as disposible, trying to destroy majority's world and superimpose the other (admittedly crappier) world they favor, aren't they exactly the terrorists that Agent Smith claims them to be? And that just wanders down the black hole of defining what is really "REAL". fun, fun, fun. :) Not to mention the question of...can we chose our realities?

Anyway *cough* away from that movie...Ryan defines "virtual reality" broadly, exploring it not only in the sense of a completely sensually immersive computer generated world as the term is coming to be associated with, but as any created immersive situation that can be experienced as at least temporarily real.

The primary requirement, of course, is that of (at the risk of repeating this word too often) immersion. That is, the mind has to get involved in the story occuring around it and accept it. There must be a sense of surroundings, situation, etc. In my own mind, immersion should also involve a sense of history of the situation...an understanding of the "plot" if you will of what has previously happened to put the current situation and future events into context. Anyway, as Ryan says, the main thing about immersion is placing onesself into the new reality...not just observing it. "one cannot be both immersed and a removed observer at the same time." This involves the concept of suspension of disbelief. Unless you can accept the new experience as "real" it's not really a reality for you, is it?

Immersion can be greatly aided, of course by sensual experience, but Ryan claims that this can be simulated by mere description...by literature. In fact that seems to be one of her primary explorations in this article...how literature represents a virtual reality of its own, one which existed long before computers were dreamt of.

Of course for literature to be immersive, there is the primary requirement of imagination to help it along since the experience is described in words and has to be interpreted, unlike the "ideal" virtual reality that is so convincing to the senses that it is experienced as real because we have to actually struggle to develop the disbelief that would remove us from it. (Ref: the Matrix)

Another thing aspect of experiencing a virtual reality is that the reality must both have a set of "laws" or rules which are unbreakable and predictable so that intelligent decisions can be made and frustration doesn't set in as well as an element of surprise and unpredictability or interaction becomes rote. Literature can certainly create this as can any constructed world with an intelligent creator.

A third element, however, mentioned in the critique in the latter half of the article is interactivity. This means that you can make decisions and perform actions that actually have consequences and effect future events in the reality. Unfortunately, this is where a literary work often fails. A story that has been written in standard form is decided with a set beginning, middle and end before the first sentence is read. The only hopes for interactivity are to read halfway through and then finish writing the story onesself or some such.

Though there have been attempts to make some sort of fusion of interactivity and text..."choose-your own adventure" and others...now especially with the advent of hypertext where readers can chose to jump from one page of text to the other based on chosing which links to click making it possible for individual readers to have completely different experiences.

However, text stories (and many others...television, and even video games) are still primarily author controlled unless story is not limited, but generates specifically based on reader choices. Ryan calls this "freedom of interactivity" where the experiencer is able to make any choice that does not fundamentally violate the rules of that world. (You cannot just decide to fly or be a pig or whatever unless unaided aviation or animorphing are facts of the world...)

Text is often compltely devoid of this, but increasingly new mediums are developing it more and more. Clearly even the most advanced of our present virtual realities cannot completely achive this however...but that doesn't mean that even without this ability we cannot have a real experience, one that is virtually real ;^)

But the question of how "real" can virtual reality be is already amongst us. There are already fantastically complicated games (granted most are still played on a computer terminal) wherein the graphics, the sounds are fantastically rendered and the world is a self-generating land where many, many players can interact as different characters. Characters who are created and then live "virtual lives" that are suspended but not terminated when the user leaves the terminal. And the user in many ways actually is their character. They interact with others as that person, they talk, and present themselves in that persona much as they put on clothes and go to the grocery store to talk to people in this world. There are stories everywhere of people who meet, fight, fall in love, etc through such platforms before there is ever any face to face meeting.

Because of this, these "virtual lives" are often just as important to players as real lives. And sometimes those boundaries cross...several issue in particular that're coming to the fore right now are the concept of "virtual property", "virtual economy", and "virtual crime."

As for virtual property: these characters that have been built up, their virtual weapons, clothing etc. have so much value in the virutal world that people are willing to pay for them with real money, often buying and selling online for sometimes thousands of dollars. An example of this is given by this article. It describes a woman Veronica Brown and her online personal Simone Stern who create and sell virtual clothing for characters in the game "Second Life" under the label Simone! Designs. Simone sells...Veronica makes about $60,000 a year. But with the ease with which pixels might be copied, she has an interest in protecting her designs...so how is the court to deal with it? Should real world property rights be ascribed to something that only exists as data? At least some countries are already saying yes. But how far should that protection go? That is just one of the questions causing these lines to blur...

There is also the concept of virtual economy. If a player has invested hours and hours of life on doing virtual work to better something that belongs to them virtually and then sells it for virtual currancy that then allows them to buy other virtual items, suddenly not only virtual property but virtual currency has value. (I myself have a thriving Neopets account where I rake in about 50k-75k "neopoints" a day and am currently saving up to buy a Rohane Plushie...quite a valuable little virtual toy that I'll put in my virtual gallery for other players to see and for my Plushie Guild (a bunch of us who collect these virtual toys) to "oohh and awww" over :) ) In fact some have wondered if all this spent virtual work leading to virtual products and wealth might actually be taxed in real money.

These two factors, of course, can lead to real world crime which can turn deadly. There is more than one case in which virtual property has been actually stolen and lead to actual violence and/or murder. Here's one that made headlines.

And then there's the concept of virtual crime, with gangs of characters ganging up on others to kill them, steal their clothes and weapons, even the concept of cyber rape (I believe this account is fictional, but there have been actual cases and actual lawsuits from this). How should this be punished? By other players? By the game makers and moderators? By the real world courts?

Brave new world time...how do we deal with this?