In any society, there is a conflict between freedom and order. The Leviathan is the person or entity to whom we give up certain parts of our freedom to ensure order. In our regular life, the government is the Leviathan. We give up the right to do things that are against the law in order to keep our society peaceful and predictable. In the context of our class, the search for the Leviathan refers to finding what, if any, Leviathan-type force exists in online communities.
A lot of times when I am bored, I find myself entering one of these online communities in the form of the game Counter Strike. Counter Strike is an old online shoot em up game. There are plenty of newer games with better graphics, cooler guns and all that jazz, but I am good at Counter Strike, and still enjoy it, so I basically just stick to it. I always play on the same server as well; it’s fast, reliable, and I know what to expect.
Now when you enter the server, a little windowed description of the server pops up that says its name and the server rules: no hacking, no taking advantage of glitches, keep teams even, respect the admins and players, etc. So the server rules are fairly simple and laid out for you (if you read them). When you play, about 50% of the time there is an administrator present. In this situation, they are clearly the Leviathan of this miniature community. If people are blatantly breaking any of the stipulated rules of the server, the admin has a multitude of ways to punish him or her. These range from things like instantly killing that player (in the game), to kicking them from the server, or even permanently banning them. In most cases, however, a simple “Hey, cut that out” works and prevents people from doing what they shouldn’t. People know that the admins basically have godlike powers within the context of the game, so if an admin tells you to stop doing something you know that you’re options are basically limited to stopping or leaving the server.
Of course, there is also that other 50% of the time when there are no admins present. Surprisingly, in this situation there isn’t really much abuse from players breaking the rules either. Even when they know that there isn’t anyone there who can punish them, other players will still tell the rule-breaker to stop doing whatever they’re doing, and for the most part they stop. What does this mean for the Leviathan? Without an administrator, the only punishment someone can get is basically just getting complained to from other players. But this generally still works. I think that this phenomenon has to do with the fact that Counter Strike is a pretty outdated game. Like I said, there are all sorts of other, newer, and probably better games people could be playing. The people still playing this old game are the ones who truly enjoy it, and probably to some degree respect it. I think it is this respect for the game that keeps everyone relatively well behaved. People want things to run smoothly, so the game stays fun for everyone. In this respect, everyone playing becomes the Leviathan. Everyone keeps an eye on everyone to ensure smooth gameplay.
2 comments:
Hi Logan. I’ve played other online shooters and have noticed similar occurrences. I agree that it is usually a case of respect for the game and other players. I think that both examples, with and without an administrator are good illustrations of Wallace’s ‘Arched Brow’ idea. In both cases the person breaking the leviathan is rebuked by another player and as you discussed, usually the person doing wrong will stop. The case when an administrator is not present and the perpetrator is rebuked by his peers, the rebuke is enough, authority is not necessary, which seems to follow examples from Wallace where online social peers’ rebukes were enough to get someone to follow the leviathan.
Logan, I too am a veteran of online first person shooters. No fan of 'griefing,' I would often get angry when players would violate the social norms of the game/server, and the Leviathan in me would come out. Many times, the administrator would be gone and the griefing player (or in some cases, the hacker) would have free reign over the server and would have a blast ruining the experience of the other players. Much of this changed when games began to incorporate group-voting systems that effectively promoted the group consensus to the status of "mortal gods" - provided the group is in agreement as to the misconduct of the griefer. If the violator is a stranger to the server, then they are usually given no warnings and are quickly dismissed by this highly-reactive Leviathan force and is usually banned/exiled. However, if the violator is someone known to the server, then they are at first warned (via social pressure from the group) and, if the misconduct continues, then the Leviathan will seek more retributive measures.
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