Chapter 11 Notes

Chapter 11 – The Produsage Game: Harboring the Hive of Produsers

Gaming is the leader in applying produsage.

The Sims – game to decorate houses. Difference between this and Wiki is that it is commercial (Maxis and Electronic Arts).

Trainz – simulator. Participants developed their own 3D models – there are now vast amounts of “in-game” objects. There are “lead users”. One motivation is to see your own work on the game.

Produsing in the Space
Multiplayer online games (MMOGs). Players produse in-game assets but also create a shared history, sociality, society.

EverQuest – simulates fictional world of Norrath. Produsers develop their own approach to playing the game. The users collaborate to “tell the story”.

Raises moral and ethical issues. Sony tried to prohibit sales of Norrath stuff. Caused a reaction from the community. Highlighted the identify confusion between EverQuest as owned by the corporation or owned by the community. Now Sony tolerates auctions.

“Software providers as harborers of community”

Second Life – blank canvas to be populated with own interests and ideas. “Virtually every object is the creative work of its membership. It goes beyond gaming because you can pretty much create anything. Another word for it is MUVE – multi-user virtual environment. Operates according to principles of produsage.

Created by Linden Labs. Produsers retain property rights to their content.

New Internal and External Economies
Second Life is emerging as a test bed for new ideas, where real world prototypes can be released at low cost with direct feedback from users.

Imagining a Produsage-Based World
All the principles of produsage
Variety of local self-government approaches
“Federated Model” – civic communities act like federated states with an overall govt.

Produsing Socially
The question of governance: how are the assets governed? How do the communities view themselves? How does this relate to the producers?

Second Life and such give the appearance of openness but really they are like gated communities. It is important not to apply traditional governmental approaches to these spaces. Need to encourage further exploration of how to govern it.
The governance issue applies to other produsage areas: wikipedia over policy, YouTube and controversies over EULAs, Flickr, commu