Virtual Living

[jacob]

Imagine a [near] future that resembles the one described in Ready Player One in which real material wealth for the majority of people is on the decline and most options aside from "online living" have become unviable/too expensive for most people due to population pressure and environmental damage...

To which degree is spending most of one's time in a MMO viable? I'm thinking those which are complex enough to have their own economy, etc. We already have games where people working as gold-miners or setting up shop as traders working full-time.

I make a distinction between games like WoW or EVE Online where it seems possible to practically join a family or clan or even belong to a nation ... and, say, World of Tanks because ... well it's hard to have conversations and the amount of stuff one can do with/to other tanks is kinda limited; even if one could work/goldmine these games too. Ditto various flightsim universes where some people fly regular commercial routes and others work as air-traffic controllers for the fun of it.

Since some of these games are getting quite old having existed for over a decade. I'd imagine there are people [half my age?] who have been playing for that long and practically formed part (or all) of their identity around it? My question is ... does it work? Is a Ready Player One kind of world realistic? Will games stay attractive long enough for people to actually build [perhaps a majority of] their meaning/living inside the game? Especially if they're otherwise left in their parents' basement with few other options in life as is getting increasingly popular in these trying times...

TL;DR - Does anyone know of any examples of people who make a living [career] playing in MMOs and essentially have a "job" that goes beyond simple gold mining?

[C40]

There is a recent shift these days, where the "look at me" generation is using social media rather than games. Snapchat, Instagram, Vine (for a while), etc. It's an odd kind of gamification of life/image. Or, in many cases, just making and mostly reposting memes. People literally brag about their meme collections and expertise.

Even when playing video games, folks make it into social media. A big part of the most popular video games right now is streaming them. So their identity is not necessarily IN the game, it's of a game player. While I'm writing this, there are many thousands of people - possibly hundreds of thousands - streaming themselves playing Fortnight. And on Twitch alone, there are over 300,000 people watching Fortnight streams on Twitch alone. (at mid-day on a Tuesday.)

[prognastat]

I was quite in to Second Life about 10-13 years ago and spent quite a bit of time in there, there was a whole economy of builders, entrepeneurs, programmers, stores, clubs with managers and employees etc. It definitely was far more immersive of a world than WoW or other MMOs were. I guess it was more Snow Crash's metaverse than Ready Player One. Haven't really done that since though so don't know how the environment around online worlds has shifted since. When I was leaving they were workign on integrating more voice and VR functionality.

If VR becomes more immersive and they solve the whole having to move your body thing(a big if) then it might be viable, but I would say for most people right now it isn't.

[daylen]

Yes, I think so. It is a matter of degree, but there are plenty of people who live for gaming. If you are talking about a single game, then take a look at the Runescape highscores and the time required to max out a character.

Some rough calculations.. max experience across all skills is 5.4b and the rate of experience gain is up to 500k/hour. 5.4b/500k = 10,800 hours, but that is a minimum estimate which does not include time spent doing quests or minigames. The real time spent by some of those players is closer to 100,000 hours or 17 years playing 16 hours a day (game came out 2001). To add context from Wikipedia: "The game has had over 200 million accounts created and is recognised by the Guinness World Records as the world's largest and most-updated free MMORPG.".

[Jean]

Since FI, I spend a huge amount of time playing video games. Probably as much as what a career would have taken. Every multiplayer game have been played with real friends, most while in the same room. I once read and article (maybe posted here?) in which someone compared othodox jew to MMO player, which were raking point in a game, instead of the real world.
It might work for some, but I'm still addicted to the real world. I'm 32 to help put my case in your model.

[Kriegsspiel]

Games are evidently getting really really good since I stopped playing them. So it must be easy to get lost in them, maybe even to the exclusion of everything else in your life. When you're through with one (or when enough people are through with it that the loss of the virtual community causes you to lose the itch), you'd probably either look back in sorrow at your "wasted" life, or start up another game. The way Wade describes the Columbus apartment sounds like something these people would love:
SPOILERS BELOW

... each unit had been modified to meet hte very specific needs of a full-time gunter. It had everything I wanted. Low rent, a high-end security system, and steady, reliable access to as much electricity as I could afford. Most important, it offered a direct fiber-optic connection to the main OASIS server vault, which was located just a few miles away. This was the fastest and most secure type of Internet connection available, and since it wasn't provided by IOI or one of its subsidiaries, I wouldn't have to be paranoid about them monitoring my connection or trying to trace my location. I would be safe . . . There was no furniture in the cube-shaped room, and only one window. I stepped inside, closed the door, and locked it behind me. Then I made a silent vow not to go outside again until I had completed my quest. I would abandon the real world altogether until I found the egg."

And to your point of if people could live most of their lives online...

You could also purchase an ACHD (Anatomically correct haptic doll), if you wanted to have more "intimate" encounters inside the OASIS. ACHDs came in male, female, and dual-sex models, and were available with a wide array of options. Realistic latex skin. Servomotor-driven endoskeletons. Simulated musculature. And all of the attendant appendages and orifices one would imagine.

Driven by loneliness, curiosity, and raging teen hormones, I'd purchased a midrange ACHD, the Shaptic UberBetty, a few weeks after Art3mis stopped speaking to me. After spending several highly unproductive days inside a stand-alone brothel simulation called the Pleasuredome, I'd gotten rid of the doll, out of a combination of shame and self-preservation. I'd wasted thousands of credits, missed a whole week of work, and was on the verge of completely abandoning my quest for the egg when I confronted the grim realization that virtual sex, no matter how realistic, was really nothing but glorified, computer-assisted masturbation.

It's funny that he has no qualms about replacing his real-world life with the OASIS, but having OASIS sex makes him feel like he's wasting his time

And that brings up what I thought was the coolest part of Ready Player One: where he could have his OASIS immersion rig act like a gym. I originally wrote "while his mind was watching a movie or something else in the virtual world" but I think that was in a different sci-fi story...

The hour or so after I woke up was my least favorite part of each day, because I spent it in the real world. This was when I dealt with the tedious business of cleaning and exercising my physical body. I hated this part of the day because everything about it contradicted my other life. My real life, inside the OASIS. The sight of my tiny one-room apartment, my immersion rig, or my reflection in the mirror--- they all served as a harsh reminder that the world I spent my days in was not, in fact, the real one.

"Retract chair," I said as I stepped out of the bathroom. The haptic chair instantly flattened itself again, then retracted so that it was flush against the wall, clearing a large empty space in the center of the room, I pulled on my visor and loaded up the Gym, a stand-alone simulation. Now I was standing in a large modern fitness center lined with exercise equipment and weight machines, all of which could be perfectly simulated by my haptic suit
. . .
... but I spent the vast majority of my time sitting in my haptic chair, getting almost no exercise at all. I also had a habit of overeating when I was depressed or frustrated, which was most of the time. As a result, I'd gradually started to put on some extra pounds. I wasn't in the best shape to begin with, so I quickly reached a point where I could no longer fit comfortably in my haptic chair or squeeze into my XL haptic suit. . . I knew that if I didn't get my weight under control, I would probably die of sloth before I found the egg. I couldn't let that happen, so I made a snap decision and enabled the voluntary OASIS fitness lockout software on my rig... From then on... if I didn't meet my daily exercise requirements, the system prevented me from logging into my OASIS account.
. . .
The lockout software also monitored my dietary intake. Each day I was allowed to select meals from a preset menu of healthy, low calorie foods. The software would order the food for me online and it would be delivered to my door. Since I never left my apartment, it was easy for the program to keep track of everything I ate. If I ordered additional food on my own, it would increase the amount of exercise I had to do each day, to offset my additional calorie intake. This was some sadistic software.

But it worked. The pounds began to melt off, and after a few months, I was in near-perfect health.For the first time in my life I had a flat stomach, and muscles. I also had twice the energy, and I got sick a lot less frequently.

Here's where Cline lays out the "answer" to the question:

In real life, I was nothing but an antisocial hermit. A recluse. A pale-skinned pop culture-obsessed geek. An agoraphobic shut-in, with no real friends, family, or genuine human contact. I was just another sad, lost, lonely soul, wasting his life on a glorified videogame.

But not in the OASIS. In there, I was the great Parzival. World-famous gunter and international celebrity. People asked for my autograph. I had a fan club. Several, actually. I was recognized everywhere I Went (but only when I wanted to be). I was paid to endorse products. People admired and looked up to me. I got invited to the most exclusive parties. I went to all the hippest clubs and never had to wait in line. I was a pop-culture icon, a VR rock star. And, in gunter circles, I was a legend. Nay, a god.

Is this a life you want to live right now? Maybe, maybe not. I doubt it, because the technology in RPO is so far ahead of anything we have today, and most people live in the real world. With the added qualifier where you have no good prospects in the real world, and you live in a trailer, and nobody else around you is trying to live a life in the real world... it sounds kinda great.

[TopHatFox]

Black Mirror has riffed off the idea of a full-time virtual reality, except it was for terminally ill patients that can't move their bodies.

I could see it happening. The real world fucking sucks for most people, which is why video games are so popular. Scary times. Personally, I stay far away from MMOs...they're the strongest video game crack. Single-player run-throughs like Battle Front II or at max single-player immersion like Skyrim is all I'm down for. Imagine though...a virtual world of people playing roles in a place like Skyrim. I call dibs on the Dovahkin! (minus the occasional dying part)

[daylen]

I do not see a fine dividing line between "real world" and "virtual world". I know what it means in this context, but any tool or human construct changes how the user views reality. If a person thinks about mathematical abstractions, then is the user not trading time in the "real world" for an "imaginary world"? What if a hunter practices for a "real" hunt by shooting "virtual" targets? Are MMO's practice for avoiding the dangers of the "real" world? Is reality just a matter of stability?

In times of instability, the idea of reality looses meaning.

[prognastat]

Well right now the dividing line is quite clear as the level of sensory output from virtual worlds is extremely limited compared to the real world. Visually, auditory, touch, taste, scent etc. Virtual worlds aren't even close to emulating the real world at the moment.

The main question is how close can we come and the closer we can come the more likely people would accept virtual worlds over the real world.

[daylen]

In the context of this thread so far, sure. My point is that virtual is not well defined from a broader perspective, and any detailed analysis is limited by this. The question of closer depends on how virtual is measured. It seems to me that any worthwhile measure of virtual is dependent on the idea of stability/persistence. Humans spend much of their time telling themselves lies about "reality" so that things seem predictable and less threatening.

[Kriegsspiel]

daylen, your post made me think of some more examples. Case Keenum used virtual reality to improve his real life throwing. I also recall the story of a Vietnam POW who played an impressive round of golf shortly after having been in North Vietnamese clutches for a spell. He said he imagined himself playing golf every day.

[Lemon]

Even when I used to play MMOs over a decade ago it was totally possible to get sucked in and spend way more time in them was desirable. Add in improved quality of the games and a more shitty meatspace situation it is entirely possible that large numbers of people spend there time in online games. In terms of earning money in them that doesn't seem to happen often as far as I am aware beyond gold mining and those who do earn tend to do so at a pretty low hourly return unless they can exploit game dynamics in ways other haven't (I am thinking along the lines of riggerjack's previously linked minecraft story) because otherwise edges get competed away. Most games also have gold sinks in place to prevent rampant inflation but this also makes it harder to build wealth.

The major money comes more from Steaming as other have mentioned. This can be surprisingly viable and not just fortnite et al. I know of casters of games that are 20+ years old and make a living out of it. These are more an alternative to people watching sports ball though rather than a fully developed economy.
I do know plenty of people who spend 80% or near enough of recreational time playing games and in some cases the same game. But there does seem to be some resistance from mixing work and play, I suspect because the return isn't there. If it got to the same hourly rate as the day job...probably there would be a switch.

[jacob]

What inspired me to ask was seeing events like this https://www.pcgamer.com/the-biggest-bat ... can-watch/ wherein players driving $1000+ capital ships destroyed $1M+ at current exchange rates with the real economy. This is not only real money going *poof* for the sake of gaming, but [the battle] also required significant organization to bring about.

I could therefore imagine people who, for example, fly a virtual spaceship worth more than the shitty car they drive (or don't drive) in real life. That some might hold low status/income jobs in the real world to "pay the bills" but be virtual kings, magnates, or fleet admirals online. And having the actual ability to convert [$] but not doing it. Or paying the basement electricity bill via a virtual mining operation on Wolf-359 Secundus. This kind of stuff.

I wasn't so much focused on e-sports in terms of athletes and spectators and using twitch to recreate the ESPN experience of passive entertainment in the real world by watching Starcraft or Fortnite instead of monday night football. What I'm wondering about is whether humans will transfer a material about of GDP generation to virtual worlds. Does anyone have an idea of the size of the economies in these MMO's as measured in real dollars, i.e. value of selling virtual swords and ships for $$?

[daylen]

I think the popular games these days make most of their money from in-game purchases (partly due to piracy), so the total revenue of the gaming industry may be a decent approximation.

[Jean]

Humans are as annoying in MMO's than out of it.

[AnalyticalEngine]

[Redacted]

[niemand]

I could therefore imagine people who, for example, fly a virtual spaceship worth more than the shitty car they drive (or don't drive) in real life. That some might hold low status/income jobs in the real world to "pay the bills" but be virtual kings, magnates, or fleet admirals online. And having the actual ability to convert [$]...

I think living life in several worlds has always been happening, although most of the time not synchronously and usually without the possibility to convert the $, status, meaning & XP from one world into $, status, meaning & XP of another world.

John Rambo said:
Back there I could fly a gunship, I could drive a tank, I was in charge of million dollar equipment, back here I can't even hold a job *parking cars*!

Anyone who hasn’t got anything other than activity X for status, meaning & XP might suffer a similar fate. Once they (have to) leave world A and enter world B their $, status, meaning and XP will most likely convert worse than 1:1 to world B. It may be best to play wide rather than deep in this game called Life.

[prognastat]

Does anyone have an idea of the size of the economies in these MMO's as measured in real dollars, i.e. value of selling virtual swords and ships for $$?

Not many companies share this, however:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anshe_Chung

This is someone who became a real estate magnate in Second Life and ended up a real life millionaire.

[Jean]

@niemand
Cattle and friend are difficult to convert, but i think you get to keep you fame.

[BRUTE]

ownership is always virtual, isn't it? how's owning a $1M battleship that humans worked long hours for different than owning $1M of stock in a company that humans worked long hours for?