This post makes an interesting comparison to Scott’s latest.
Notably for purposes of your analogy, ‘PvE’ content in games in not truly ‘environmental’ at all, since these games are artifacts produced by humans. When you play PvE game, you are overcoming human-created challenges, and observing human creative output. The difference is that you are meant to ‘win’, that is, the challenges are designed to be overcome rather than to defeat you. Final Fantasy and Fallout are essentially collaborative experiences between you and the developers, a kind of friendly conversation mediated by technology and financial remuneration.
In other words, we can say that PvE game experiences are in the subset of human interactions in which mutual cooperation is advantageous for all parties. But they’re still very firmly within the realm of interpersonal interactions, generally. As per Scott’s post, we don’t really expect these types of experiences to be finite, so that in itself is not an advantage held by PvP/antagonistic/political interactions.
From a CEV perspective, PvP and political goals are bounded in problematic ways. Two people might both want to play League of Legends, but they also both want to win, which is impossible. You can maximize goal-satisfaction by making a really satisfying victory, but your subjects will fundamentally get to experience it half the time, and their wishes will not always come true. It may be that in a far-future situation, this is a fundamental limitation in political relationships that much reduces their use in CEV value determination, in favor of human interactions that can be multiplied to mutual satisfaction without limit.
But they’re still very firmly within the realm of interpersonal interactions, generally.
I disagree. Certainly, things like Fallout or Final Fantasies were made by developers with the goal of offering me a certain set of experiences, but that by itself doesn’t make playing such a game an interpersonal interaction. Not more than drinking alone—for the winemaker has crafted that bottle of wine to provide a set of experiences for me, too...
This post makes an interesting comparison to Scott’s latest.
Notably for purposes of your analogy, ‘PvE’ content in games in not truly ‘environmental’ at all, since these games are artifacts produced by humans. When you play PvE game, you are overcoming human-created challenges, and observing human creative output. The difference is that you are meant to ‘win’, that is, the challenges are designed to be overcome rather than to defeat you. Final Fantasy and Fallout are essentially collaborative experiences between you and the developers, a kind of friendly conversation mediated by technology and financial remuneration.
In other words, we can say that PvE game experiences are in the subset of human interactions in which mutual cooperation is advantageous for all parties. But they’re still very firmly within the realm of interpersonal interactions, generally. As per Scott’s post, we don’t really expect these types of experiences to be finite, so that in itself is not an advantage held by PvP/antagonistic/political interactions.
From a CEV perspective, PvP and political goals are bounded in problematic ways. Two people might both want to play League of Legends, but they also both want to win, which is impossible. You can maximize goal-satisfaction by making a really satisfying victory, but your subjects will fundamentally get to experience it half the time, and their wishes will not always come true. It may be that in a far-future situation, this is a fundamental limitation in political relationships that much reduces their use in CEV value determination, in favor of human interactions that can be multiplied to mutual satisfaction without limit.
I disagree. Certainly, things like Fallout or Final Fantasies were made by developers with the goal of offering me a certain set of experiences, but that by itself doesn’t make playing such a game an interpersonal interaction. Not more than drinking alone—for the winemaker has crafted that bottle of wine to provide a set of experiences for me, too...