Caro Williams of Carnegie Mellon University compares the massive multiplayer online role playing game World of Warcraft to the legend of Theseus’s ship. Within the legend, the ship is constantly repaired over time until it is completely made of new materials which prompts the question: Is it still the original Theseus’s ship? At what point did it not become the original? Is it original based on the material or the people possessing it? This is true to many online games today as every update brings a new wave of content and patches into the original world.

While some may be small changes such as “a bug fix”, such as armor updates or minor glitches, there are several major changes such as new lands and quests that inevitably changes the structure of the game both economically and socially. The constant updates stretches beyond World of Warcraft and into nearly every game that is put out in recent years. Call of Duty, Minecraft, Grand Theft Auto, and many others all have gone through patches, re-vamping, skin changing, and additional challenges or mini-games added to the main story. Whether or not these changes are beneficial or harmful is based on how one perceives the game.

Williams write that some games such as Tic-Tac-Toe and Monopoly are “classics, and they just stay the same…” despite occasionally getting “makeovers”. The strategies of the games all remain the same. But does is that what make these “classics” classic? I don’t believe that if Grand Theft Auto stopped making online missions and expansions it would make it any more of a classic than a static game such as Nintendo’s Corey in the House or iPhone’s Flappy Bird. Although there are changes, many are still struck with awe or nostalgia when booting up their games. Williams identifies with this as he claims that even though the new World of Warcraft is vastly different now,”…somehow, simultaneously, it is the same WoW, and I get that same sense of recognition and wonder when I log on.'”

He ends the passage on a Douglas Adam quote which urges gamers to not dwell on original aspects of games as they are simply “sentimental souvenirs of the past” and that by doing so destroys the image of the game itself. As someone who grew up on Pokemon Sapphire, Ruby, and Emerald, I found the older black and white games of Blue and Red extremely tedious and boring. But now I find the newer generations of Black, White, and the soon to be added Sun and Moon extremely over detailed and have too many Pokemons to keep up with. Did the generation that grew up on Red and Blue feel that same way about my generation? Change is not a destruction of originality, but instead an addition to it.

Citations

Williams, Caro. “ETC Press.” ETC PRESS. ETC PRESS, 5 July 2011. Web. 21 Oct. 2016. <http://press.etc.cmu.edu/content/world-warcraft-crystle-martin-sarah-chu-dee-johnson-amanda-ochsner-caro-williams-constance-s>.

My most memorable and immersive gaming experience happened on Minecraft when I was in 7th grade. It was around the time Minecraft had began to pick up momentum as more and more Youtube gamers were getting into the game. I had only seen a handful of videos, but decided to try out the free trial anyway.

The first day mainly consisted of me running around and picking up flowers. At the time, I didn’t know you had to hold down your mouse to break blocks so the only things I could pick up were flowers and mushrooms (which broke in one hit). By the time that I had figured out how to punch out blocks, the sun was setting and I knew that monsters were near.

Armed with a few dirt blocks, flowers, mushroom, and sand, I made a small pit to shield myself from the darkness along the shore of a frozen beach. It went as well as you’d expect it would. In the course of the night, about 20 minutes or so of real time, I defended my makeshift sand fort from spiders, skeletons, and zombies. By the time the sun had come up, the beach was littered in bones and blood, some of which were mine and most being the monsters. I was pretty damn proud.

Those early days playing the game were the peaks of enjoyment for me. I had logged onto this completely foreign world with no idea how game mechanics worked. I didn’t know what items went with which to create what. I didn’t know wood was a necessity. I definitely didn’t know “creepers”, suicidal green phallic-looking monsters with no arms, could explode and ruin your hard day’s work while simultaneously killing you. The point was I enjoyed being lost.

By the time I was in ninth grade, my passion for the game was gone. I could log into a fresh, new world and have a small house along with basic armor and weapons within 25 minutes. Maybe less if I had spawned in a location with a lot of natural resources nearby such as trees and mines. I was no longer an excited, lost noob, but a bored veteran. By now, Minecraft had gone through hundreds of updates and changes. The once simple feel to the game is lost amongst all the new updates and returning to it wouldn’t be worth the effort of trying to catch up. These days there are too many online guides and youtube tutorials. Sometimes, not knowing what’s next is the best part.

Looking down from the uppermost level, the Davidson Union acts as a three story social playground. On the ground floor, there is a large, empty space with sparse chairs and tables, opening it up to be an area of imaginative play. In the open space, there is a lone ping-pong table that seems to be an invitation for play, calling out to bored students for a few rounds of amateur table tennis. To the side, there are several enclosed rooms with glass windows and colorful couches for meetings. Unlike actual board rooms, the lively color of the walls and chairs are a lot more unprofessional and seem to create a casual atmosphere.

The second floor is much more structured. It is divided into an area for play and an area for food. On the furthest side, there are few interactive activities other than an area to buy food and a place to eat it at. The closely placed tables serve to increase more social activities and conversation rather than play. The other side is drastically different although is no less structured. There is a place to watch TV, an area for billiards, and foosball. The only thing you could do at the pool table is billiards and the only thing you could do at the foosball table is foosball. The television area, however, groups together different sets of people and changes based on what channel it is on. During my visit, Friends re-run was taking place and only a few people were there to discuss it and laugh along to the sitcom. Other days I have seen people watch college football, politics, and even the weather channel. Despite the vastly different channels, the space still serves as an area for communication and mingling.

The third floor is the most structured. There are computers on every side as well as more business-like meeting rooms with no lively colored decorations. There are several offices made specifically for a certain purpose such as the chaplain’s office. Loud voices, although not unallowed, is certainly not encouraged. Most people upstairs do work quietly or have smaller meetings with no real room for play of any kind. The layout of few tables and scattered desktops almost seems to discourage play.

As you ascend the floors of the Union, there is an increasingly structural layout in regards to play both visually and audibly. Although rather quiet, the first floor had the most room for play as one could enjoy a game of ping pong or kickball whenever there is a ball pit there. The second floor is the loudest and most encouraging for play as it is split up into designated areas for games, entertainment, and nourishment. The last floor is a quiet place for work and reflection so there is very little play involved. Despite all this, the three floors share in common a specific aspect of play which is unity. Whether it is the chaplain’s office for religious discussion or the lunch tables, the union encourages communication with others and finding enjoyment in activities that are not always necessarily game spaces.

Throughout the summer, my friends and I spent hours traveling to different parks, restaurants, churches, and admittedly a graveyard in order to catch virtual creatures on the app Pokemon GO. As we journeyed together we saw that the game brought various age demographics together, either through childhood nostalgia or newfound adventures, the purpose was one and the same: play. But in the midst of collecting them all and taking over virtual gyms, the game came along with a set of unstated politics and rules.

At level five, a player has the option to join one of three teams: Mystic (blue), Valor (red), or Instinct (yellow). There is no real advantage or disadvantage to any team and the title is merely there to give the player a sense of belonging and a group to fight for. Despite there being no true difference in the teams, it was obvious from the beginning that the dominant forces were Valor and Mystic, mirroring America’s Republicans and Democrats or more specifically America’s duality when it comes to pretty much anything. There was no room for a triumvirate or broken factions in this game, only two teams and one meme. Instinct became somewhat of a laughingstock amongst the community for no apparent reason. But despite the relatively innocent ribbing on the smaller team online, the mindset of the duality revealed a much uglier side in reality.

Public parks and buildings were vandalized in the name of the teams and the act of dark play became an unfortunate side affect due to this. Many public areas had to erect signs banning Pokemon GO players from religious housing and memorial grounds due to the amount of loitering, loudness, and general disrespect towards the environment. This political party mentality did not only affect others not playing the game, but ruins the game itself. The pursuit of Pokemons and training them no longer mattered as it became a competition. Delete the weak ones and capture the strong in order to see your team’s flag high atop a gym. The PokeStops (areas to restock supply) and PokeGyms were no longer points of communication, celebration, and community but instead quickly became red and blue districts that battled for superiority.