The Horde is Evil? Part 2

Posted on June 30th, 2007 by Carlos

I think I want to start out my analysis of Castronova’s claim that the Horde in WoW is evil, and therefore those who play Horde characters are engaging in ethical misdemeanors, by exploring whether there is a legitimate difference between acts we commit in our normal lives versus acts committed in a virtual environment such as World of Warcraft.

To start us off, here’s the quote from Castronova’s post on TerraNova that more or less serves as the thesis of his argument:

“There are good reasons for playing evil characters — to give others an opportunity to be good, to help tell a story, to explore the nature of evil. But when the avatar is a considered an expression of self, in a social environment, then deliberately choosing a wicked character is itself a (modestly) wicked act.”

I think this opinion is valid, but perhaps not sound: that is, since it’s a conditional (”But when an avatar…”), all he is saying is that, so long as the conditions are met, the results follow. I could restate the thesis this way: “It is only when an avatar is considered an expression of self, in a social environment, that deliberately choosing a wicked character is itself a (modestly) wicked act.” The question becomes, then, “When are the conditions met?” And I think, unfortunately for Castronova, the answer is almost never. For his argument to work, the following things need to be true:

1. An avatar in a MMORPG must be considered “an expression of self” (which itself is a vague and problematic phrase);
2. The avatar must be placed in a social environment (this one is pretty much a given);
3. The player must choose to play a wicked character deliberately, meaning that they must be making a choice to be wicked;
4. The avatars themselves must be inherently wicked.

It’s going to take more than one post to tease out all of the ramifications of these conditions, but let me start out with my personal experience with World of Warcraft. I started out WoW playing a gnome warlock. Why? Because when I played Dungeons and Dragons I always drawn to gnomes: they were smart, tricky, cheerful, optimistic, bookish, and short. In other words, they were me. Fast forward twenty years, and I’m probably even more gnomish now than I was then. But back when I played D&D, I also played human, dwarven, elfish, halfling, half-elf, and even half-orc characters. Why would I do that? Because sometimes the party needed a certain type of character to balance it out — say a theif — and some races made better thieves — say a halfling. Sometimes you make choices other than psychological or aesthetic ones when you play cooperative games for the good of the team.

That’s what happened to me recently, when I found out a few old friends were playing Horde on a different server. I wanted to play with them, so I switched sides and rolled a Blood Elf. What does abandoning my gnome for this new Horde character say about me? I’m pretty sure Castronova’s a reasonable guy; I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t think my choice evil. In fact, he might point out that I did not deliberately choose to play a Horde character, that instead circumstances thrust the Horde upon me. Really I’m just a victim of circumstance.

But what I think my own example reveals is that, were we to carefully explore why people chose the avatars they chose, we’d find that a lot of the time, outside factors preclude us from getting a clean psychological profile from someone’s avatar choice. There are just too many things that might at any moment go into a decision. For instance, when I asked my friend T_______ why he’d chosen Horde in the first place, he said: “Because too many kids play Alliance. More real gamers play Horde.” Many new gamers are drawn to Alliance-types, so to avoid newbies and get to play with hard-core gamers, T________ chose to go Horde. In other words, he was thinking in terms of his game experience, not the moral fiber of orcs and tauren and company. And that’s because WoW is a game; there are game considerations that interfere with the Rorschach-like way Castronova is treating avatar choice.

Here’s another example. I think a lot of the younger (I’m not great with demographics: 12-24?) players may choose an avatar because it “looks cool.” And while you may think that an undead avatar is morally repulsive, the fact is that many people just like the way the undead characters look, without considering what that character choice might represent on a philosophical or psychological way. I think the undead characters look cool; there’s a whole undead aesthetic tied to horror and heavy metal that I really see the appeal of. And how many of you have read on the message boards that young hetero males choose female avatars so that they’ll have a derrière of the opposite sex to stare at as they cruise through the fantastic landscapes of WoW? Sexist? Perhaps. But evil? Perhaps not.

In short, I suspect that the vast majority of players do not choose avatars deliberately to “do something evil.” They may choose to play for innocent game-related purposes; they may be more concerned with looks rather than morality; there are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of considerations that can go into avatar choice, all of which would preclude a Castronova-esque reading. But there’s more: many times, they are not seeking to express their inner selves at all. They may be trying out a new self to see how it fits.

In my next post, I’ll talk more about this vitally important fact about virtual environments, using Bahktin’s idea of the “carnival” to illustrate what happens oftentimes when we dawn a virtual alter-ego.