The online community that I have been using the most lately is my XBOX Live community. As an owner of a XBOX 360 for the past year, I have had access to gamers all over the world who have the common interest in gaming. The amount of trust needed in this online community usually depends on the type of games that you may be playing. There is a certain level of trust needed for each game but the reason changes from game to game. In a game like Call of Duty you are going to want someone on your team, who is going to have your back, who is focused on the goal at hand. Playing against someone in a sports game you want someone who wont cheat or quit if they are playing badly. That's why they have a system to add friends. If they are your friends in real life you can hold them accountable, and if you have an enjoyable experience playing with someone even though you don't know them you can add them because the trust has had time to develop through experience.
Desirable behavior would be any behavior that allows for smooth gameplay when playing online. Players that don't curse consistently during play, that don't quit in the middle of games, or repeatedly sabotage teams during team play are people who get rewarded. Resnick's idea of "reputation systems" is utilized in the creation of the XBOX Live system. By having players file reports after games for misconduct or giving people high ratings after an enjoyable game, you create a system where past interactions can have weight and influence on future interactions in the community. Obviously when it comes to rating systems, there are a lot of gray areas when it comes down to the truthfulness of the information. If you had a group of friends that play games against each other and give each other good ratings regardless of what happened in the game, to the public it may seem like they are gamers that you would want to interact with. In reality they may be the very opposite. When control of information is outside of the administrations hands it is easy to manipulate the results. XBOX Live tries to provide more information by having a rating system that measures success based on tasks done. It may not tell a complete story but it helps users define potentially good competition and users who believe in fair play.
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It would be interesting to see if overall player ratings are higher in certain games, which could indicate that levels of trust differ based on game type. In some games, it may be easier to gain someone's trust early on by helping them out therefore increasing your reputation. However, other games may facilitate a delayed trust where users gain other's trust by cooperating over an extended period of time. Thus, users of games with delayed trust may need to participate more readily in the XBOX Live system in order to increase their reputation.
ReplyDeleteThis is a great post. I'm a big fan of gaming online, and your so right when you say trust is different with each game being played. I love to play NCAA football online, but you definitely run into the problem of people quitting when they have a bad game so their player rating doesn't go down. I think the reputation system for the 360 is already good. Users can already comment on other users, and like you said, you can friend others that you trust to play against.
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