Aaron Delwiche
Aaron Delwiche is currently an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, where he teaches courses on cyberculture, game design and criticism, film studies, and propaganda. He is also a co-founder of Metaversatility, a virtual world branding and development firm that has worked with clients as diverse as AMD and ICANN. Aaron is co-chairing this year’s State of Play conference, writes a biweekly column on digital culture for the San Antonio Current and is a regular contributor to the Terra Nova games blog.
What do you see as the major factors which prompt gamers to move from one game to another?
Aaron Delwiche: I think that the whole concept of player types [Richard] Bartle came up with is crucial to finding out who is likely to migrate and how. Socializers are definitely likely to go. Achievers might be inclined to move with their group, if they’re in a guild that’s good and highly organized. They stand a better chance of achieving if they stay with that kind of a guild. I would imagine explorers would be more likely to go off and explore different worlds on their own. And I guess the killers just go wherever the killing is.
So you think that this kind of a collapse cycle is possible?
AD: I think that I’ve seen where that can happen a lot in guilds, definitely, where there’s disagreement about the world or the server. For instance, I was in a gaming guild of virtual worlds scholars… On a PvP server. If you’re not into PvP, it’s really depressing. You log on, get ganked, and its not much fun. But people stuck around because they wanted to be connected to that community.
Lately, I’ve been looking at this from a different mindset. In Metaversatility, we’re very interested in virtual worlds like Second Life, but we take it as a given that there are going to be other gateways to the metaverse in addition to Second Life. SL is revolutionary and has amazing critical mass, but there are a million things on the horizon - platforms like There and Raph Koster’s browser-based social virtual world.
What drives the player movements in worlds like Second Life?
AD: It would have to be the people, really. The appeal of SL isn’t the graphics. If you’re into eye candy you’d look for the most recent multiplayer game, get the most high end graphics card, and play with that. In SL, what’s maintaining that critical mass are people, networks and extensive user creation tools that make it possible for people to have such an investment in what happens.
What kinds of contributions did Warcraft make? Enough to warrant the level of attention that we’re giving it?
AD: I think that WoW demonstrated to many people the financial viability of the subscription model virtual worlds, and it also demonstrated that you can have games that appeal across cultures with very little content localization. I think it highlighted above all else the need for usability: having a real clean, user friendly game mechanic for new users. I know that a lot of EQ players freaked out, but in terms of the overall health of the industry it was exactly what we needed.
But today, I’m not a high-end player. I don’t do raids, and generally I don’t know what else there is to be said about World Of Warcraft which hasn’t already been said. I’m really curious to see what’s next. That isn’t to imply that there isn’t anything we can say, but there is this huge emphasis – in blogs, articles and journals, and in some quarters it may be a little excessive.
I’m biased, but maybe social virtual worlds have fallen by the wayside.
 What’s in store for single player games?
AD: Continuing with casual games, I think that they’re going to bring in many people who haven’t been gamers in the past. We’ll see more genre-mixing, just like with movies and the cinema. You’ll get something like Shaun of the Dead.
I’m also curious about the thing that’s happening with Spore, supposedly. This whole idea of distributed user-generated content, that actions in one single player game affect someone else’s single player game, it’s fascinating. I’m really curious to see how that will turn out.
And, if you were trapped on a desert island with only one game to last you through the long years, what would it be?
AD: Vanguard, because it had such an incredible grind. They’re fantastic games, but who has the time? Honestly though, I’d still really need to be connected to SL, or whatever future game takes its place down the road.
If I didn’t have internet, then it’d have to be Oblivion, hands down.
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