My friend and I were online “gods” back around 2012 when we ran a Minecraft server with a small-but-dedicated player base.
Gods in online communities aren’t totally lost, they’ve just reduced in scope to smaller private servers in more niche games.
Gods in online communities aren’t totally lost, they’ve just reduced in scope to smaller private servers in more niche games.
> Community users couldn’t turn to the wizards; they had grown tired of settling social arguments in the large world, and forced players to come to collective agreement before they would mete our justice. Enough players wanted to “toad” Mr. Bungle—a variation on the Finger of Death—to get the superpowers who ran the servers’ attention, and the sentence was meekly carried out.
I have two examples in mind:
Riot implemented a player tribunal in League Of Legends. Players would examine chat logs to judge verbal abuse and misconduct cases. Eventually a Riot employee would decide on the punishment (warning or temporary or permanent ban). I don't know if this system is still in place, but at the time they reported good results and players saw it as an improvement.
A French high-school is using Minetest (a FOSS Minecraft) to run a student-driven server. The "administrator" chose to let the player-students do their own thing with as little intervention as possible. The admin even created a reward system granting privileges (fly, ban) up to full admin powers (that is, a god).
They saw player-students create a laws, then a police and then a tribunal. For sure those kids got a better understanding of the society they live in.
In one case, the admin invited his colleagues to introduce them to the tool/game. Those people were clueless and apparently thought that because they were teachers, they were above the rules. The student-players banned them.
Games being an entertainment-only device is a severe misconception. Online interaction in an MMO or a MOBA is often a form of social training. One role of games is to allow to experiment with dangerous things safely. The pseudonymous online society allows people to test different behaviors on others, and I believe that some of the "toxicity" comes from that.
So Godhood is a way for people to experiment with the exercise of power. And as the article concludes, "it ain't that fun after all".
I believe that if more people could have the chance to come to that conclusion, that being able to do anything is not fun, it would be a significant contribution to humanity I believe. Because it seems to me that too many people are driven by the delusion of wealth and power.
I'm super stoked that students ran their own in-game government, where no citizen was above the law. I'm curious what rules the teachers ran afoul of.