From: cyberoid@milton.u.washington.edu (Bob Jacobson)
Subject: Wargames and Virtual Worlds (Was Re: Questions about BattleTech)
Date: Fri, 26 Apr 1991 07:24:56 GMT
Organization: University of Washington, Seattle



Recently I had the chance to see the promotional videotape for a virtual
world wargame similar to BattleTech, but intended to produce a more
inclusive visual and audio experience -- W Industries' "Virtuality" (a
term which W Industries has trademarked).

I won't go into the details of the Virtuality game (which Harry Fearnham
has done ably here, before), except to remind readers that it permits
users to shoot down airplanes that are either machine generated or
"piloted" by other players.  The price for use is approximately one pound
sterling for two to five minutes of play.

When the videotape was shown, at the recent "In Cyberspace" conference 
held in Munich, the German audience was outraged.  W Industries founder
John Waldern was unmoved by the criticisms that his machine called forth
the worst in human behavior and made a mockery of the technological
promise inherent in virtual worlds systems.  He responded to these
attacks by asserting that appealing to the market (in this case, to 
teenage boys) is necessary to produce the revenues for more serious work.

Many of the criticisms directed at Waldern were a product of the style of
his tape, which was filled with dry-ice smoke, lots of loud rock music by
Queen ("I want it all!", surely an ironic statement here turned on its
head), and people apparently screaming inside their Virtuality visors.

But there was also a concern, which I shared and expressed, that beyond
any moral questions, such presentations run the risk of distorting, once
again, public perception of virtual worlds technology.  Having finally
outlasted the "electronic LSD" phase of press interest, are we now going
to have to fend off claims that VWT somehow aids and abets warrior
instincts and is, after all, only returning to the military roots from
which it sprang -- never to mature into civilian applications?  Of course
we know that there is more to this than just more weaponry, but do the
shoot-em-up's -- BattleTech and Virtuality -- help or hinder our field?

My own inclination is to call these systems devices of the Devil, but
merely bashing technology doesn't get to the ideas and persuasions that
leads to such aberrations.  How do you feel about the virtual wargames?

Bob Jacobson
Moderator
(in a rare public appearance,
 because this really matters)