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In this vein this talk from Raph Koster from this years GDC is great, it's VR/AR directed but widely applicable beyond as the lessons are drawn from long experience with MMOs and it's really about designing societies:

https://vimeo.com/208372546

If this interests you, you might like this talk about virtual worlds and their consequences, from someone who actually has deep experience with the subject: https://vimeo.com/208372546

⬐ delias_

Having worked at an MMO dev, I think this talk's praises and criticisms are all super on point. The social stereotypes of tech are I think even more pronounced in the games industry, and it would be super if everyone were this conscientious and their companies empowered all employees to have a voice about this kind of thing.

The pitfalls can so easily slip through into emerging social media forms. Making aware the lessons learned from the pioneering days of social videogames is definitely not an easy thing to do simply due to the elitism and proprietary nature prevalent in the games industry.

⬐ news_to_me

Fantastic video. As an industry it seems like we tend not to focus on the ethical implications of our work as much as we should. Zuck's response to the speaker (if true) is reprehensible.

⬐ TazeTSchnitzel

> “What ethical implications?”

I burst out laughing at that. It ought not to surprise me that Mr. Zuckerberg is like that, and yet.

⬐ Eyght

I wonder if future popular virtual worlds won't go more towards the 'abandon all hope ye who enter here'-kind of route. That being said, the premise of setting up AI Police in games to avoid abuse seems like an amazing project to work on.

⬐ TazeTSchnitzel

Google, Facebook etc are surely essentially already trying to build “AI police” to cut moderation costs.

⬐ mihaich

This is an unbelievable good video. I just created an account here to say "thank you for sharing it!".

⬐ fanzhang

Does anyone have a transcript of this video?

⬐ smacktoward

Since the page doesn't really call out who's speaking, the presenter is Raph Koster, who has a long history designing online games (including Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies) and writing about game design theory.

https://www.raphkoster.com/about-raph/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raph_Koster

⬐ aiyodev

He's also a controversial figure known for misrepresenting games before they're released. I still hold a grudge against him for Star Wars Galaxies.

⬐ gramstrong

I was glad to see that Raph Koster is still puttering about. Star Wars Galaxies soaked up many hours of my time as a teenager.