From Warren Spector:
But what’s really brought home for me the reality of “Life as Leveling” is the ascendancy of Facebook and, to a lesser extent, World of Warcraft (a pastime I gave up a while back — though the lovely wife, Caroline, is still well and truly hooked, keeping it in the forefront of my thinking)….
Facebook turns community into currency. I can’t tell you how many conversations I’ve had over the last few months that sound something like this:
“Darn. You have more friends than me.”
“How did you get to be level 54 in Packrat?”
“How much money do you have in Parking Wars?”
“Damn. I’m only ranked 10,000,000 in the world in the movie quiz.”
Much of the Facebook experience (like World of Warcraft and, let’s not forget, high school) is about status. And status, in this case, is measured in concrete terms not unlike a traditional roleplaying game.
I realize I’m sounding pretty negative about this but, mostly, I find this phenomenon odd — and oddly comforting. I mean, at least leveling is a mechanism I understand, unlike a lot of social stuff.
P.S. I have not yet reached 50 karma on Plurk. If I don’t level up this weekend I’m going back to mySpace.
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