Terminology Analysis of Coming of Age in Second Life, part 1

Tom Boellstorff, Coming of Age in Second Life (2008) 

Tom Boellstorff's Coming of Age in Second Life is an anthropologist's ethnographic look at the culture of the then-new Second Life (SL) virtual world. His study was novel for the fact that he performed all of his research within SL as a participatory observer and fellow resident (term for an SL user) of a virtual world. He tried to focus on his research subjects as they are presented solely within the context of the digital space of SL, without regard for the living, breathing, fleshy users behind each of those residents.

Boellstorff began his work relatively early in the field of Game Studies, a term that only came into prominence around 2001. How does one even find the words to discuss new concepts that arise from embodying a digitally-created environment such as SL? I've struggled with finding terminology that fits my own studies, as there still isn't a consensus on how we talk about what a virtual space is or how we even come to think of ourselves as being in a computer-simulated space in the first place. I found that his established vocabulary closely matched the one that I've used in my own research.

VIRTUAL WORLD: "Any computer-generated physical space... that can be experienced by many people at once." (Edward Castronovo, Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, (2005), pg. 22)

From Castronovo's definition, we understand that virtual worlds are:

1. Places
2. Inhabited by persons
3. enabled by online technologies

"Virtual world" forms the crux of Boellstorff's book in that something like Second Life is a world in some sense, however virtual. It is a world that may be studied by analyzing how its inhabitants ("residents") create a culture through their adaptation to this digital environment (he clarifies that it is a "culture in a virtual world" as opposed to a "virtual culture").

[Update 23 Nov 2022]

Narcis Parés and Roc Parés wrote "Towards a Model for a Virtual Reality Experience: The Virtual Subjectiveness" (2006) for the journal Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments. In the article, the researchers attempt to define a CHI (Computer-Human Interaction) model, one that expresses the relationship between user and VR experience, to use as a guide for "designers, scientists, and developers involved in VR" (pg. 524). They sought to clarify terminology used for digital worlds that are generated by computer after seeing the confusion caused by a multitude of similar terms ("VE, VR, telepresence, cyberspace, etc." (pg. 527)) used in the field.

VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENT: is the "model" of the digital space. It is the static definition of, say, a digital game level's structures, parameters, and functions. Think of this as all the information for a game level as it is saved to disk, ready to be loaded and put into action. It is Castronovo's "place," though not necessarily inhabited by persons.

A virtual environment (VE) is comprised of three types of components, as defined in the earlier article, "Nature and Origins of Virtual Environments: A Bibliographical Essay" (1991), by Stephen Ellis:

CONTENT: "The objects and actors in the environment" (1991 pg. 322). Each object may be described by state vectors (the object's properties) that identify that object's position, orientation, velocity, and acceleration (where is the object, which way is it facing, and how is it moving?) and other characteristics, like color, texture, and energy (the use of "energy" is not thoroughly described). An actor is a type of object that has certain capacities to initiate interactions with other objects. The self is a distinct actor which provides a point of view for observing the environment (or, more precisely, the point of view from which the environment may be constructed), what we think of as the player avatar (though, from a first-person point of view, there often is no visual "avatar" object to be seen). This methodology continues today, as shown in modern game engines like Unity and Unreal.

GEOMETRY: "A description of an environmental field of action. It has dimensionality, metrics, and extent" (1991 pg. 322). This is the "environmental space" in which all the game objects are positioned. In the game industry, we used to use the word "geometry" for all of the static 3-D objects that define the player's navigable environment (ground plane, walls, buildings, ceilings, etc.). We sometimes erroneously called this the "background," a term that shows its roots in 2-D game production. Here, Ellis defines geometry as the entire area, measured by Cartesian coordinates, within which a virtual environment may exist, the tabula rasa upon which a game world is defined.

DYNAMICS: "The rules of interaction" among an environment's contents, "describing their behavior as they exchange energy or information" (1991 pg. 322). A physics system  that simulates Newtonian dynamics, applying a constant pull of gravity on content in the environment, would be an example of dynamics.

VIRTUAL REALITY: is "the structures of virtual environment put into action" (2006 pg. 528, emphasis in original). This is the user-centric, real-time experience of a VE. For example, a video game level, loaded into the game engine, and being simulated and evolving over time as the player perceives and interacts with it is considered to be virtual reality (VR).

I find that VR is too loaded of a term to use in this general manner. The researchers specifically don't want to "restrict VR to 3D experiences and... [include] important 2D VR work" (2006 pg. 528), but VR is so much in the public consciousness as something inherently tied to immersive technologies, especially head-mounted stereoscopic display interfaces, as I wrote about elsewhere.

[End Update 23 Nov 2022]

No-one is born a "digital native;" we are all immigrants when we join virtual worlds. As he states, the very notions of selfhood, community, and human nature are not just simulated our recreated from our "actual" world - they are remade and reconfigured new in a virtual world (though his own research shows that residents bring many of their prejudices and worldviews along with them). The virtual world sociality develops on its own terms. Thus, he set out to study that world on its own terms, as a standalone world without a necessary connection to life beyond the screen (note that this goal was somewhat undermined by his subjects often bringing up "real life" (RL) concerns from outside SL during the study).

Boellstorff treats the terms "virtual," "cyber," and "online" as roughly equivalent. He also sees "cybersociality" and "online culture" as terms that are interchangeable with "virtual world."

There is myriad of terms that Boellstorff specifically avoids using:

• "Synthetic World" (Castronovo 2005)
• "Persistent World" (David Kushner, Masters of Doom, (2003))
• "Artificial World" (Tolga K. Çapin, et al, Avatars in Networked Virtual Environments, (1999))
• "Digital World" (Stefan Helmreich, Silicon Second Nature, (1998))
• "Mirror World" (David Gelernter, Mirror Worlds, or the Day Software Puts the Universe in a Shoebox, (1991))
• "Possible World" (Marie-Laure Ryan, Possible Worlds: AI and Narrative Theory, (1991))
• "Virtual Community" (Howard Rheingold, The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier, (2000))
• "Virtual Environment" (Jim Blascovich, The Social Life of Avatars (2002))
• "Metaverse" (Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash (1993))

[Update 23 Nov 2022]

Adding some additional terms not mentioned by Boellstorff:

• "Microworld" (David Sudnow, Pilgrim in the Microworld (1983)) 

[End Update 23 Nov 2022]

[Update 29 Nov 2022]

• "Simulated World (SW)" (Andreas Gregersen and Torben Grodal "Embodiment and Interface" The Video Game Theory Reader 2 (2009)) 

[End Update 29 Nov 2022]

"Synthetic," "artificial," and "mirror" descriptors point to an inauthenticity or unreality of virtual worlds. However, the "virtual" is not the opposite of the "real." You still have a "real" meeting when you meet with co-workers through video conferencing software like Zoom or Skype. You are still "really" playing with others in an online video game. A virtual world is, in some sense, "real" and it is authentic to itself.

"Digital" refers to a world of electronic technology, which sounds a lot like modern everyday existence anyway. 

"Persistent" seems to imply a digital environment that continues functioning even when you are not there (as opposed to single-player video games that only instantiate around the main player character while they play).

"Possible" refers to Liebnizian concept as it is used to construct a model of semantics, more to do with narratology than ludology.

At this point in time, the less said about "Metaverse," the better.

I will further analyze just what Boellstorff means by "virtual" and "world" in another post. Although I agree strongly with his end definitions, I don't always agree with his means of reaching those definitions.