EVE Online: a virtual democracy
What Second Life is missing is a real “virtual” democracy, in which residents can vote and be elected. It’s something that you can see on Erepublik.com, a quite new web-based game in which you, as a virtual citizen, engage in economy, politics and war.
Now EVE Online, another huge virtual world, is opening up for democracy: according to Reuters:
“Sixty-one candidates are vying for nine spots in open voting on EVE’s website. The top vote getters will become the official representatives of EVE’s player community, and flown to Reykjavik, Iceland to share their thoughts on the game at the company’s headquarters.”
Great! When will Linden show us something like this?
Tags: eve online, linden labRelated Stories
POSTED IN: linden lab, second life
2 opinions for EVE Online: a virtual democracy
Jim Takanawa
May 8, 2008 at 10:11 am
> Great! When will Linden show us
> something like this?
Didn’t you suggest “Stop giving responsibilities to users” a few days ago?
:-)
However, I don’t think Linden Lab will ever implement something like that.
Linden Lab’s way is not about managing this kind of things - it’s instead about creating the underlying platform and empowering residents to manage these issues themselves.
You can find many examples of this trend in the Second Life history.
So, if you want democracy or official representatives in Second Life, don’t wait for Linden Lab to make this. Join other residents that share your idea and work with them.
http://www.metaverserepublic.org can be a good start.
Also, there’s a fundamental difference between EVE and SL. In EVE you have to pay 15 US$ a month to play. Most SL residents are on a Basic (free) account, while a minority pays a monthly fee. However, SL itself wouldn’t make sense without all the people on free accounts.
So, how would you manage the right to vote?
Would you restrict it to a little minority of users? Would you extend it to everybody? Both solutions would bring lots of problems with them.
Another difference is about the virtual world itself. You may do many differents things in EVE, but the science fiction space setting is a constant, and users instead almost nothing is set in SL, everything is created and made by users. Too many different reasons to use SL, too many different needs. A single democratic structure couldn’t handle that.
Jim Takanawa
May 8, 2008 at 10:15 am
A clarification:
> In EVE you have to pay 15 US$ a month to play
I meant that every player has to pay - so it’s reasonable that all players have similar right to vote.
I will correct some typos in the last paragraph:
> You may do many differents things in EVE,
> but the science fiction space setting is a
> constant. Instead, almost nothing
> is set in SL, and everything is created
> and made by users.
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