Psychology & Sociology in Anyland

[Jinx]

I'm waiting for some psychologists and sociologist to dive into Anyland for research.
As a unique microcosm of society, I'm sure we could be observed and mined for interesting studies.

One of the things that makes Anyland more unique than other sandbox creation & social programs (in VR) is that everything in Anyland is and has to be built in Anyland. Since nothing can be imported, no one has an advantage by using fancy software programs that someone else may not be able to afford (afford to purchase as well as afford to invest the time to gain experience using).
And there's no real world currency involved.

We basically have a Utopian Anarchy society.
I think.
Utopia in the meaning of perfect equality -- everyone has equal access to create from scratch. No one starts Anyland with more resources than anyone else. All resources (shapes) are infinite for all to use.
Anarchy almost -- because there's no government, no moderators; only a basic "ban from here" option.
Basically all laws are social laws and social mores.


And one could study the evolution of behavior in this type of society via need and how creativity advances solutions.
Example: Someone makes a gun that emits a sticky object that covers the stuck-to area and blasts a loud sound. There's no governmental law stating this is illegal behavior & no direct consequence(*) for the user for using it, so that person is free to be a troll and use it directly on people to negatively impact their life.
Result: People invent multiple was to protect against or remove said sticky objects: EMPs to clear an area, shields to prevent getting stuck-to, cleaning tools (sponges, laser beams, soap lookalikes) to wipe across sticky objects to remove them.

(*)No direct consequence in that they can't get arrested,locked up in jail, nor fined. But repeated trolling can result in becoming a social pariah. In this type of society, that's arguably the worst possible punishment!
By being friendly and decent human beings, we further propagate a pleasant & inclusive society altruistically, but also selfishly as we (individually) desire to avoid being an exile.


Evolution of creativity is easy to watch: Anyland gets new features so frequently and within hours of release things are created or tweaked & updated.
And true of tools and newly realized scripting concepts, too: Raider's editing tool has helped a ton of creations for fine alignments, and OP's new tool for spirals & color shifts I expect will quickly influence & enhance new creations.


Psychologists could have a field day analyzing why people create certain objects, structures, worlds.
Though most of the conclusions I expect would be "People in a virtual world don't always want to recreate reality." ;-)


Anyway, just some thoughts bouncing around in my head aside from "What to build next!" that I thought were worth putting out there for discussion. =)
Anyland isn't "just" a creation sandbox program, and it's far more than just a social platform too!

[thegraphicsmonkey]

Well said and totally agree. We need a LOT more people to make it a social study though. One of the strangest things is that the place is t swamped with people, personally I like the slow growth as it gives us all time to meet, learn and know the same people and Philipp and Scott enough time for bug finding and perfecting ideas and concepts to see what actually works

Obviously I want the software to do amazingly so they get the credit they deserve.... but at the moment it's more like a club and not a huge mix of the demographic.

[Nicolas Cage]

Well if there is one thing I know... I like this game enough to avoid the outernet

[murkymudd]

That was really well put together Jinx. I think this game would drive them mad myself :p... and I have something to show you when you're on.

[Garfflesnark]

I literally just wrote a 6-page essay about this, last month, for my 9-Dots Prize application.

The topic being "Is Digital Technology Making Politics Impossible?"

I had a lot to say about this topic, due to my presence in various types of virtual worlds since 1997. I covered things like the appropriation of identity, virtual sex slavery, political fads in virtual worlds and the mitigation of reality from societal governance to corporate governance through Virtuality. I breifly mentioned Anyland at the end.

Originally posted by Garfflesnark:

In Virtuality environments with tiny populations, like that of the freely-creative virtual world Anyland, one can experience the growth of a society from a tribal-like, communal state. The foundational members welcome newcomers with open arms and become close-knit over their abilities and artistic creations, freely sharing and developing their identities in an environment that is not yet industrialized, politicized, monetized and regulated by the program’s creators. It provides a platform over which people, no matter where they are from or who they are in physical reality, can be creative and bond while maintaining a sense of personal responsibility and group accountability.

[...]

I hope Anyland can hold onto its innocence long enough to be remembered as one of the few virtual worlds that began with a sense of true social equality. A political equality we may never truly have in such a populated world – or perhaps only known in a society preluding human history, never to be seen again.

Technially Anyland wouldn't be true Anarchy (I am an Anarchist). It's actually a Communist environment, believe it or not. With a little bit of Socialism thrown in there. It's currently in a true Tribal-state. We have "leaders" (Philip and Scott) who "govern" and "provide" for the community, wherein some members of the community "provide" more than other members of the community for various reasons. Either people don't want to build, or can't build or script, or aren't very good at it, even though we all have equal-opportunity to create. Everyone can also freely aquire other peoples' creations, as well -- which is also what makes it Communist. Anyland literally owns whatever you create in Anyland, and allows everyone to benefit from it.

Eventually, most virtual worlds become Oligarchic Technocracies, rooted in Corpratocracy -- especially when they grow and become monetized.

The only reason why Anyland can work this way is because it's small. Once your population starts growing, this sort of political state doesn't work anymore, as human nature and lack of group accountibility changes things. That's why Dictatorships form out of large-scale Communistic environments so easily. Since Anyland is a corporate entity, it can't technically become a Dictatorship, and will automatically fall under Corpratocracy -- unless maybe if Philip and Scott fight to the death? Winner takes all? But it can definitely become an Oligarchy! :) Which can be just as dictator-ey.

You'd be amazed at how many people think corporate-owned virtual environments are democracies, though. It's mind-boggling -- not to mention embarassing.

[Jinx]

Garfflesnark -- thank you for sharing all of that! Awesome.
I was on the fence between Communism and Anarchy, and your analysis encompasses more than my thought process was by including Philipp & Scott as the givers of the society.

I'm always drawn to small communities and have been apart of a few online over the years (as well as IRL hobby clubs). And I've also been a part of some that reach that critical mass where they are become fractured either into exclusionary cliques (think high school) or become political (power grabbers grab... power and try to lead with no plan/experience) -- neither IMHO are attractive at that point.

[Jinx]

@Murky -- ooooooh! I have something to show you as well. =) I'll be on later tonight.

[thegraphicsmonkey]

Good analysis:)

I see it as a social evolution where environmental changes are caused by The Mighty Devs and we make sense of them and welcome new people to the fold hoping they will also become like us.

I totally agree that a larger community will eventually change the dynamics, but we will either change with it and not notice like the proverbial frog in hot water or we will make areas private and start our own Founder Worlds and try and recapture the society we used to have and ultimately fail as the memory will never compare to the reality to a point where it can be recreated.

All this is dependant on speed of evolution, popularity of the software/community and the reasons people come to Anyland.

I feel we could be safe if VR kicks off fully mainstream and Facebook take all the spammers and people who are aggressive or concentrate on the RL and bring it into VR (which generally as a whole isn't really a point Inland apart from nationalities and time zones and which are always ice breakers... and Trump obviously, but he is a VR avatar that escaped)

[murkymudd]

Lmao. Well leave it to graphicsmonkey to make it so poetic. :|

[Philipp]

Very interesting thread & views!

Wanted to give some background into some of the evolution.

Back, way back when we conceptualized the first drafts of Manyland, the 2d sibling of Anyland -- and even back then we had hopes for a 3d sibling to appear in the future! -- we played around with ideas of "building energy" called Mollars. There was no concept of separate areas, but it was all just one infinite space where absolutely everyone builds. The building energy, then, is used to remove and place blocks... and it increases when other people collect your creations, upvote you and so on. Before launch, we removed all those concepts, because we didn't like the idea of what amounts to a virtual currency. We wanted Manyland, and now Anyland, to be a post-abundance society. A society where for once, you don't have to worry about beating others in a zero-sum game to increase a statistic. A society where there's no "rich getting richer phenomena", inflation, grinding, jealousy. A society where for once, we can relax... and be together as friends.

With Manyland having just a few single infinite shared areas, we grew a deep toolset to handle who can do what where. There's a 100m diameter where newcomers can't build. There was a full ranking system based on up and downvotes. There's a personal bubble where others can't build or remove as you're standing there, unless you friended each other. The creation system is based on types, and types unlock as your rank grows. Newcomers in the early days weren't able to make their own body as it would only unlock after time (and in the very early days, there weren't custom bodies to begin with, you only had a shuffle button to randomize to your liking). The placement system too, like where you can put deadlies, was dependent on rank. Undo dust remains for others to see when removing something. And once you were about to gain the highest rank, a citizenship test arrived, which once successfully solved, gave you access to visit the inner ring of Manyland... another shared area, but more protected as to who can enter.

That's right, if you built your home in Manyland in inner ring, in theory everyone could come over and delete things. Due to the undo and ranking system and seeing just who deleted and placed what, relatively little of that happened actually! But wow... does it take a lot of work to tune.

There was an interesting side effect of all being one infinite space. For instance, next to Orc Town, an Amsterdam -- complete with red light district -- appeared. Both areas had their purpose... but Amsterdam was just meters below Orc Towns ground, reachable if you took the wrong ladder for a second! It was fascinating to see, but also caused friction, as you can imagine. We wanted to see what would evolve out of this freedom.

In a way, what evolved out of this was the areas concept. Which might seem obvious in retrospect! This areas system in turn also means we don't have to invest as deeply into refining thousands of control tools, because basically, if you allow friends to edit in your area, then you already solved 99% of the issues it would otherwise bring.

Now, one thing we saw in Manyland, however, was that even without a currency... the ranking system brought, over time, some of the problems of jealousy, status, "acquiring" and hunting a number. In other words, a non-fun component. We started by not displaying the rank number anymore. And by getting rid of the downvote button, and just leaving an upvote button. And by removing a way to see your up and downvote balance on your profile, which was always a bit scary. There were even rumors of "nighttime downvote gangs" going around, none of which turned out to be true as far as we could see -- but imagine you make a politically charged post in the forum, and naturally some would disagree, and many would downvote. And suddenly, you may find yourself with such low vote karma that it might get you a temporary building ban.

Over time, we removed almost all of that ranking system. And when conceptualizing Anyland, fully removed it, and did not introduce down or upvote buttons. Happiness of everyone is the top priority. We already have enough mundane quibblings in real life -- let us be joyous at least when we invent a virtual world together! Let us be sharing and friendly to each other, and provide a system where that is rewarded and not countered!

How will it scale? Let's evolve together as we go -- we do have many conceptual fundaments laid out in such a way that hopefully, we can scale up should more people arrive. And we'll try our strongest to be defenders of the spirit of sharing, which to an extent also means to defend against poisonous monetization (we rejected publisher deals for Manyland in the past because we weren't fully sure we could fulfill the top priority -- everyone's happiness -- if such deals are made). Splitting into areas helps a lot, because we don't all share one taste, and this may help sub-communities form in the future. Not having one shared spawn area to start out on can help too because not everyone always agrees what that area would look like. We also have a system of flag reports which can lead to quasi "grounding" someone in their area if a big number of people report one, a system which is largely unused at the moment because you are all such fantastic & lovely people! May it remain unneeded for a long time (but it's there if we need it).

What is important in all of that is there's not one defined goal. There is a guiding spirit. But we take it day by day so we can all invent things together. Not a known outcome... but a blank canvas! A blank canvas for all our creativity.

Love you all!

[Jinx]

Philipp, thank you for sharing all of those design thoughts. After reading your post my thought was "I'm home. This is where I want to be." =)

I appreciate the openness, freedom, and lack of politics/ranking that Anyland has.
And having separate Areas is an excellent solution to the related design problems. I think being in VR, because we feel like we're actually there and present and not "just" controlling an avatar, it's great to spawn into our own Private (if you want it to be) Area.
Sometimes I just want to chill out and build while jamming to music in my headphones, and not be social.

On that note, a little personal factoid: I'm an introvert, always have been. Social situations drain me of my energy. Yet for some reason VR makes me more social and less drained by it. I can't yet figure it out...

In VR, in Anyland, we eschew some of the classic social conventions like small talk and "So what do you do?" questions which are information-gathering and naturally lead to prejudices & categorizing (human nature, for better or worse) in favor of just being open and accepting right off the bat. That's been my experience & observation in Anyland (everyone being open and accepting right away) and that's AWESOME.
Imagine if everyone could be like this IRL? =)

[apoctapus]

I never expected Anyland would be so stirring on a such a deep level. I bought it because I'm part time artist who wanted to play around with VR experience design, scripting and 3d modelling. I thought it would be a blank canvas and a bunch of tools, but what I'm finding is something entirely more stirring. I spend most of my time getting lost and inspired in your worlds, then the rest of the time back in my asteroid cave trying to assimlate what I've learned from you all.

As soon as I started playing around I kept getting this overwhelming sense of deja vu. It was driving me nuts but then I was reminded of this art and music festival held every year in the Nevada desert. The festival has revolves around these 10 principals[www.burn.life], and I can't grok why this is so significant to me, but when I step into Anyland it feels as though radical self-expression, decommodifcation, gifting, communal effort, participation, leaving no trace are happening... like everywhere. And parties.

Spectacular work you guys. Not to sound dorky and dramatic, but there's nothing else like what you've created here. It's really the start of something incredible.

[VJFranzK]

Perhaps this is the most philosophical discussion on Steam. ; - )
You have an interesting microcosm here in Anyland, before getting my Rift headset I looked forward to visting it.

In common terms, within this world created by benevolent programmers, you have a "do-ocracy" - the most active people naturally have the most impact. ( It's not unlike the Burning Man ethos. )
When costs for virtual building materials become zero, many interesting structures are likely to appear.

Contrast Anland with Altspace, which has is higher trafic, but is less creative focused, outside of it's designated art rooms.

I'm a high tech artist / musican - that's my primary interest in VR rather than "gaming".
( Yes, a game can be a work of art. )

I will build some kind of virtual art gallery / performance space once I sufficiently understand the scripting.

We did an experimental music show in LA last night and had a nice local audience,
I'm now most interested in an experience that can be attended / participated in by people anywhere on Earth.

Perhaps "Social VR" can really contribute to World Peace - it becomes very evident how much we have in common behind these polygon avatars when you can converse spontaneously with your fellow human beings. ( If there's no common language, use gestures. )

There is an economic barrier to owning a headset, but that will soon dissolve as tech improves. Let us have a nice world built ( or under construction ) as VR visitors increase exponentially!

[manic221]

What a great read this was I loved reading everyone's thoughts... sadly I have no deep or meaningful addition.

I just wanted to say Jinx I am very similar introvert don't socialise to much in real life and do not like using microphones in any games.

However in VR in both Anyland and Rec Room I find myself always chatting and it's so easy.

Didn't even take me long to start talking I just did.

And phillipp reading your design principles was amazing, thank you for giving us a small insight into your thought process that was a great little read

[intrepridfrog]

Originally posted by Jinx:

On that note, a little personal factoid: I'm an introvert, always have been. Social situations drain me of my energy. Yet for some reason VR makes me more social and less drained by it. I can't yet figure it out...

Same thing with me, the enviroment semes to make socialising easer and more enjoyable.

[Jinx]

@manic221 & intrepridfrog --
I wonder if part of it is because we don't start with typical RL "small talk" -- the time-eating, almost meaningless stuff like how's the weather, did you catch that ludicrous display last night, etc etc because we all already have something in common: Anyland and our shared ability to experience it. =)

My other main experience with voice chat in groups is raiding in World of Warcraft with my guilds. I've always been with open & friendly guilds, but never felt the need to say much, unless I was dropping an appropriate one-liner for humor or calling out crucial info during a fight. In *text* guild chat I will chat the night away with friends. (The exception to the voice chat was one raid patch when I was the main tank, and our raid leader wanted me to call all of the shots during fights; and that was fine since I was controlling the pulls anyway. But we really weren't ~socializing~ during those fights, hehe.)