Key insights
7 slides
The premise
Players write their own rules to learn how societies work.
Myzel is an educational online community game developed at Vienna University of Technology by backbone.interactive. Players negotiate and create their own rules, economy, and political organizations.
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- 01Myzel is an educational online community game developed at Vienna University of Technology by backbone.interactive, in which players negotiate and create their own rules, economy, and political organizations to learn how modern societies function.See it on page 1
- 02The Vienna proof of concept (2000–2001) drew roughly 1,000 registrations, about 150 active players, a core group of around 50, and a peak of about 30 concurrent participants.See it on page 10
- 03Energy and information systems, especially refineries and the publisher/eZine structure, drove gameplay, and players spontaneously formed company-like clusters.See it on page 11
- 04Core mechanics include player-definable rules, a universal energy resource called Force extracted through refineries and distributed via pipes, key-based ownership, unions acting as state-like units, clusters as interest groups, and a Powertoken system supporting both dictatorial and democratic governance.See it on page 7
- 05Players praised the low level of violence and the player-authored rulesets, while the interface, avatar multi-registration, a basic client-server architecture, weak security, and minimal investment in graphics and community support were identified as weaknesses contributing to attrition.See it on page 12
- 06Information trading as a commercial product was poorly accepted, the community was too small to sustain new low-level roles, and disputes were mostly settled face to face, with only refineries, publishers, and unions emerging as macro-actor clusters.See it on page 13
- 07The prototype sustained a community for about six months without marketing, and the authors conclude that conceptual refinements and a modern graphical interface could enable a larger virtual society.See it on page 13
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Summary
Myzel: Selforganization in Networked Worlds presents the design and proof-of-concept evaluation of an online community game developed at Vienna University of Technology by backbone.interactive. Its central aim is educational: players must negotiate and create their own rules, economy, and political organizations within a simulated society, with the intent of helping them understand how modern societies function. The game's core mechanics include freely definable rules, a universal energy resource called Force that is extracted through refineries and distributed via pipes, key-based ownership, unions functioning as state-like units, clusters serving as interest groups, and a Powertoken system that enables both dictatorial and democratic governance.
The proof of concept was built and tested in Vienna between 2000 and 2001. It attracted roughly 1,000 registrations, around 150 active players, a core group of about 50, and a peak of approximately 30 concurrent participants. The findings indicate that the energy and information systems, particularly refineries and the publisher/eZine structure, drove gameplay, and that players spontaneously organized into company-like clusters. The low level of violence and the player-authored rulesets were well received, while the interface and the problem of avatar multi-registration emerged as significant weaknesses. The basic client-server architecture, weak security, and minimal investment in graphics and community support were identified as contributors to player attrition.
Further analysis shows that information trading as a commercial product was poorly accepted, partly because the community was too small to sustain new low-level roles and publishers struggled to recruit journalists. Player-defined rules proved difficult to enforce, and the sparse rulebook along with limited player skills constrained the development of a legal framework. As a result, only a few macro-actor clusters, namely refineries, publishers, and unions, emerged, and most disputes were settled face to face. Despite these constraints, the prototype sustained a community for about six months without marketing. The authors conclude that targeted conceptual refinements and a modern graphical interface could enable a larger virtual society to develop.
