作者：A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz

此时此刻，教育我们自己成为一项迫切的任务。我们是民主国家的公民，但是我们却很难成为一名真正民主的公民。这也是为何亚里士多德会说，一个理想国家的公民应该拥有适当的休闲时间：而关于公民的教育应该经过沉思与训练。公民意识需要栽培，但正如农民所言，栽培要花一定的时间。

很多人认为，电子游戏是一些很琐碎的内容，大多数家长都会说：“玩游戏纯粹就是在浪费时间，浪费精力，浪费创造力，浪费技巧甚至是浪费金钱。”这是Roger Caillois在其专著《Man, Play, and Games》提到的。但是Caillois同样也赞扬了游戏，他认为游戏是乐趣的来源，能够帮助人们“逃离现实生活中的各种压力”。对于Caillois来说，游戏是人们作为公民的一个必不可少的伴侣：它让我们能够消除疲劳，帮助我们与人交流，并且能够培养我们的想象力和推理技能。

根据最近的调查，几乎一半美国成人会玩电子游戏，而其中又有五分之一玩家几乎每天都会玩游戏。这是否意味着我们扮演着越来越称职的公民角色？而有97%的美国青少年在玩电子游戏，是否也意味着他们越来越趋于成为一名活跃的政治分子？在你回答这些问题之前，你需要记住，2008年10月，奥巴马成了第一个利用电子游戏拉票的美国总统候选人，他的“Early Voting Has Begun”广告出现在《Madden 2009》、《Burnout Paradise》以及EA的其它电子游戏中。

奥巴马总统使用了许多新型的媒体技术。在为竞选活动募集资金时他也广泛使用了互联网，并活跃于一些受欢迎的社交网站中，如Facebook，Twitter以及Flickr。虽然迄今为止我们还不知道这些事件是如何影响政治，但是我们却非常清楚，新媒体技术已经向整个社会政治领域渗透。所以我们没有理由认为电子游戏和Facebook是浪费时间的始作俑者。相反，我们必须不断了解它们，并尝试着去理解它们的意义，以及它们能够带来何种利益。

cool-farmville-farms(from farmvillefarms.wordpress.com)

带着这样的思想，我们便能够更中肯地分析美国最受欢迎的电子游戏。《FarmVille》是一款基于浏览器的免费游戏，玩家可以登录Facebook体验这款游戏。玩家可以在游戏中种植庄稼，装饰农场并与其他玩家进行交流，所以这就是一款真正的农场游戏。虽然听起来这像是一款平庸的游戏，但它其用户数甚至多于《魔兽世界》玩家以及任天堂Wii的用户数。即使处在当前不景气的经济情况下，电子游戏2009年在美国的收益就达到了200亿美元。电子游戏产业仍然在蓬勃发展，并且将会诞生出更多更优秀的游戏。

理论上来说，《FarmVille》并不是一款优秀的游戏。Caillois告诉我们，游戏只能够让我们从现实中的责任与日常工作中得到片刻解脱，但是《FarmVille》中却充满了这些内容。玩家通过在预定时间内收获庄稼从而获得升级；例如你在中午种了一地的南瓜，你就必须在晚上的8点回到游戏中收获南瓜，否则你就会遭遇损失。每个南瓜将花费你30个硬币，并占据农场中的1平方米的土地，所以如果你的农场拥有14*14平方米的土地，那么种植一田地的南瓜将需要你花费将近6千个硬币。种植就需要玩家点击每块田地3次：一次去收获之前的庄稼，一次是再次犁地，还有一次是播下新的种子。而如此如果拥有14*14田地（在《FarmVille》中算是小规模了）玩家就必须在游戏中点击600次，并在几个小时候后回到游戏中再次点击而获得收获。但是这听起来并不有趣啊，为什么还这么多人在重复这些行为？

有人认为，玩家如此忠实于《FarmVille》是因为他们为收获投入了努力并能够从中得到利益。这观点似乎很有道理：因为玩家投入时间进行种植，并以自己的劳动成果为傲。《FarmVille》让玩家能够将种植所获得的利润用于装饰农场，养殖动物，建造房屋并扩充农场。所以玩家能够通过自己的劳动得到回报。当然了，玩家也可以用现金购买游戏中的道具而快速获得收获。这种方法也是Zynga的主要收入来源。2010年，Zynga凭借这款游戏就获得了超过3亿美元的收益，并且这些收益主要是来自游戏内部的微交易。

所以，如果玩家不愿意玩《FarmVille》可能是因为游戏本身的问题，而如果玩家选择玩《FarmVille》，那就可能是受到奖励的推动了。玩家可以通过池塘，栅栏，雕像，房屋以及圣诞树等装饰自己的农场并与好友的农场进行比较。而且《FarmVille》属于一款公共游戏，玩家能够在美国的社交网站上与好友分享并交流游戏。当然了，玩家能够欣赏游戏中的图像，即他们如何装扮并规划自己的农场。而且玩家总是希望能够向虚拟邻居用户炫耀自己的装扮成果。虽然如此，我们还是难以想象一款拥有上千万玩家的游戏却缺少乐趣，而只是突出玩家与玩家间的攀比行为。毕竟，我们在现实生活中也会经历类似的场景。

甚至是Zynga设计师也意识到游戏的重复与肤浅。当你在《FarmVille》中获得升级，你便会获得奖励，而你也能够因此少玩这款游戏了。使用收割机就可以一次性点击四块田地，畜棚和鸡笼让你能同时管理一群动物，因此可以省下无数次乏味的点击行为。换句话说，你越频繁地玩《FarmVille》，你就越不需要继续玩这款游戏。但是对于一款如此受欢迎的游戏，这个定义让我们不得不产生质疑。同时，Zynga也在不断地往游戏中添加一些新的道具和赠品，以此吸引更多玩家的注意。Zynga没有哪一周不在游戏中添加新物品。

而如果《FarmVille》是一款需要玩家耗费体力并且会带来审美疲劳的游戏，为何还有如此多人在玩游戏？答案很简单：人们玩《FarmVille》是因为其他人也在玩《FarmVille》。

我妈妈从去年秋天开始玩《FarmVille》，仅仅只是因为她的朋友邀请她加入游戏成为彼此的友邻。在《FarmVille》中，邻居能够赠送礼物给你，帮你照料农场，并在自己的Facebook页面上提供更多奖励，帮助你扩展农田。如果你在游戏中的邻居少于8名，那么你就只能花费现金才能继续前进。而如此机制让我妈妈感到很无奈，她不得不邀请我的爸爸，她的两位姐妹，我的未婚妻以及我加入《FarmVille》成为她的邻居。很快地，我们便开始投入游戏中种植与收割，相互赠送礼物，在我们的Facebook涂鸦墙上发布绶带等。而我们也会继续邀请自己的好友加入游戏。多么巧妙的机制啊。

如此看来，《FarmVille》的流行并不是因为游戏设置或者游戏图像等，而是因为处在同一个社交圈的玩家之间的相互联系。当用户登录Facebook时，游戏便会通知他们好友向他赠送了礼物，帮助他照料农场，并获得奖励等内容。而作为回报，玩家就必须打开游戏帮助好友照料农场或者向其赠送礼物。因为我们知道赠送礼物从来都不是单向行为：这必须是施者与受者相互间的行为。我们不能拒绝对方的礼物，更不能不回报对方的好意。所以，我们玩《FarmVille》只是因为我们希望能够善待其他人，只是想证明我们是有礼貌有教养的人。

这算得上是一件好事吗？我们很难想象亚里士多德或者Caillois会极力推崇《FarmVille》是培养公民精神的必备之物这种说法。的确，如果以Caillois定义的6大游戏标准去分析《FarmVille》，这的确不算是一款优秀的游戏，《FarmVille》并不能满足所有玩家的需求。Caillois认为游戏必须摆脱义务的束缚，与“现实生活”分离开来，无需定义明确结果，没有生产性活动，遵守一定规则，并提供仿真内容。如此相比之下：

1）《FarmVille》涉及义务，日常工作和责任。

2）《FarmVille》紧紧围绕着现实生活展开。

3）《FarmVille》设定了明确的结果，并且不包含任何运气或技巧因素。

4）《FarmVille》属于生产性活动，它能够创造出Facebook与Zynga所依赖的社交资本。

5）《FarmVille》不受规则约束，而是深受玩家习惯和简单的因果关系影响。

6）《FarmVille》并非仿真内容，它不需要玩家的沉浸感和反复猜测。

在上述要点中，第4点内容是最为棘手。玩《FarmVille》并不像是工作或劳动，但是这确是实实在在的生产性活动，因为玩家能够在游戏中创造出社会资本。有人将资本定义为“任何财富形式或者能够用于创造出更多财富的东西”。一些新的媒体公司如Zynga和Facebook也都依靠这种方法谋利，就像美国总统奥巴马利用社会资本集资，组织政府与推动交流一样。但是不同的是，Zynga并不是民选官员，它没有义务去考虑公众利益。

Zynga曾将《FarmVille》所赚得的钱用于海地的抗震救灾活动中（大约捐赠了1百万美元）。社会资本能够帮助一个组织快速且有效地从事更多有意义的活动。Zynga是从2009年秋天开始海地的慈善活动，而正是那时候我的亲戚开始尝试《FarmVille》这款游戏。也正是从那时起，Zynga开始设下各种“引导性陷阱”或者广告引诱用户购买或订阅相关服务。11月，Zynga有将近三分之一的收益（大约有8千万美元）来自商业广告服务，如Netflix的会员推广，或者一些隐藏的合同义务。据报道有一名用户在一个月内被扣费2百美元，仅因为他在《FarmVille》的广告中搜索奖励时不小心打开某些手机服务导致。事实上，很多用户都被卷入这种陷阱，而Zynga和Facebook也卷入了许多大型的集体诉讼案中。

现在每天有越来越多玩家在玩《FarmVille》以及Zynga的其它游戏，如《Mafia Wars》，《YoVille》以及《Café World》。曾有分析师估计，如果Zynga在2010年夏天公开上市，它的估值将在10亿至30亿美元之间。而这个估值主要依赖于其游戏玩家所创造的社会资本。我们需要意识到，不管我们是否喜欢《FarmVille》，现在正有数千万人在玩这款游戏，尽管它很无聊，只有一些重复的行为，甚至只能勉强称得上是一款游戏。这几千万名玩家对Zynga负有责任，但是该公司却不必向这些玩家回馈相应的道德义务。

这种情形就像2010年，联合公民诉联邦选举委员会案（Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission）允许商业机构赞助政治广告一样。我们有义务明确自己在做些什么，不论是更新Facebook状态还是玩《使命召唤》，因为这些行动的结果最终都会变成自己的责任，不论好坏。我们必须学着如何区别好与坏。公民必须懂得如何使用社交应用，如维基百科，Skype以及Facebook等，并学会如何利用这些应用为自己带来更多利益。同时我们还必须学会区分社交应用与反社交应用——反社交应用即那些利用人们的社交性去控制他们，并满足自己需求的应用。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2010年3月9日，所涉事件和数据均以当时为准。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

Cultivated Play: Farmville

by A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz

The great social historian Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States, died yesterday of a heart attack. Zinn devoted his life to educating Americans in their country’s history, that they might better understand their place in its present. Such understanding is today at a premium. Ours is a time of confusion, of unprecedented changes that outpace our perceptions. As Zinn might have said, the wheel keeps spinning faster, and the faster it spins the harder it is to see.

At such times, and at such speeds, the task of educating ourselves becomes all the more urgent. We are citizens of a democracy, and democratic citizenship has always been a difficult skill to master. This is why Aristotle tells us that, in an ideal state, citizens would possess ample leisure time: the education of a citizen depends upon contemplation, deliberation, and training. Citizenship requires cultivation and, as any farmer would tell us, cultivation takes time.

Perhaps it seems a waste of time to discuss video games at a moment like this. After all, this is a serious discussion, and games are supposedly frivolous things. Most any concerned parent might say, “Play is an occasion of pure waste: waste of time, energy, ingenuity, skill, and often of money….”[1] So said Roger Caillois in his book, Man, Play, and Games. Of course, Caillois went on to praise games as a source of joy, as well as a healthy means of “escape from responsibility and routine.”[2] For Caillois, as for Aristotle, games are in fact essential to citizenship: they allow us to refresh and renew ourselves, help to socialize us, and afford us opportunities to cultivate our imaginations and reasoning skills.[3]

If games are essential to citizenship, then this could be a promising time for our democracy. According to a recent survey, over half of American adults play video games, and one in five play everyday or almost everyday. Does this mean we are becoming better citizens? Ninety-seven percent of American teenagers play video games.[4] Does this mean they will become more politically active? Before you dismiss these questions, keep in mind that in October 2008, then-Senator Barack Obama became the first U. S. Presidential candidate to advertise in video games, when his “Early Voting Has Begun” ads appeared in Madden 2009, Burnout Paradise, and other Electronic Arts video games.[5]

Much has been made of President Obama’s sophisticated use of new media technologies. He utilized the internet extensively in organizing and raising funds for his campaign, and has maintained an active presence on popular social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Flickr. To illustrate, he is currently taking questions about last night’s State of the Union address via YouTube, and plans to answer those questions next week in a live, online video feed.[6] While it remains unclear how such events are affecting politics, it is clear that new media technologies pervade the sociopolitical realm. So we cannot simply dismiss video games and Facebook as mere ‘wastes of time.’ Instead, we are obligated to educate ourselves about them, and to try to understand what they mean, and what it means that we use them.

With this in mind, it seems appropriate to examine the most popular video game in America. Farmville is a free, browser-based video game that is played through one’s Facebook account. Users harvest crops, decorate their farms, and interact with one another, in what is ostensibly a game about farming. While this may sound like a relatively banal game, over seventy-three million people play Farmville.[7] Twenty-six million people play Farmville every day. More people play Farmville than World of Warcraft, and Farmville users outnumber those who own a Nintendo Wii.[8] This popularity is not surprising per se; even in the current recession, video game revenues reached nearly twenty billion dollars in America last year.[9] The video games industry is a vibrant one, and there is certainly room in it for more good games.

Farmville is not a good game. While Caillois tells us that games offer a break from responsibility and routine, Farmville is defined by responsibility and routine. Users advance through the game by harvesting crops at scheduled intervals; if you plant a field of pumpkins at noon, for example, you must return to harvest at eight o’clock that evening or risk losing the crop. Each pumpkin costs thirty coins and occupies one square of your farm, so if you own a fourteen by fourteen farm a field of pumpkins costs nearly six thousand coins to plant. Planting requires the user to click on each square three times: once to harvest the previous crop, once to re-plow the square of land, and once to plant the new seeds. This means that a fourteen by fourteen plot of land—which is relatively small for Farmville—takes almost six hundred mouse-clicks to farm, and obligates you to return in a few hours to do it again. This doesn’t sound like much fun, Mr. Caillois. Why would anyone do this?

One might speculate that people play Farmville precisely because they invest physical effort and in-game profit into each harvest. This seems plausible enough: people work over time to develop something, and take pride in the fruits of their labor. Farmville allows users to spend their in-game profits on decorations, animals, buildings, and even bigger plots of land. So users are rewarded for their work. Of course, people can sidestep the harvesting process entirely by spending real money to purchase in-game items. This is the major source of revenue for Zynga, the company that produces Farmville. Zynga is currently on pace to make over three hundred million dollars in revenue this year, largely off of in-game micro-transactions.[10] Clearly, even people who play Farmville want to avoid playing Farmville.

If people don’t play Farmville because of the play itself, perhaps they play because of the rewards. Users can customize their farms with ponds, fences, statues, houses, and even Christmas trees, and compare their farms with those of their friends. It’s important to note that Farmville is a public game, shared with friends across the largest social networking site in America. It makes sense that some people would enjoy the aesthetics of Farmville, of designing and arranging their farms. No doubt some users want to show off their handiwork, and impress and compete with their virtual neighbors. Nevertheless, it is difficult to imagine seventy-three million people playing a game that isn’t fun to play, just to keep up with the Joneses. After all, we have real life for that sort of thing.

Even Zynga’s designers seem well aware that their game is repetitive and shallow. As you advance through Farmville, you begin earning rewards that allow you to play Farmville less. Harvesting machines let you click four squares at once, and barns and coops let you manage groups of animals simultaneously, saving you hundreds of tedious mouse-clicks. In other words, the more you play Farmville the less you have to play Farmville. For such a popular game, this seems suspicious. Meanwhile, Zynga is constantly adding new items and giveaways to Farmville, often at the suggestion of their users. Hardly a week goes by that a new color of cat isn’t available for purchase. What fun.

Again: if Farmville is laborious to play and aesthetically boring, why are so many people playing it? The answer is disarmingly simple: people are playing Farmville because people are playing Farmville.

My mother began playing Farmville last fall, because her friend asked her to join and become her in-game neighbor. In Farmville, neighbors send you gifts, help tend your farm, post bonuses to their Facebook pages, and allow you to earn larger plots of land. Without at least eight in-game neighbors, in fact, it is almost impossible to advance in Farmville without spending real money. This frustrating reality led my mother—who was now obligated to play because of her friend—to convince my father, two of her sisters, my fiancée and (much to my dismay) myself to join Farmville. Soon, we were all scheduling our days around harvesting, sending each other gifts of trees and elephants, and posting ribbons on our Facebook walls. And we were convincing our own friends to join Farmville, too. Good times.

The secret to Farmville’s popularity is neither gameplay nor aesthetics. Farmville is popular because in entangles users in a web of social obligations. When users log into Facebook, they are reminded that their neighbors have sent them gifts, posted bonuses on their walls, and helped with each others’ farms. In turn, they are obligated to return the courtesies. As the French sociologist Marcel Mauss tells us, gifts are never free: they bind the giver and receiver in a loop of reciprocity. It is rude to refuse a gift, and ruder still to not return the kindness.[11] We play Farmville, then, because we are trying to be good to one another. We play Farmville because we are polite, cultivated people.

One wonders if this is a good thing. It is difficult to imagine Aristotle or Caillois celebrating Farmville as essential to citizenship. Indeed, when one measures Farmville against Roger Caillois’ six criteria for defining games, Farmville fails to satisfy each and every one. Caillois stated that games must be free from obligation, separate from ‘real life,’ uncertain in outcome, an unproductive activity, governed by rules, and make-believe.[12] In comparison:

(1) Farmville is defined by obligation, routine, and responsibility;

(2) Farmville encroaches and depends upon real life, and is never entirely separate from it;

(3) Farmville is always certain in outcome, and involves neither chance nor skill;

(4) Farmville is a productive activity, in that it adds to the social capital upon which Facebook and Zynga depend for their wealth;

(5) Farmville is governed not by rules, but by habits, and simple cause-and-effect;

(6) Farmville is not make-believe, in that it requires neither immersion nor suspension of disbelief.

Of these points, the fourth is the most troubling. While playing Farmville might not qualify as work or labor, it is certainly a productive activity, as playing Farmville serves to enlarge and strengthen social capital. Capital is defined as “any form of wealth employed or capable of being employed in the production of more wealth.”[13] New media companies like Zynga and Facebook depend upon such wealth in generating revenue, just as President Obama depends on social capital to raise money, to organize, and to communicate. Unlike President Obama, though, Zynga is not an elected official, and is not obligated to act with the public’s interests in mind.

Zynga has recently used Farmville to raise almost one million dollars to support earthquake relief efforts in Haiti.[14] Social capital can allow organizations to do great and noble things, and to do so quickly and efficiently. Zynga actually began its charitable efforts with Haiti last fall, around the time my family began playing Farmville. Also at this time, Zynga was engaged in numerous “lead gen scams,” or advertisements that trick customers into making purchases or subscribing to services. As of November, one third of Zynga’s revenue (roughly eighty million dollars) came from third-party commercial offers, such as Netflix subscriptions that came with Farmville bonuses, or surveys that involved hidden contractual obligations.[15] One user reportedly was charged almost two hundred dollars one month, as a result of cell-phone services for which she had unknowingly signed up, while following Farmville ads in search of bonuses.[16] So many users were scammed, in fact, that Zynga and Facebook are now involved in a related, multi-million-dollar class action lawsuit.[17]

The wheel keeps spinning, faster and faster. More people are signing up to play Farmville every day, as well as other similar Zynga games, such as Mafia Wars, YoVille, and Café World. Analysts estimate that, if the company goes public in the summer of 2010, Zynga will be worth between one and three billion dollars.[18] This value depends in its entirety on the social capital generated by users, like you and me, who obligate one another to play games like Farmville. Whether this strikes you as a scam or just shrewd business is beside the point. The most important thing to recognize here is that, whether we like it or not, seventy-three million people are playing Farmville: a boring, repetitive, and potentially dangerous activity that barely qualifies as a game. Seventy-three million people are obligated to a company that holds no reciprocal ethical obligation toward those people.

It is precisely at a moment like this—when Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission has made it legal for corporations to spend unlimited monies on political advertisements—that we must talk about our relationship to corporations, and to one another. We are obligated to examine what we are doing, whether we are updating our Facebook status or playing Call of Duty, because the results of those actions will ultimately be our burden, for better or for worse. We must learn above all to distinguish between the better and the worse. Citizens must educate themselves in the use of sociable applications, such as Wikipedia, Skype, and Facebook, and learn how they can better use them to forward their best interests. And we must learn to differentiate sociable applications from sociopathic applications: applications that use people’s sociability to control those people, and to satisfy their owners’ needs.

As cultivated citizens, we are obligated to one another. We care about one another. As Cornel West has said, democracy depends upon demophilia, or love of the people.[19] Unfortunately, sociopathic companies such as Zynga depend upon this love as well. The central task of citizenship is learning how to be good to one another, even when—especially when—it is difficult to understand our own actions. If Howard Zinn had but one lesson to teach us, it is that cultivated citizens must constantly look around and examine what they’re doing, because there is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else’s crop.（source:mediacommons）