Sharing the Digital Wealth

My most recent experiences with team production, peculiarly enough, manifests itself inside the world of online video games, in both gritty first-person shooters (FPSs) and the fantasy realms of massively multiplayer role-playing games (MMORPGs). The cooperative scenarios experienced through LED screens exhibit many of the conditions for when gift-exchange happens or doesn't happen as detailed in Jonathan Haidt's "How to Get the Rich to Share the Marbles."

In World of Warcraft, perhaps one of the most famous titles of the MMORPG genre, often presents dungeons and boss monsters that are more difficult  (or in the case of raids, which are gigantic bosses designed for even more players than usual, impossible) to solo. Cooperation is a requirement for progression to a conclusion, with the exception of heavily invested players. The rewards of clearing a dungeon or slaying a monster include in-game currency and loot, which ranges from healing items to armors and weapons. There are predesignated loot, items and currency which are scripted to drop every time, and random loot, often referred to as rare drops due to being procured by a random number generator and not being guaranteed. As these dungeons are exponentially more difficult without cooperation, party members will almost always distribute predesignated loot evenly. However, this is not always the case with extremely rare drops (a tier of rarity that may be described as "legendary")-- the sense of randomness dissipates most feelings of collaboration, as it was not an explicit reward for cooperation. Even so, many rare drops are also distributed, especially when the dropped item is unusable by the player's class, perhaps because the difficulty of the content elicits gratitude to the party when the drop is not extremely valuable.

Alternatively, in Elsword, a side scrolling "beat 'em up" MMORPG, reveals a different distribution of rewards. Characteristic to beat 'em up games, the content of dungeons are rarely challenging, as monsters are usually designed as time-wasting obstacles rather than threats capable of dispatching a player that is at least half aware of his surroundings. Cooperation in parties is geared towards saving time rather than a successful venture. Players do not feel indebted to each other despite the time saved, and gift exchange is nonexistent.

In Killing Floor, a cooperative FPS, players take on the role of soldiers and police officers to dispatch hordes of zombie-like specimens from a mass cloning experiment gone wrong. Kills and successfully surviving through a wave grants players money, which can be used at an arms shop that becomes available for a minute in between waves. While players are allowed to respawn after a wave (assuming the entire team is not wiped out), they fall behind extremely quickly in terms of funds as they stop earning money upon death, miss out on the wave clear bonus, and lose much of their previous equipment. As subsequent waves scale in difficulty, failure to redistribute the wealth often results in the entire party being wiped out. This is a slightly modified scenario of team production and reward distribution, as it is a continuous cycle and there is an implicit understanding that redistributing rewards after every "payout" will increase the likelihood that the entire venture succeeds. However, there are situations where the cycle exists, but dependence on cooperation is absent. There are a fairly large proportion of experienced players throughout the game that are capable of clearing every wave without the help of his/her team. Eliminating the need of the team eliminates any responsibility towards it, so while the players may be cooperating to lighten the work, one or more players are not dependent on the contribution of the rest. In these team compositions, two scenarios may arise. Certain veterans may be extremely altruistic-- once acquiring their necessary equipment, they will distribute every last pound (the game is based in London) to their less fortunate teammates. On the other hand, some veterans will treat the rest of the players as if they did not exist. The most telling determinant for how these specific players may act towards their team is how "helpful" they might be. While the content is not difficult for them, players are often appreciative of those who follow directions, such as holding a position that lightens their workload. "Helpful" may also simply be staying out of the player's way-- understanding of AI behavior allows veterans to easily dispatch specimen, and interference from a less insightful player may kill the two of them. When these players are not angered by the actions of his/her teammates, they typically distribute their wealth as to make the entire game enjoyable for everyone.

In my experience, when every player feels that the venture's success was largely dependent on the collaborative efforts of the team, gift-exchange is common. However, there was an additional condition that was key to how all spoils were shared: the varying degree of reliance players experience upon each other within parties, within games, and across games. This condition, in turn, was determined by the difficulty of in-game content and how talented/experienced a party member was. When the team worked through rather easy tasks or when one player contributes a majority of the work, there is a significantly less chance that rewards are equally distributed. When the work was challenging or the skills, talents, and efforts of every player was relatively equal, players are more likely to redistribute rewards. Within the realms of online gaming, cooperation is not always treated like collaboration. Acknowledgement of the contributions of teammates is heavily dependent on the judgement, biases, and experiences of each player involved. When some players determine another's contributions to be unworthy, they deny their efforts as collaboration and deny the need to reapportion the spoils.