99% Invisible - 99% Invisible-13x-Game Over (Snap Judgment)

Episode Date: January 8, 2011

99% Invisible Extra! The tape rolls as we witness the tearful end of a perfect online world. This is a piece I did for Snap Judgment, based on a story from Robert Ashley’s brilliant A Life Well Wasted internet radio … Continue reading →

We get support from UC Davis, a globally ranked university, working to solve the world's most pressing problems in food, energy, health, education, and the environment. UC Davis researchers collaborate and innovate in California and around the globe to find transformational solutions. It's all part of the university's mission to promote quality of life for all living things. Find out more at 21centry.ucdavis.edu. This is 99% Invisible. I'm Roman Mars. And we have a special podcast edition of the show this week because I'm off the radio, airing repeats until February 4th, when season number two of 99% Invisible

starts up. We had some funding to start up, and I'm sort of getting more funding and researching and recording starts up. We had some funding to start up and I'm sort of getting more funding and researching and recording more stories. So look for new episodes on February 4th. But in the meantime, I have probably what are going to be new stories to you unless you already listen to a lot of the shows that I've worked on in the past. And this one is from one of those shows called Snap Judgment. The best new storytelling show out there, it's from NPR and PRX. You should definitely check it out if you haven't already. But this is a piece that I really love that I did for them for the Utopia episode.

And I think it has some design implications. So if you can bear with me, you know, but otherwise it's just, I think it's a fun one to listen to because there's some great tape in the end. So like stay with it because the tape in the end is just, it'll just destroy you. It's about an online world that was designed and created by EA Games and sort of turned into a perfect little utopia by the users themselves. But the problem was, is that EA Games didn't actually make any money off the game, so they didn't support it anymore.

So it's what happens when a created world goes dark. I hope you enjoy it. A few months before the end of the world, Paul Monaco posted this message on YouTube. Hello, everyone. Paul Monaco here, Buddha Paul, is most of you. Know me as... You probably all heard the news,

Yeeland, the Simpsons Online, closing down. The world that was ending was called The Sims Online. It was an online version of the most popular computer game ever made. You've all been wonderful, you helped me through a hard time in my life when I first got online. But ironically, the online version of the Sims was not very popular. They ended up losing tons of subscribers and changing the name to EA Land, and then they finally pulled the plug. Thank you, and that, please. Let's try to stay in touch. And if not, go back with whatever you choose to do and move on to.

As you can probably hear, EA Land was not a normal video game. There were no monsters, no killing, and although it had some competitive elements, for many players, competition wasn't the point at all. Unlike a lot of other games where you might be shooting people or slaying dragons or something This was a game about socializing. That is Robert Ashley and Robert Ashley He produces a very popular internet radio show and the creator of a life well-wasted a life well-wasted It's about video games and the people who love them and EA land was a video game that a dedicated few Absolutely loved the crowd that had attracted I think,

were people who just wanted to get together and sort of chat, meet strangers. It was a nice place. Over time, it became a kind of intimate, almost bar, like the cheers of video games. Where everyone knows your name. And at the moment that Paul Monaco, aka Buddha Paul, found E.A. Land, It was exactly what he needed most.

My wife had a long-term illness. From a blood transfusion she had hepatitis C. And the last three years or so of her life were pretty much a challenge for both of us. And after she passed away, I had absolutely no function of the to wake up, go to work and go to sleep again. With her illness, I didn't get out of socialized much. We weren't able to go out to the bars and meet up with friends and have dinner. I totally dessocialized myself. And this game was kind of a way for me to just kind of get back into into living again. It was it was pretty amazing. And Paul began to live for E.A.L.A. He would play it for hours and hours.

It was the first thing he did when he got home from work. You treated to a big warm greeting everyone would you know say hi and you know your your I.M.s would be beeping along and you'd be in and taking with that. It made you feel really good. It wasn't the real world, but his friends were real friends. And virtual worlds do have an upside. You erase your colleague who you were mentioned. All that can be totally masked and you're truly judged

on who you really are and how you present yourself. There's no prejudice, there's no preconceived anything. You're really taking that face value. People could really like break loose and in-be themselves and have some fun. It just feels really good. But Paul's utopia didn't last because E.A.L.A.N. started hemorrhaging money. The riding was on the wall, the server was about to go dark. And this event, this virtual

apocalypse, might only exist in the memory of the players if it weren't for Dr. Henry Lowe Wood. I just stumbled across this project by Henry Lowe Wood. My name is Henry Lowe Wood, who is this archival researcher at Stanford. And I had a project called How They Got Game, which is on the history of digital games and simulations. Saving video games for future generations. You know, 50, 100, 200 years from now.

How are we going to save that history? You know, like, we've got to save the video games. So Dr. Lowwood and his colleagues preserve what happens inside video games. Now, for a single-player game, like Pac-Man, for example, this is easy. You effectively take the Atari cartridge out and you put it on a shelf.

But saving multiplayer online games is not so simple. Saving the software alone is kind of a barren exercise. If you save the code for the A-Land and turn it on 100 years now, you'd enter a world and nothing would be there. All the things that Paul Monaco and his friends loved would be impossible to find. You need to document what people are doing in these spaces.

That situation is much more like what a historian on archivists would do when faced with the problem of documenting the real world. So when Dr. Lowood caught wind of the alien shutting down, he had the opportunity to record something to historian or archaeologist would die to witness firsthand in the real world. To see what it would be like when an online world came to an end. What happens when a virtual world closes? The end of a culture. What is it like to be there in the last minute when it shuts down?

So the tape is rolling in the last few hours of the Alien are being recorded and the most dedicated die-hard users are there. Exchanging virtual hugs, reminiscing. The players are typing messages which appear like comic book word bubbles. And you hear all these avatars crying and you hear all these coos and moans and the gibberish language of the game called simlish. And you know they sound like they're going to be bummed and everything, but it's not like a big pity party. But then toward the end of the night, there's this radio station that you can listen to in the game called Charmed Radio.

And they had this DJ there named Spike. He is sort of the only voice that you end up hearing at the end of the world. And as soon as he starts talking, you understand what is being lost. spike, he is sort of the only voice that you end up hearing at the end of the world. And as soon as he starts talking, you understand what is being lost. Hey guys, the last time you're going to have me speak, well, the last time the 4TS like goes down. I just want to thank you all, it's been an amazing experience it really has and I promise I wouldn my myself cry but I can't I can't stress enough how much you guys have been to me over the past however many years it's been really has been awesome add some people don't get attached to thing but when you make friends I look people having this game

it's actually really hard so i'm gonna play the last song it's Sarah Brite, I'm in an Andrea Brichelli time to say goodbye hopefully you guys will like,. It's been such a long time. My idea is 1,2,3,4,5. 2,3,4,5. Are you alright? 1,2,3,4,5. You're lucky in life, everybody.

And the best wishes. I love you all and that's been great knowing you. Take care guys and I just want to, even if you haven't got a drink, this proposes a toast to Parasad, who's been an absolutely amazing Parasad, but you can have done this without you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Say goodbye. You get this feeling like being on the deck of the Titanic. Anyone who actually stayed to the end was very much invested in the game on an emotional level. When they pulled the plug on the server, bits and pieces of the world started disappearing.

The environment began to disintegrate. The texture on the trees flickered, and all the people froze, and blinked out of existence. The actual ending was, you know, not with a bang, with a whimper. And the last thing that they saw was basically just an error message, a server disconnect message. And then the world ended. That was a game over for a show I worked on called snap judgment Which if you not already a fan you should just go and trust me and just download everything and listen to it You'll enjoy it and it also was a collaboration with Robert Ashley who who did the internet radio, so-called, a life well-wasted.

I heard that the bit of audio tape and the interview that he did about this story on his podcast, and I asked him about it, and we sort of interviewed him, and kind of rearranged the parts, and took little bits of it, and turned into the piece that you heard. So this is definitely a collaboration with Robert Ashley.

The last episode of his show, I have episode number six of a Life Well Wasted, is a work of art. It's just beautiful. So go look that up, the Life Well Wasted, and down on it. That's the piece for this week. I have another one coming, I think next week,

or in two weeks, before the new show's start on February 4th. And really, any ideas I have another one coming, I think, next week or in two weeks before the new show's start on February 4th. And really, any ideas you have, design stories, anything, pitch me something, I respond really well to pitches. So let me know what you're thinking about and what type of stories you'd like to hear on an Interest in Visible. Go to 90%invisible.org.

And thanks.