[Release Date: March 1, 2022] A meritocratic system is one whose “winners” are those who earn their positions through greatest talent and hard work. That sounds like a good system – a fair one! And video games seem to be a fantastic place for meritocracy to be actualized – a place where, unlike the real world, everyone competes on a level playing field regardless of class, race, sex, etc. But, as our guest, Seattle University’s Chris Paul, tells us, we need to be aware of the limits of meritocracy and how it can also lead to toxic game cultures.
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Shlomo Sher: Hello everybody today we’re talking about meritocracy and video games.
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Shlomo Sher: Extremely extremely fascinating topic our guest today is Dr Chris Paul professor in the communication and media department at Seattle university he’s published four books, including the toxic meritocracy of video games.
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Shlomo Sher: Why gaming culture is the worst and, more recently, a free to play mobile mobile video games bias and norms.
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Shlomo Sher: he’s on Twitter as at real underscore Chris underscore Paul, but he generally only bench tweets during conferences and you can reach him at policy at Seattle you university or welcome to the show Chris.
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chris paul (he/him): it’s lovely to be here.
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Shlomo Sher: All right, so the whole idea of meritocracy in video games is a topic that seems to fit really, really well and we’re going to talk about essentially.
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Shlomo Sher: First I want us to kind of talk about your ideas about how meritocracy exists in video games or is promoted by video games and then let’s talk about the downside of that, and so I wanted to start by saying that.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, to me meritocracy is it supposed to be a good thing right, I mean the the traditionally the world was very unmarried meritocratic right.
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Shlomo Sher: You didn’t get your lot in life, because you deserve it, you usually got it because of who your parents for or what your social connections or.
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Shlomo Sher: By contrast, asst would meritocracy and we shouldn’t really define meritocracy so should we just say meritocracy is and Chris you can correct me on this meritocracy is a system where the best qualified get the position the prize the accolades whatever whatever success amounts to.
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chris paul (he/him): yeah um, but I want to make that a little bit more complicated because I think that were brought up in contemporary society, especially Western society, the US and the UK, especially.
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chris paul (he/him): To think that meritocracy to get that right, and those people that think meritocracy is a good thing, are generally the people that benefit from meritocracy right.
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chris paul (he/him): And that’s really the seductive and interesting thing about meritocracy that when we start poking at it, it starts to fall apart in some ways, that the aristocracy would to.
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chris paul (he/him): Now, so if we go back a little bit the term really gets popularized in this book in the 1950s by a guy named Michael young.
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chris paul (he/him): And it’s this satirical novel where he goes through, and he’s basically writing it from the future and we’ve gone into a meritocratic society and the world is falling apart.
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chris paul (he/him): And it’s this dark thing, and he tried to get it published all of these places, and he wasn’t able to get it published and it’s really interesting that the way you got it published was the chance.
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chris paul (he/him): beach encounter he met a friend, a family friend who was a publisher and that guys like i’ll publish it right, which you know not very meritocratic be on a beach vacation right.
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chris paul (he/him): No, no.
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chris paul (he/him): No, the guy right, and all this stuff happens, at least in this book and then over the course of the 50s 60s 70s 80s and then into the 90s 2000s we get more and more into meritocracy.
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chris paul (he/him): And sociology and social psychology start poking holes in what this idea is and how it works.
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chris paul (he/him): So I would define meritocracy as a system by which those who work the hardest and are the most skilled get the best rewards.
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chris paul (he/him): But that doesn’t account for things like luck that doesn’t account for things like where you started that doesn’t account for circumstance very well.
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chris paul (he/him): And all of those things really complicate meritocracy and I was, as I was going into set up this book and reading more about meritocracy I learned that there was history to meritocracy so I read one.
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chris paul (he/him): His historical exploration of the Chinese empires over time and I talked about a little bit in the book and basically their their various Chinese empires that go back and forth from meritocracy to nepotism meritocracy the nepotism.
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chris paul (he/him): Because once you establish yourself as the ruling class.
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chris paul (he/him): You tend to cut off all the ladders up and solidify your regime right, and then you say it’s meritocratic but it’s not.
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chris paul (he/him): So that I think that those are some places where we can leverage on and poke some holes in this idea that meritocracy is an unalloyed good right there are real problems with it.
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chris paul (he/him): And I think we’re as we’ve moved through and we’ve we’ve moved deeper into it it’s easy to forget about those problems, especially because the people that are likely to have this conversation or the people that are lucky enough to have benefited from the meritocracy.
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chris paul (he/him): And it makes us feel good.
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Shlomo Sher: All right, let’s let’s start with the so before we put those holes right let’s start with.
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Shlomo Sher: kind of explaining again.
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Shlomo Sher: How this is going to relate to to video games.
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Shlomo Sher: And why very talking to seems like such a good thing, and when I say seems like such a good thing, I mean you know, certainly one of the things that.
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Shlomo Sher: That i’m going to ask is, if not meritocracy then, then what and we’ll get to that at the end, but you know you think about competitions right.
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Shlomo Sher: In competitions generally we want people, those who have the most talent and you know the work hardest, we want them to.
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Shlomo Sher: To essentially be the winners right and that would be a meritocratic system.
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Shlomo Sher: And you think you would see this in video games, you know almost more than anywhere else right and video games it doesn’t seem to matter you know what your race or sex is or or your age.
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Shlomo Sher: What your classes right you’re just competing and everyone seems to be competing on an equal playing field my Avatar is similar to your Avatar or at least we we get to choose from a similar range of avatars.
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Shlomo Sher: distinct really fair right and video game seems to be the perfect place for meritocracy in this right.
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Shlomo Sher: We all start from an you know the the idea of a level playing field don’t we all start from an equal level playing field and then see the leaderboards and see where everybody where everybody is now.
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Shlomo Sher: According to you, essentially video games setup meritocracy at least the idea or encouraged meritocracy both in competition and also a narrative so, can you talk about that how narrative I thought was super super interesting.
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Shlomo Sher: But competition seems fundamental.
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chris paul (he/him): Sure, like, I think that the first place, is that we don’t all start from the same place, we think we start from the same place, but that requires us to forget all of the things that we did they get to that place.
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chris paul (he/him): So I talked about in the book is skill transfer when you pick up a new game, if you played a lot of games you’re not starting from scratch you’re starting from scratch and based upon.
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chris paul (he/him): Particularly in my case decades of having played games before, so I know generally, what the buttons do.
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chris paul (he/him): I know, to look around the corners, I know that if a designer has left some sort of I could go either way I should explore both ways because there’s probably something let it left for me this other place.
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chris paul (he/him): There was actually my partner and I were playing overcooked last night and we played it for the place on the playstation for the first time we’d always played on the switch before.
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chris paul (he/him): And she used to play a lot of games she hasn’t played games in a while and when she’s played games it’s overwhelmingly been on the switch so partway through our game of overcooked she’s complaining about our thumb hurting.
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chris paul (he/him): And I don’t under I can’t even comprehend why she’s complaining better thumbprint and then I realized.
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chris paul (he/him): We realized she’s using the control pad as opposed to the joystick the thumb stick to move a character around and it’s not designed for that it hurts what, if you look at a switch controller.
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chris paul (he/him): that’s where the thumb stick is is where our hands were used to being.
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chris paul (he/him): And she hasn’t played it so just walking into that game, the decades of experience, I had the fact that I played more playstation games and she has the fact that she was on a new controller we weren’t on a level playing field.
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chris paul (he/him): So I think that that’s part of what what makes it not a level playing field a second piece is that when we bring that into the play of games.
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chris paul (he/him): They certainly feel meritocratic they seem meritocratic we put on leaderboards we have competitions, we can rank players, we fight we match them up against one another, when you start to look at what happens.
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chris paul (he/him): At the very, very top of most of those letters they’re not terribly toxic places at the very bottom of those ladders they’re not terribly toxic places.
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chris paul (he/him): But when you start looking at things like overwatch and, like the 35 or 40% to the 60% and similar with league of legends those places are dystopian hellholes right.
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chris paul (he/him): Because those people don’t realize their skill level, generally speaking.
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chris paul (he/him): And they don’t understand where they’re at whereas most of the top players understand their top players and don’t have to prove it.
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chris paul (he/him): And, most of the the worst players understand they’re the worst players can don’t have to prove it it’s those of us in the middle and, most of us are in the middle.
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chris paul (he/him): They don’t have proper recognition of where we’re at, and we think we’re better than we are so it’s always our teammates fault.
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chris paul (he/him): And not generally our fault, so I think that that’s ladder layered On top of this idea of meritocracy is the way that we interact and we don’t really have a good check and a good.
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chris paul (he/him): appreciation of all the things we bring with us and then luck right and the classic example that i’ve got of luck, are the two classic examples of luck in video games or X COM.
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chris paul (he/him): And Mario any almost all the Mario games Mario kart Mario party, especially right with X COM right the designers came out and say explicitly.
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chris paul (he/him): We have to bend the the shot curve because gamers perception of a 90% shot and what is actually a 90% shot don’t line up and when they’re 90% shot, Mrs they rage quit so the curves actually been up to make people feel okay.
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chris paul (he/him): But you feel it right like.
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chris paul (he/him): i’ve been playing through X COM, right now, because I got it on the steam, sale and like when i’m missing 90% shot, I know that what the game is doing and I am live it right like that is not.
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chris paul (he/him): Fair it’s not right, the world is wrong.
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chris paul (he/him): um and then like the blue Shell in Mario kart.
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chris paul (he/him): Right is is to make the game more competitive it’s to make it less meritocratic it’s to make it more fun to play with different kinds of people.
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chris paul (he/him): And if you go through many of those Mario and Nintendo first party games they’re designed to have a fun game with people have different skill levels.
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chris paul (he/him): Right they’re not about finding who’s best so that when you get to the end of Mario party and we’re giving out rewards to the person in last place.
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chris paul (he/him): Right and we’re really determining the game by stars, not by the person who bought the most stars on the map, but who.
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chris paul (he/him): Did the most based on these criteria that you don’t know when you started right it’s anti meritocratic so that if you come in as a person who appreciates traditional games.
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chris paul (he/him): Those produced feelings for you, most likely and they’re not necessarily always good feelings, but that’s what a non meritocratic game can look like and it doesn’t mean it’s not toxic it just means it’s different.
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A Ashcraft: Right and, in some ways it doesn’t even seem like it’s completely unmarried craddick right like the the the Mario party it just doesn’t tell you what the merits are that you’re going to be judged on.
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A Ashcraft: Right like it’s just sort of hides it sort of hot in some ways, hides that.
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Shlomo Sher: I.
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A Ashcraft: mean is that good is it is what I guess the the bigger part of my question is Is this a matter of communication is this a matter of the game communicating to players.
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A Ashcraft: What it’s supposed to be like you were talking about in the in that when you’re in that middle hellholes section of whatever game that was you’re talking about.
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A Ashcraft: The game is not communicating to you very well, where you are skill wise if you.
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A Ashcraft: If it did, would it be better.
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chris paul (he/him): I think that.
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chris paul (he/him): It would be better if players took it well right and enter a meritocratic system, we tend to believe we’re better than we think we are.
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chris paul (he/him): Because it’s seductive right you want to believe that you’re very good and I don’t think games always teach us very well right they don’t.
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chris paul (he/him): bring us into that like like even i’m not talking necessarily with the tutorial but it’s not really a a fair self assessment of where you’re at.
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chris paul (he/him): And even if you rank up in the league’s in various games right it’s not an assessment of where you sit because, generally speaking, where you sit is also contingent upon all the people you play with you don’t get.
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chris paul (he/him): And you don’t get help right like you don’t have somebody else lifting you up, and I think that that’s one of the fundamental things in game culture.
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chris paul (he/him): That that I think is a problem right, hopefully in society, when someone’s struggling we reach out and we help lift them up.
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chris paul (he/him): um I don’t think games provide for that very well, and I think that that’s an area in which, as we start talking about solutions.
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chris paul (he/him): may get into that solution realm of like being the person on the couch saying you know you could do this this way right and building those relationships to try to lift people up as opposed to cut off the ladder push people now.
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A Ashcraft: Right, I see.
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Shlomo Sher: i’m not you know I want to just kind of put a pin in the idea of cooperative games or as as a really interesting or or squad based games, or you know team based games.
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Shlomo Sher: As an interesting, but maybe different case of meritocracy and maybe get back to that later and focus on kind of the straightforward stuff right, so you know it’s interesting that you said look the years that I have that give me essentially years of experience.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, can can essentially give me an advantage right over competitors, but of course somebody can say well you know you made the choice.
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Shlomo Sher: You know we’re all essentially have the video game universe available to us, we made choices along the way.
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Shlomo Sher: You are currently playing your previous choices right and your choices reflect your interest talent drive, of course, the more interest you.
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Shlomo Sher: gave in a certain sphere and more dedication of course you’ll be better and that’s just part of the meritocratic process where we were working this kind of effort.
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Shlomo Sher: So I want to find again kind of the.
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Shlomo Sher: The more obvious kind of ways right so for for for me when I think of the most obvious things that are on metacritic in a in a video game it’s clearly pay to win.
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Shlomo Sher: Right pay to win is you know you’re not judged on your skills or drive right you’re judged on the amount of money, you can bring in right.
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Shlomo Sher: but also to move on from that to any other skill that or any other advantage that money can buy and i’m assuming there are many, many, many advantages that money can buy, including, of course, time to play okay.
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chris paul (he/him): You know you’re in the console or the Games themselves right and medicaid.
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chris paul (he/him): Right like an Internet connection or all those things it’s not a cheap hobby.
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Shlomo Sher: Sure right right, even just a lag right.
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Shlomo Sher: Right so right, so all these seem to be situations where even though we have this ideal meritocracy where everybody’s just starting at the same level.
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Shlomo Sher: The real world still intrudes into our magic circle in a way that does give some people advantages over others, and this is again before we take.
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Shlomo Sher: Things that are social elements of games like let’s say the kind of shit that you’re going to get if you’re female player that you might not get as a male player, which means right you’re starting at a disadvantage already regardless of talent and drive.
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chris paul (he/him): Great race, gender, who gets socialized into it and all those things right like.
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chris paul (he/him): I have the background and video games.
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chris paul (he/him): Because when I was a kid my parents saw me and and said, you might like video games and I got the console system and my sister didn’t right.
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chris paul (he/him): When I got access to it, and my sister didn’t and when I get on a voice chat right like i’m not immediately pointed out as a girl that we want to try to get with or have to harass in some way.
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chris paul (he/him): or a person of color.
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chris paul (he/him): Who, we then have to.
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chris paul (he/him): Say racial slurs to right so like all of those barriers are very real barriers, where we don’t start out in the same place some of us start out ahead of others and that’s like the fundamental breakage of the meritocratic system and, like.
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chris paul (he/him): there’s all kinds of literature and all kinds of people who’ve done excellent job studying racing games and gender in games.
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chris paul (he/him): That we can go into but like.
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chris paul (he/him): there’s tons out there it’s a problem and that that that differentiates the starting blocks right of who gets to start where.
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A Ashcraft: Right and that’s true that’s true of anything that’s competitive.
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Shlomo Sher: Sure yeah like life.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah I mean even but even smaller subsets of that, I mean we.
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A Ashcraft: You know where you start in regards to your access to having a pool to swim in will it will improve your chances of being an Olympic swimmer.
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Shlomo Sher: or legs, you know or arms.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: Right, I mean yeah right and any of that stuff.
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A Ashcraft: there’s all kinds of things that that can’t be accounted for.
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A Ashcraft: That we should try to account for is that is that sort of what what the argument is.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah so so let me, let me piggyback on Andy be before we get to that question because I, you know before we get to the to what you see is kind of the big problems and the big solutions.
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Shlomo Sher: game companies know this right, I mean game companies want to make the game, if they want to level the playing field in some ways right they want true meritocracy.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, getting rid of pay to win seems to be you know, one of those things right, other things that game companies do to try to you know, maintain the meritocracy.
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chris paul (he/him): Well, you know I would argue yeah from the game industry, I will say that we certainly want to maintain the illusion of the meritocracy.
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A Ashcraft: You know, and we do, and we, we take a lot of effort.
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A Ashcraft: To me to like to.
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A Ashcraft: To cover any any problems that become obvious.
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A Ashcraft: Like what it is to say, we will salt will solve problems once they become obvious but it’s the obvious ones that we’re not necessarily willing to go hey this is we’re going to point that out, we might not even notice it, I mean.
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A Ashcraft: it’s an obvious because it’s an obvious right, and so we might not we might not notice it ourselves, but when we do if it’s not obvious to the player base, we might not.
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A Ashcraft: try to find a solution for it.
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chris paul (he/him): Well, and that’s the place where I take a walk down the game companies, not a muchness thing right like there’s not a unified game company.
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chris paul (he/him): And, to the extent that there is, I would argue that the game companies interested in making money.
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chris paul (he/him): Rather than these other these other elements right individual developers individual people may have different interests.
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chris paul (he/him): Then you’ve got the space where the game industry in by and large, is pretty homogenous right, and there are some companies that are more diverse than others, but it’s pretty much it is and game players are pretty homogenous.
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chris paul (he/him): So you combine those things together and we don’t have those moments like Andy was talking about of the obvious thing is easily because it’s not obvious to us because we’re part of it right.
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chris paul (he/him): simply get to a point where the three of us can get together and talk about video games isn’t the midpoint of privilege right like it’s something that 12 year old me would be like you’re doing what for a living.
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chris paul (he/him): You know and and I think part of it is just acknowledging that luck and recognizing that locker So if I can take a detour in a meritocracy just a little bit again.
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chris paul (he/him): there’s this awesome economist named Thomas frank, he writes about the meritocracy and he argues, and with with lots of evidence he’s got a great book.
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chris paul (he/him): That that luck, is the primary determining factor that we think it’s hopeless hard work, but it’s google’s hardware plus luck.
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chris paul (he/him): And if you think about the most skilled people you’ve ever met and the hardest working people you’ve ever met in you and you and you rank them in your head.
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chris paul (he/him): there’s not that much difference when you get up to the top like from the top, to the bottom sure, but at the top you’ve got a bunch of people that are basically indistinguishable.
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chris paul (he/him): But then, if you pull on that luck thing the luckiest person and the least lucky person.
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chris paul (he/him): is vastly different in most cases yeah so that we’re really talking about is a meritocracy outcomes we’re really talking about who’s the luckiest and who’s the least lucky.
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chris paul (he/him): Because there’s differences in skill and hard work sure we can talk about them and i’m sure most of the people listening are both skilled and hard working.
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chris paul (he/him): But those of us who have the chance to do this are also exceptionally lucky.
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chris paul (he/him): From the breaks that we got to where we grew up to the families that we grew up into the resources we have now to the bodies that we inhabit.
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chris paul (he/him): All those things stacked on top of each other and then all of a sudden, we think we’re the winners and that trick with meritocracy is It makes you think like you deserve it.
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chris paul (he/him): As opposed to the fact that you were lucky, and if we start to think more about that lucky and less about that deserved it it changes our perspective on how we approach things.
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A Ashcraft: I there’s a there’s a very good.
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A Ashcraft: i’m trying to remember the name of the writer that that sort of sociologists popular sociologist writer.
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A Ashcraft: I forgot his name, but he wrote about the.
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A Ashcraft: The hockey hockey league system and the way that kids kids grow up into the hockey league system and how, if you look at all of the players in the in the premier teams of the of the Canadian hockey league.
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Shlomo Sher: has to do you’ll see that were born.
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A Ashcraft: yeah they’re all their birthdays at the end of the year, like October through December they’re all born in like nobody’s born earlier than August.
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A Ashcraft: And it’s because the we’re in the little leagues of hockey.
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A Ashcraft: They it’s a cut off by at the end of the year, so if you don’t make the cut off, you have to wait till the next year, which means that all those kids who are at the end of the year are older.
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A Ashcraft: And their bodies are more mature they’re bigger they’re stronger and they excel earlier, and then they get the training because they’re, the ones who excel well.
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A Ashcraft: that the other kids don’t get and that just make that it’s a it’s a positive reinforcement positive reinforcement loop talking about these Games, where the people are doing well just do better.
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chris paul (he/him): If they weren’t interested at all.
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A Ashcraft: yeah exactly all of that.
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chris paul (he/him): it’s not what I thought the car.
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A Ashcraft: that’s right.
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chris paul (he/him): So it was actually the January birthdays that that are bigger like the cut off December 31 so if you’re born January 1.
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A Ashcraft: And you can replay right.
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chris paul (he/him): we’re born January 1 to December 31 year a year older than the kids at the end of year.
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nine.
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chris paul (he/him): Paul piff also did some wild stuff he’s a psychologist and he does this monopoly experiment, where they flip a coin at the beginning of it and one person gets bonus stuff.
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chris paul (he/him): And the other one starts with less and then over the course of the game, the person who gets a bonus stuff starts being rude to the person who got left and the person who had less tends to internalize that I got less and X less.
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chris paul (he/him): Less outwardly than others because they’ve internalized this subject position and it was all the coin flip at the beginning that did this.
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A Ashcraft: And, and they all know right, I mean it’s not like.
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A Ashcraft: let’s just.
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Shlomo Sher: read this.
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A Ashcraft: I think that that that goes back to a game in the sort of a game that was designed by a psychologist in the 70s called star power.
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chris paul (he/him): I talked about it yeah.
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A Ashcraft: yeah great.
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Shlomo Sher: Do you want.
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Shlomo Sher: To say something about star.
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A Ashcraft: Go yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: Otherwise i’ll keep going yeah.
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chris paul (he/him): A star powers this game that setup social hierarchy.
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chris paul (he/him): And it picks some people that were winners and some people that were losers and divided them up into groups, and then they get they get rules and the people that are in charge it to set the rules.
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chris paul (he/him): And they inevitably disempower the people at the bottom and then over the course of this game, the people at the bottom become disaffected they disassociate from the game they remove themselves like.
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chris paul (he/him): it’s harsh right like.
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chris paul (he/him): And the people at the top don’t think about the fact that, like if I would have pulled a different chip out of the bag at the beginning, right because you internalize that privilege.
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chris paul (he/him): And those are the kinds of things that build up on us over time and we don’t it’s hard to turn that lens internally and critically to what we got and how we got to the spot, where it is and it’s much more comfortable to attribute it to skill and hard work and luck what it.
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A Ashcraft: Is i’m not sure the one detail about star power that I that I wasn’t able to glean from what I read about it was are the people in the top third competing against each other.
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chris paul (he/him): I don’t think so.
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chris paul (he/him): But they collaborate.
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A Ashcraft: Right right.
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chris paul (he/him): Right, so that, like the people in the top third can get together and set rules that favor the top third and unless i’m willing, one of the ones in the top third that’s really willing to go out on a limb and fight for equality.
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chris paul (he/him): And it’s much easier just go with the flow right i’m winning i’m going to click winning as long as I agree with y’all keep winning it happens in.
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chris paul (he/him): Another one of my pleasures is a reality TV shows right and the reality TV show oftentimes there’s a steamroll toward the end, as we all realize that us in power.
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chris paul (he/him): staying in power, even if we don’t like each other tons is useful for all of us and that moment, where it breaks is really difficult.
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chris paul (he/him): and, generally speaking, in the course of these shows those empower tend to villainize those out of power, because they need a reason to vote them out.
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chris paul (he/him): And it’s hard to think about the fact that you just didn’t get with us on the first day or we just didn’t like you or in many cases like we’re all white and you’re all people of color and we’re going to vote, you out for that reason.
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chris paul (he/him): Right, those are uncomfortable thinking that they are the bad guys, but they did it to themselves as much more comfortable right because it doesn’t require me to do anything i’m right they’re wrong I win.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, let me summarize what we’ve got up to this point and Chris you tell me forget this right right.
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Shlomo Sher: So both in our society, by the way, if any listeners don’t see the very obvious big picture analogy of all this, I you know you got to be blind all right in our society and in video games right we have this idea that.
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Shlomo Sher: There are winners and losers and the winners and losers are the product of essentially skill and drive right.
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Shlomo Sher: Essentially, this idea is perpetrate perpetuated by those who are winners, who use it to essentially justify their position in society, maintain their power in the system in that way.
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Shlomo Sher: But there’s a real big problem with this idea and this idea is in some sense and improvement over what happened before, which is just people getting power in virtue of their.
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Shlomo Sher: Birth rather than any kind of skills, this is kind of broader you know, a broader way to power in some sense, but we still get all these problems that essentially.
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Shlomo Sher: A major part of why, at least, many people succeed in the system is luck and the system doesn’t seem to recognize that it makes us kind of blind to that luck, which is ultimately setting an unfair and unjust system for us to play with okay okay before we get to.
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Shlomo Sher: Of course, at the end of what I want to go back to real world stuff but i’m.
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Shlomo Sher: What does this do to the world of video games in terms of what does this have to do with toxicity video games.
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chris paul (he/him): Sure, so I think that built like I think video games are.
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chris paul (he/him): I call it in the course of the work I call an actual lies meritocracy right, like, I think that there are easier ways for us in our real lives to acknowledge the problems of meritocracy I think that in the course of video games it’s a lot harder right.
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chris paul (he/him): The video games mascot better.
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chris paul (he/him): And that video games in the tech industry is larger libertarian streak really come into play here right where it becomes a lot more comfortable for us to think that the system is fair that we’re all on the same playing field.
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chris paul (he/him): And that those people that aren’t winners that aren’t good it’s their fault.
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chris paul (he/him): And we don’t have any obligation to make the system better and that then sets sets us up in opposition in these really problematic ways.
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chris paul (he/him): And then you wonder why you have a toxic Community because you built it on a toxic foundation right like if you build it on sand it’s going to fall apart.
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chris paul (he/him): And we are far too common to build things on singing and not sure them up enough or not do enough of the work.
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chris paul (he/him): And then that perpetuates over time, it becomes even harder right, so I think that, in some ways, we have a harder job now than if it would have been built differently, the beginning or in through the middle years.
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chris paul (he/him): And then I think that that shows up both in the way that games are designed and then the narratives, as you mentioned before right.
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chris paul (he/him): I think that the narrative of most games is you start out as a less powerful character that’s fledgling and trying to find your way in the world.
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chris paul (he/him): And then through the force of your will and your ability at the game, you get stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger and sooner or later you’re at the top right.
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chris paul (he/him): And you might have a dramatic act to twist where you struggle, a little bit or something bad happens, but, generally speaking, the line in a video game, if you play through it is you started out week now you’re strong now you win.
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chris paul (he/him): game over which is a very traditional meritocratic narrative loop.
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A Ashcraft: Right and that and that’s true for pretty much all single player games, does it set up expectations for people in multiplayer games.
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A Ashcraft: Like.
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A Ashcraft: Why am I not on top, I have spent i’ve played this game as much as I would have.
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A Ashcraft: played a single player game, and I will and I ended up on top of that game.
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chris paul (he/him): I think it’s hard right it’s the reason why it like I get into there’s another illuminate would kalki does awesome work on.
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chris paul (he/him): On video games and she’s a former professional basketball player so she is an exceptional athlete and she’s done some great work on esports because she has a unique perspective.
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chris paul (he/him): And when I sit down to play FIFA or nba to K against the computer I went to when I went to win by a lot i’m not.
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chris paul (he/him): Looking to get challenged i’m looking to win where she’s looking to get better so actually take some some else because she’s used to this different perspective on how that game should play than I am, which I think is interesting.
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chris paul (he/him): yeah the way I was acculturated games.
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A Ashcraft: i’m sort of interested in in.
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A Ashcraft: why you are interested in just crushing the game system.
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A Ashcraft: As opposed merging yourself with with with something that’s a little bit more challenging.
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chris paul (he/him): It depends on what I want at the moment right like i’ll turn it up and down but oftentimes when I play games I play games to relax.
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chris paul (he/him): And to in a small window of time, so I don’t want to get strike out of it, I want to get victory out of it so it’s a question of the emotion, I want to feel.
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chris paul (he/him): That, if I were going to go play FIFA against people and I was going to enter into a small competition right I would want to play against them more difficult computer points that I got better.
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chris paul (he/him): But for the most part if i’m just kicking in after the kids are in bed I don’t want to struggle, I want to dominate um and the easiest way to dominate is turn that difficulty down a little bit I can score a lot of goals.
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chris paul (he/him): And scoring goals as fun.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay it’s interesting because you know both are component of the you know I think so much of playing to get better.
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Shlomo Sher: But what is the point of getting better it’s to have better high level competitions, where eventually you can win right so right getting better is the you know the it’s it’s still the direction we get to to victory.
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Shlomo Sher: But of course again.
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Shlomo Sher: You know, getting better is going to be a consequence of my you know of my talent, which is mostly you know genetic and developed by my parents and Community etc, and the opportunity I have you know, especially as a parent for how much time I get to play.
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Shlomo Sher: You know that these words.
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Shlomo Sher: So I want to go, I want to go now to this idea of.
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Shlomo Sher: Whether the problem is competition itself, I mean right, I mean part of what we get in so many games is competition and not all games, but.
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Shlomo Sher: let’s say is the idea that competition itself kind of brings out you want your competition to be a fair competition, you want it to be you want your victory to be earned doesn’t that does that automatically drive a meritocracy and.
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Shlomo Sher: You know Ivan that we have mostly competitive games is this is meritocracy kind of the natural product of competition.
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chris paul (he/him): So I think a little dalliance away from video games we’re talking about sports for a minute.
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chris paul (he/him): i’m in most sports it’s understood that the victor is often the luckiest rather than the best now they are very good, they are excellent, but they are often very lucky to get there, so that.
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chris paul (he/him): All kinds of athletes like there’s a great quote from sandy koufax where he talks about to pitch a perfect game, you have to get lucky.
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chris paul (he/him): Because you can pick the best game, but you need one or two breaks in any perfect game that are just that are sheer luck in order to reach that level of excellence.
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chris paul (he/him): If you think about the ncaa basketball tournament that that garner’s billions of dollars for the ncaa.
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chris paul (he/him): it’s a single elimination tournament that makes it exciting, it also means the best team is highly unlikely to win because they have to win so many games and overcome so many lucky moments in order to get to that point.
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chris paul (he/him): it’s American style playoffs in all of our sports are about more about luck than about long run, success.
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A Ashcraft: Right and there’s a term for it and it’s any given Sunday.
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chris paul (he/him): sure.
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chris paul (he/him): it’s why each football game nfl football game matters more than each baseball game right because there are 162 baseball games and there are 17 football games, so that if you make a mistake in this one thing.
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chris paul (he/him): We were watching the cheer documentary right or the cheers show on netflix right, the thing that’s interesting about competitive cheerleading is they have two performances that are two minutes and 15 seconds long and anybody makes a mistake, your whole years wasted.
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chris paul (he/him): Right so like the pressure on that moment, is insane.
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chris paul (he/him): Right, you could have done it correctly 50 times you get it for 51 your foot goes wrong or you slip out all of a sudden your seasons, of which has just.
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Shlomo Sher: been a.
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Shlomo Sher: While but, but of course right everybody subject to this luck and the harder you work on it, and the more talented you are the you know less likely, you are to have the bad luck and more likely to have the good luck right if if if that counts right.
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chris paul (he/him): But that foregrounded acknowledgement that the luck matters.
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chris paul (he/him): I think, changes the reception of it.
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Yes.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah I mean to an extent right, but again, you know if if i’m defending the meritocracy i’m going to say yes, and we have an equal playing field where we all essentially are dealing with luck in the same way.
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Shlomo Sher: So you know, so it, you know there’s a sense, where we could still say.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, not all not everything that turned out was exactly the product of skill, but have faith in the system as a whole as, generally speaking, bringing out the best because the best essentially place themselves in the best position with regards to luck.
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chris paul (he/him): I would, I would concede to some extent that those who are victors are likely to be exceptionally hard working and exceptionally talented.
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chris paul (he/him): The point that are the argument that i’m trying to craft out is that’s not the only piece there.
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chris paul (he/him): And off far too often with video games we focus on those pieces and not the other piece as well.
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chris paul (he/him): And I my contention is that other piece matters more than those other two because, at the point that you get to a suitably high level of competition, like.
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chris paul (he/him): Every nba basketball player could dunk on any of us could obliterate us like there are retired nba players who show up at the playground, and just make fools of people who think they can challenge them.
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chris paul (he/him): Because your worst player in the nba is still so much better than the average human just so exceptional in comparison um no amount of luck will even that for me like it’s just not gonna happen.
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chris paul (he/him): right but at that level of competition work, everyone is talented luck matters a ton.
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chris paul (he/him): So certain people are still going to be more talented than others they’re going to be more capable it’s why you have arguments about who is the best or.
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chris paul (he/him): The best of all time and things like that, and you can actually have a discussion.
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chris paul (he/him): But it also matters where you end up right, we can talk about where a person gets drafted, or where they show up or what coach they have, or what homeless situation they have when they when they get there and what mentoring, they have in order to bring them in all those.
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chris paul (he/him): Things matter to and those things are often determinant when you get to that that substantially high level of competition that the vast majority of us are just never going to reach right like we’re just not right.
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A Ashcraft: And you’re talking about how much do, how much.
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A Ashcraft: How much does the the game companies know this and how much they recognize it and I can tell you that there’s lots of game design blogs from the people who make magic the gathering collectible card game and competitive highly competitive collectible card game and they.
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chris paul (he/him): pay to win card game, yes.
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A Ashcraft: Yes, of course.
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A Ashcraft: And, to a degree, right.
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A Ashcraft: You need to have the best cards and yeah but you really don’t need that many of them.
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A Ashcraft: The the tuning is is.
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A Ashcraft: they’ve got a specific target for their tuning, which is 33% luck 33% cards, you have and 33% skill.
328
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A Ashcraft: And that’s so that is, and they have tuned it that way, so that there is a chance there’s a small chance that a new brand new player, will be to an experienced player.
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A Ashcraft: In certain situations.
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Shlomo Sher: So, so I guess i’m asking with regards to luck, so is is the idea here, Chris that.
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Shlomo Sher: Is it that we need to question the entire idea of meritocracy in video games, or we need to be aware that at some point luck enters.
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Shlomo Sher: The picture is and as we talking about you know the luck at the high end I think makes you know, a very good sense right but is the idea that we need to kind of do we need to look at luck in the entire system.
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chris paul (he/him): I think, in part, yes, and I think part of its just about reflecting on how we got to where we are and not get seduced by the idea that we earned it.
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chris paul (he/him): right but that’s the primary problem is that when we think that we earned it and we are better than right.
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chris paul (he/him): that there are two psychologists sociologists who ran some studies and their names are Shannon McCoy Brenda major.
336
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chris paul (he/him): And they make the argument that anytime we get a meritocratic Q like get to think about meritocracy we tend to defend the status quo, like our back gets up we started to defend what were their even for those people who aren’t successful.
337
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chris paul (he/him): that’s the seductive part because if the system is really about looking hard or hard work and skill, I can provide that I can do that right.
338
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chris paul (he/him): So that we tend to defend that and we don’t think introspective about all this other stuff going on, it doesn’t seem like hard work and skill.
339
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chris paul (he/him): All of these other things came into being, that complicated.
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chris paul (he/him): And I think it’s mostly for me about recognizing those things and trying to equalize things where we can and focusing on lifting up rather than pushing down right.
341
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chris paul (he/him): I am not better than someone because they beat them in the game I beat them in a game and that moment right, I had I had.
342
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chris paul (he/him): A moment of mph UK, where I was playing online with a bunch of people.
343
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chris paul (he/him): And when I was having the game with my life I don’t know what happened, what inhibited me like I am I am average or, worse, probably worse, to be honest, you know.
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chris paul (he/him): But I was having this game, where I was, I was doing really well, they were talking about me and, at the end of the game, the other team said they were lucky to have me on the team right.
345
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chris paul (he/him): With some some choice profanity I felt really good but I understood, I was incredibly lucky that game I don’t know what happened.
346
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chris paul (he/him): Certainly the tension in the same sort of way because I knew that the next game like I had to tell my teammates as we move into the next game, I am not really that good I don’t know what happened but don’t count on me like that, and this one, I will do my best, but.
347
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A Ashcraft: Right.
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chris paul (he/him): And and built a relationship where we can then go on and we rattled off a couple of wins, and it was fun and we were positive with each other, right and that was nice.
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A Ashcraft: So.
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Shlomo Sher: So what what kind of steps do you have in mind, then, to you know, to keep this in mind to let’s say make.
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Shlomo Sher: games less toxic toxic or two.
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Shlomo Sher: Or to get people to yeah I mean this the idea to question meritocracy or just to qualify the meritocracy.
353
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chris paul (he/him): I think questioning is generally a good thing right i’m asking hard questions is generally good about how you got to where you are critical self reflections and important thing about.
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chris paul (he/him): With the way that things work in the privileges that we bring with us right to talk about how video games can do things differently.
355
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chris paul (he/him): One of the things that’s been very interesting for me over this winter break is we were snowed in for a week and then we had a coven scared daycare and all kinds of things is.
356
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chris paul (he/him): Our four year old about to be five five years old tomorrow.
357
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chris paul (he/him): has taken up a penchant for the playstation five and she loves ratchet and clank ripped apart and one of the reasons she loves ratchet and clank ripped apart, is, I can set up the game, such that she doesn’t get obliterated every time she steps on to it.
358
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chris paul (he/him): They have really find difficulty settings.
359
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chris paul (he/him): They have a simpler mode that she can play with their small hands on that controller, and she loves it.
360
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chris paul (he/him): Because it can be set up for her.
361
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chris paul (he/him): In a way, that can bring her in in a way that is appropriate for her as opposed to just beating the crap out of her where she get pushed away from it.
362
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chris paul (he/him): So, like, I think that those differential difficulty settings making bringing people in a different sort of way and also.
363
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chris paul (he/him): The cues to remind folks that you know you didn’t earn it you’re here through a variety of different different things that got you here appreciate that and try to lift other people up to.
364
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Shlomo Sher: And I think a lot of people are going to have some problem with the you know.
365
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Shlomo Sher: You didn’t earn it right, I mean isn’t there some at some point where I could say I earned it maybe not you know that everything I.
366
00:44:03.690 –> 00:44:13.230
Shlomo Sher: Maybe that luck wasn’t completely eliminated, but the majority of the effort and skill and practice paid off, and there is a cause and effect connection here.
367
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chris paul (he/him): that’s the place where were to ask.
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A Ashcraft: No, I was gonna say, I think.
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A Ashcraft: I think the solution of that is is what he was talking about about these granular just difficulty levels right because people like to feel the progress.
370
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A Ashcraft: And the progress they making is real and that is skill and that is, you know from from the place that they start to the place that they end is all them.
371
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A Ashcraft: it’s the place that they start necessarily that that is is the big question right So if you have a granular and a granular enough difficulty progression level.
372
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A Ashcraft: You can call you can you can reward people for the skill that they are legitimately getting while also showing them that they’re overcoming bad luck when they do.
373
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chris paul (he/him): individual players and multiplayer settings and for designers I would think I would encourage them to think about the obligation that they have to reach out and reach out right, how can we encourage other people here.
374
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chris paul (he/him): With my skill and my hard work.
375
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chris paul (he/him): i’ve gotten to this place, how can I get other people with me, too, so instead of like pointing the fingers at your teammates and wondering why they aren’t doing as well.
376
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chris paul (he/him): If you are successful, trying to lift them up around you all of a sudden changes the context of the game and it becomes less about.
377
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chris paul (he/him): It I had a I had a favorite REC soccer game I played in Alabama when I was there and it was just a beautiful game, because there were people have wildly different skills.
378
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chris paul (he/him): But whenever a team was dominating we switched the teams, so the perfect game was playing to a tie right, then we all have fun at wildly different skill and fitness levels and when somebody came in, who wanted to dominate the game and when.
379
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chris paul (he/him): They were quickly shown the door, because they didn’t like playing that way, so the balance the equilibrium to the game became.
380
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chris paul (he/him): We were playing for fun and it wasn’t fun if one team was getting rocks we wanted everybody to be able to play and have fun at different skill levels.
381
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chris paul (he/him): And it was just this magical moment I have I haven’t been able to recapture it sense right because it takes 11.
382
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chris paul (he/him): And the right balance in order to get there right and the right attitude, and the right needs.
383
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chris paul (he/him): In order to survive the game, but finding those moments where we’re more focused on on communing with each other and being together with each other.
384
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chris paul (he/him): And lifting each other up I think that’s an attitude that if we take that into games and if developers do what they can to encourage that moment in games, I think it matters.
385
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chris paul (he/him): So when a specific game developer example right there was a there’s a game called Monaco, which is the Co operative heisting.
386
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chris paul (he/him): and basically your multiple people coming in to try to steal stuff and the developers realized really early that would be troll heaven right because fine the getaway driver and I just drive away.
387
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chris paul (he/him): to lose right right that’s great fun, for me, if i’m if i’m traveling so they did everything they could in the beta community to see it with people that would play in a pro social way.
388
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chris paul (he/him): And shockingly more players played in a pro social way because that was the way they were known did it doesn’t mean they didn’t have.
389
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chris paul (he/him): problems that they had to address but setting it up that way and designing it in such a way that people were encouraged to play with each other for each other.
390
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chris paul (he/him): made a fundamentally different game, and if you have a couple of jerks and again it breaks and hurt right like it just does not work right.
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A Ashcraft: I can also see game developers.
392
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A Ashcraft: Creating sort of a mentor role for, for you know more experienced players to to take on as, as you know, take a take on a younger player, a new player.
393
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A Ashcraft: And and help them along in some way.
394
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A Ashcraft: And then get rewarded for that.
395
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chris paul (he/him): there’s a thing called Eve University in Eve online and it’s one of the few pro social moments of Eve online where it’s a group of people that are and it’s more the players in part that protect Eve university.
396
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chris paul (he/him): than anything right because they understand if nobody can nobody comes into our game our game is not going to exist anymore.
397
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chris paul (he/him): So the players often protect like this is the one Community the one corporation that nobody’s going to mess with because if anybody does the wrath of everyone falls down on them.
398
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chris paul (he/him): Which is interesting right and it’s an obscure game it’s a hard game it’s a it’s a it’s a mountain of learning that has to be done in that game so have a real function, but I think that that that that came out of that game, especially is interesting and notable right.
399
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A Ashcraft: And that’s and and Eve, is on is interesting for a lot of reasons but mostly because everything in it is player created.
400
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Shlomo Sher: Like like.
401
00:48:32.970 –> 00:48:36.960
A Ashcraft: All the social constructions that are in that game are all player created.
402
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Shlomo Sher: I want to, I think I think we’re almost we’re almost at the end Andy right in terms of time we’ve.
403
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A Ashcraft: we’ve got about 10 minutes yeah.
404
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Shlomo Sher: I I wanted to ask what what might be the final question.
405
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Shlomo Sher: So.
406
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Shlomo Sher: In a meritocracy right where we’re normally thinking about.
407
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Shlomo Sher: You know.
408
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Shlomo Sher: Where we end up right, whether we win or lose essentially determines how good we are right, so the value we’re looking for is is is is victory or better meant towards victory right either one of these things.
409
00:49:17.880 –> 00:49:21.390
Shlomo Sher: Should we be looking for different values.
410
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chris paul (he/him): Maybe right that might be an interesting theme chase right like can we find ways to find other joy in the moment right when I play with my daughters i’m playing differently than I would play in a different context.
411
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chris paul (he/him): When i’m playing recreationally or with my partner i’m playing differently than I would play in a different context right and finding those moments, where you can.
412
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chris paul (he/him): enjoy something different, and joy something joy something for its own sake, a can can you can bring light in a different kind of way.
413
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chris paul (he/him): And also realizing when it’s time to quit right and what’s one of the things that games often.
414
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chris paul (he/him): The Games are doing now with props especially competitive games i’ve like maybe you should take a little break right now, if this game isn’t going so well from you like.
415
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chris paul (he/him): take a little time, and I think it’s one of the heart the hard parts of design for games like league of legends like it becomes drudgery after like 20 minutes when you know you’re going to lose and you still got to sit there for another 10 minutes and lose.
416
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chris paul (he/him): Right like it’s just that’s not fun um so finding those moments and finding those elements of design and finding the spaces for playing.
417
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chris paul (he/him): That bring what you want, whether that be joined with that’d be learning, whether that be something else because games can do much more than just fun right they can do all kinds of things.
418
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chris paul (he/him): But finding the spaces, where you’re getting what you want from that moment, I think is important and reflecting on what you need right puts you in a different position put you in a different place.
419
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Shlomo Sher: All right.
420
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, I think any this my last one, but aboard it’s up you know cursor aboard this one’s just too big.
421
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Shlomo Sher: we’ve been talking about meritocracy and video games Obviously there are real real world analogs here.
422
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Shlomo Sher: Is there a lesson for us about society outside of video games.
423
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Shlomo Sher: In terms of these problems with meritocracy.
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chris paul (he/him): Yes.
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Shlomo Sher: Great.
426
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Shlomo Sher: How big.
427
00:51:15.960 –> 00:51:16.710
Shlomo Sher: it’s like it’s like.
428
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Shlomo Sher: it’s like how much time have you got.
429
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chris paul (he/him): So so like like I think it is a space in which, like.
430
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chris paul (he/him): they’re all these moments where video games can evidence other things about society and other things about how things work I think it’s one of the things that makes this podcast interesting as a whole right is that you can take this lesson.
431
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chris paul (he/him): From video games and apply it in a different space or learn something different right.
432
00:51:35.670 –> 00:51:40.500
chris paul (he/him): we’re talking about ethics and video games and going from gamer gate to what happened on the Internet to the rise of.
433
00:51:40.980 –> 00:51:53.220
chris paul (he/him): The alt right right all those things you can trace like that I would largely locate within video games and there were origin points there, so this is a chance, where, perhaps we can take some lessons from video games.
434
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chris paul (he/him): and apply them in a different context and start to understand different ways in which social group can be structured or things can happen right.
435
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chris paul (he/him): And I think that it’s often easier to do that, within the space of games sometimes because they’re not so tied to us right.
436
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chris paul (he/him): it’s not who I am it’s a part of who I am potentially but it’s not who, I am in the same sort of fundamental way.
437
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chris paul (he/him): And if I can explore with that part of Chris and probably the ties that part of Chris maybe I can take those lessons into a different context that’s waiting here and use them there.
438
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A Ashcraft: Right certainly there the Games, allow us an almost safe space as much safer space to experiment with some ideas.
439
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A Ashcraft: And experiment with some social social structures, like, how do we get the people who are playing at the top, how do we reward the people who are playing at the top levels of a game to how do we reward them for expanding the number of people playing at the top levels of the game.
440
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A Ashcraft: Like, how do we just how do we, how do we reward players for creating upward mobility.
441
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Shlomo Sher: Oh wow that’s i’m thinking of a set of thinking about that from a business perspective.
442
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Shlomo Sher: Because in some sense you’re you’re drawing more people to to the game, to begin with right and the more you have people at the top, the more the competition, the skill levels as high the competition’s interesting other people want in.
443
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A Ashcraft: Right it shouldn’t be a no brainer right yeah.
444
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chris paul (he/him): it’s a question of are we pitted against each other, or are we with each other and if we’re against each other that leads to a very different set of outcomes, then, if we’re with each other and if we’re with each other, we can approach things differently.
445
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chris paul (he/him): So that while games are safe space for some of us and not as much for others right expanding that safe space to those others that may be interested already makes it a better space right and then bringing those people in and incorporating them in a way.
446
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chris paul (he/him): That that we are comfortable enough to learn from and adjust to and realize that what we have is cool, but it can be even cooler if we work together now that’s something that i’m really excited about right because right.
447
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chris paul (he/him): I can give more of what I had already and that’s not really interesting I want the new new of like what can we do together to make something interesting and valuable for all of us.
448
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Shlomo Sher: All right.
449
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Shlomo Sher: On that note.
450
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Shlomo Sher: Thank you very much, Chris Paul from Seattle university.
451
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A Ashcraft: Great great having you.
452
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Shlomo Sher: I think you give us.
453
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Shlomo Sher: lots and lots of think about man all right good podcast guys.
454
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chris paul (he/him): And Charlotte.
455
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Shlomo Sher: play nice everybody.
