In Polite Company: Rules of Play

in Five Facebook Games

Elizabeth LoshUniversity of California, Irvine

Patient Zero

Why was the game rejected?

A failure with only 120 active users Yet there were already a number of viral games that

thematized infecting, attacking, and transmitting about Vampires, Zombies, Werewolves, etc.

But these movie monster games did not seem to violate the rules of politeness

Why?

Play With Little Identity PlayThe Example of Alternate Reality Games

Your character looks exactly the same as you. Your character will have all the same skills and attributes as you, and even the same memories and feelings

Play as yourself. Your character in this game is “2019 You.” You don't have to use your real name, but please don't invent an entirely fictional persona for the game. After all, in the future, we'll all be some version of our real selves. So try to imagine your real self in the year 2019. And whenever possible, use your real life knowledge and real life strengths to help you contribute to Superstruct!

The Face of Facebook:Rules for One-to-Many Print Ephemera

Private annotations and

board game or playing card conversions

“On Face Work” by Erving Goffman

“Face is a mask that changes depending on the audience and the social interaction.”

“an image of self delineated in terms of approved social attributes ”

“Face Threatening Acts” in Brown and Levinson

“Face” vs. “Trust” in Tactical Iraqi

Winning and Losing

Reciprocity and Obligation

Sociality as a Design Element

Pork Invaders

Scrabulous and Scrabble

Debates about etiquette

How (and why) did fans revolt?

Zombies

Parking Wars

Packrat

How (and why) did fans revolt?

What do you hate most?

I hate it all … Every ounce/ gram/chosen system of measure. The rats are truly useless! You can't trade between sets or raise the value of the cards you have. They're only purpose in this change was to make money! Greed is the root of all evil!! And the *disturbingly new* Packrat is evil. I’m done, that’s for sure!!

Debates about etiquette

It’s not a gift if you ask for it

What the heck is up with people asking for tickets to be gifted to them for 25 tx items ?? Ever since this gifting of tickets came out people have just been plain greedy. If you don't like that word too bad because that's what it is. Taking 200 tx for a card that is less than that is greedy. I have seen some horrendous trades lately and frankly I’m appalled.

I'm with you Michael. For me, the joy of gifting tickets has been in surprising my good friends who would never ask for a thing and are not expecting it in the slightest!

I can't believe the people posting threads asking for tickets - most of them don't even do it in a nice way :0\

(Lil) Green Patch

Lessons for Developers

Politeness matters

But so does the assertiveness of participatory culture:

Fan responses to intellectual property disputes and the legitimization of real money trading

Does ending matter? Are they casual games or MMOs?