I Chat With Lawrence Lessig on what MMOs Can Teach Us About Politics IRL

Thrilled to write this interview for Klang Games, creator of a novel MMO called Seed, which has a unique designer on the team:

Lawrence Lessig is a Harvard Law professor and a lifelong advocate for government reform; he’s argued a case before the Supreme Court, and for a brief time in 2015, even ran for President. Now, however, he’s taking on an unlikely task: Help design a video game... [He] is creating the political structure for Seed, our upcoming game in which players must collaborate (or compete) to rebuild society on a new, untamed planet.

While the esteemed professor might not seem like an obvious choice for this role, this is actually his second stint as an MMO adviser: Back in 2002, he advised a startup creating a then-unknown virtual world called Second Life. His guidance helped make it a cause celebre for a time, attracting academics, theorists, and politicians curious to know what they could learn about the real world through an online simulation.

Lessig sees similar potential in the next generation of MMOs, which enable truly massive numbers of users to participate in the same, evolving environment. “Imagine,” he says, “virtual worlds with colonies with tens of thousands of players. People can say ‘I’m going to learn how to govern [in the real world] by governing a virtual world.’ I’d love to see if we can establish the relevance of that. Because obviously there’s a lot that needs to be learned.”

Much more here.

Comments

[Clara Seller]

Interesting subject. Look forward to see how this progresses. Well done!