Lauren Prainito
Wiki Article #1 The Issue Of Slavery in Civilization IV: Colonization
Background
The Civilization IV: Colonization is a remake of the 1995 Sid Meier’s Colonization. “Players control settlers from one of four European nations, Spain, England, France or the Netherlands, that they are trying to conquer/colonize the New World.” Players aim to gain independence from their “mother country” and build a great army to defeat the “military force that the king sends to crush the rebellion.” The game was originally created without the triangular trade, an important event of the slave trade, and slaves only appeared for a brief second in the game as the player wrote a Constitution. Firaxis, the game’s company, eventually allowed players to change the game through modifications. These modifications included more aspects of slavery, thus making an already offensive and controversial game more offensive and controversial.
Summary
The author, Rebecca Mir, wrote an article on Civilization IV: Colonization’s controversy and included many interesting viewpoints, including her own after playing the game. She first described the game’s objective and how it was originally created. She mentioned that the creators of the game intended for this game to be series about the historical events in colonial times, by allowing gamers to explore very important decisions on building an army, independence, and such. The game only briefly mentioned slavery; it was not intended to focus on it. She knew the extent of the controversy as she stated, “a game about colonization should be offensive, and its assets and code are going to reflect that.”
Mir tells her audience that the game’s company eventually allowed players to make changes, or modifications, to the game that opened the door to more detailed aspects of slavery and the slave trade. Four of these modifications included selling and buying slaves, which caused a lot of commotion in the gaming industry. Although some of the modifications do not include slave trade such as The Authentic Colonization (TAC), most players were using the modifications with slave trade.
While playing the game herself, Mir found herself “forgetting she was using the Slave units” because there were no consequences to have them. She also found out that there was a limit to the amount of slaves she could buy. Players also have a choice: “pay for the Slaves coming out of Europe or not allow slaves to be purchases in Europe at all.”
Mir came to the conclusion that modders and players seemed to want the experience of slave trade, since they continued to modify and play the mods that included slave trade. The game also encourages modification because the original game only touches on slavery, leaving many possibilities to add and incorporate more of a slavery aspect as well as the company allowed modders to add elements to their game. Mir doesn’t necessarily agree with the component of slave trade, but she understands why it happens. She understands why people want to make a game about colonization as real and historical as it can be. The consumers seem to want to explore this controversial issue- they keep going back to it through different modifications.
Social Importance
Most of society seems to be offended by this game. Although slavery happened so long ago, as a society we do not want to be reminded of how we discriminated against African Americans. Because it was so long ago many people see slavery as something they do not want to be reminded of; we are past the issues of slavery. While some people are offended by this game, the players, modifiers, and creators of this game seem to see the aspect of slavery as important. They feel that because slavery was a huge part of history, they should represent history as accurately as possible in this game. Perhaps the creators of this game thought the rest of society would feel the same way about slavery, yet even the original game, which only briefly talked about slavery (players didn’t trade, sell or buy slaves), became controversial.
Reactions to Post
One person commented on Mir’s post and the author commented back and forth a little. The commenter, Fabian, stated that modders modify games to make it more historical, sometimes forgetting that these modifications can cause problems. He feels that companies that make games leave room for modifications because it is a “selling point” and “builds community that will play the game long after most other games have been shelved.” He also feels that adding slaves was necessary for the game. The author replies with the slight argument that most modders are not motivated by history, people just seem interested in adding different aspects to games. Fabian comments again and clarifies his first comment. He also agrees with the author about modders’ intentions and inspirations for games. The author again, agrees with Fabian and the conversation ends there.
There is not much of a debate about this article; the commenter and author do a lot of clarifying and seem to be on the same page in regards to how they feel about the modification community and their contributions to the gaming industry. Fabian gives the author more information about modders (he seems to have played more games and has more knowledge about modders) and is very interested in the author’s reactions when playing the game.
I have never played a game in which the decision that I make reflects historical events, especially events in which people were commodified and sold such as the slave trade. When I first read this article I was appalled that someone would even consider adding the element of slavery because it is such a touchy subject, even to this day. I had to re-read Mir’s post a couple of times to understand why people felt that the slave trade should be included. I completely agree with the author’s opinion. I do not agree with adding an aspect of the slave trade, but I understand why people want to add it. The original game itself is offensive, but people wanted to add more realistic decisions to the game that reflect the decisions made in those times. These decisions both have advantages and consequences that directly influence how the game is played.
The creators of this game must have known that modders were going to add more of an element of slaves and slave trade to their game. People should expect a game about colonization to include all the characteristics of that time period. Is it horrendous and inappropriate? Yes, but the original game itself sets modders up for adding slave trade into the game. People can choose to use the slaves or set them free (depending on the mod). From Mir’s post, it seems that some of the game’s modifications were pretty accurate and the decisions that player needed to make reflected some of the decisions people made in those times.
Works Cited
Civilization iv: Colonization. Wikipedia. N.p., Web 4 June 2013 <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civilization_IV:_Colonization>
Mir, R. (2012). Playing at Slavery: Modding Colonization for Authenticity. Web 3 June 2013. <http://www.playthepast.org/?p=2856>
Wiki Article #2 Copyright Infringement
Explanation of Anonymous, SOPA and PIPA (Protect IP)
Anonymous is a group of people who gather to support “freedom of speech, human rights, and information ethics” on the Internet (Anonymous, 2013). Members are known for wearing masks to disguise themselves in public. Anyone can join and there is no single person leading the group; sometimes a few members come together to plan an attack or stunt. Although members of this group would consider themselves “freedom fighters,” Anonymous has carried out many inappropriate attacks on the media, Internet, police officers, multiple companies, religious institutions, corporate websites and the government. Many of these members have been arrested for various attacks as well as their involvement with the group. This group claims that they stand for “social change by ending government corruption, totalitarian methodology, and financial or political gain the government wants to produce on the suffering of its people” (Operation Vendetta, 2013).
SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) is a bill that enforces copyright infringement laws with the intent to “protect the intellectual-property market and corresponding industry, jobs and revenue” by restricting access to sites that contain pirated content (Stop Online Piracy Act, 2013). With this bill, websites can be accused of copyright infringement on “federal criminal intellectual-property laws.” SOAP’s goals are to protect the content of creators’ original work and counterfeit drugs. SOAP can’t stop websites from being created and most copyright websites come from overseas, but they can make it “harder for U.S Internet users to find and access the sites” (Pepitone, 1012). Groups such as Anonymous, who oppose this bill, have attacked huge websites by blocking or denying access to protest SOPA. These opponents feel that their freedom of speech is being threatened.
A similar bill to SOPA is the PROTECT IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act, or PIPA), which also works towards preventing and stopping copyright infringement websites on the Internet. This act hired and trained staff to be able to make accessing these websites difficult. It ordered popular search engines like Google to “remove or disable access to the Internet site associated with copyright infringement and not serve a hypertext link to such Internet site” (PROTECT IP, 2013). Like SOPA, this act also has opponents who greatly disagree with the bill. Both SOPA and PROTECT IP “contain no provisions to actually remove copyright content, but rather to focus the censorship of links to entire domains“ (Harvey, 2012).
Groups Protecting Online Privacy
Anonymous has played a huge role in the movement toward protecting our freedom of speech and privacy online. This growing group has participated in many protects, videos, and acts (which I could consider cruel and unnecessary) to educate the public about the tight, unfair copyright laws that impose on our rights at American citizens. One example of an act perpetrated by Anonymous was against Sony. The company sued a man named George Hotz for “violating federal law against circumventing encryption” and Anonymous fought back with hacking the PlayStation Network, which cost the company 24.6 million in records (Norton, 2012).
Reddit is a website containing a collection of submissions from registered users who write about various social news, entertainment, and other topics. According to CISPA (a bill related to SOPA and PROTECT IP), this website does not comply with copyright laws and could be shut down because it “lacks protections to preserve the privacy or users and gives companies immunity for repercussions that might come as a result of sharing information” (Zetter, 2013). As a way to fight for Internet freedom, Co-founder of this website, Alexis Ohanian, attempted to contact the tech companies of Google, Facebook, and Twitter to stand with his website. Although he was unable to contact the founders of these websites, he continues to protest and fight for these rights by asking his fans and website followers to sign a petition. He comments in a video, “If someone wants access to our home or private mail, we would say, ‘well go get a warrant.’ CISPA basically says, ‘Not necessary your digital privacy is irrelevant.’” Ohanian truly believes the government is infringing on our basics rights as humans and wants other to feel the same too.
Edward Snowden
A once highly respected member of the National Security Agency (NSA) and Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Edward Snowden, recently leaked very important and top-secret “American and British government surveillance programs to the press” (Edward Snowden, 2013). Snowden felt that the government knew too much about us and didn’t feel they had the right to know everything that everyone is doing. He had been in contact with a member of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, a group that supports freedom of speech and press, since January planning to leak information.
For over a decade, the US government has been able to, under many bills and laws, control and limit what we see on the Internet, television, and press. In 2001, the Patriot Act was signed allowing the government to “roving wiretaps, searches of business records, and conducting surveillance of individuals suspected of terrorist-related activities” (Patriot Act, 2013). This law started a huge controversy and people complained that it is unconstitutional and goes against the freedoms we are guaranteed in the United States. Since then, copyright infringement laws tightened, surveillance cameras invade our privacy, and phone lines can be tapped.
Since Snowden leaked information about the US government to the public, we now know too much about the capabilities of the government. While most can agree that Snowden’s act was stupid and dangerous, he opened the eyes of the public to what the government has been doing.
Works Cited
Anonymous (Group), Wikipedia. (2013) Web. 24 Jun 2013 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anonymous_(group)>
Edward Snowden, Wikipedia. (2013). Web. 25 Jun 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Snowden>
Havey, Jason (2012). A technical examination of SOPA and Protect IP <http://blog.reddit.com/2012/01/technical-examination-of-sopa-and.html>
Norton, Quinn (2012). 2011: The Year Anonymous Took on Cops, Dictators and Existential Dread <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/01/anonymous-dicators-existential-dread/all/1>
Patriot Act, Wikipedia. (2013). Web 25 Jun 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patriot_Act>
Pepitone, J. (2012). SOPA explained: what it is and why it matters. Web. 23 Jun 2013.<http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/17/technology/sopa_explained/index.htm>
PROTECT IP, Wikipedia. (2013). Web 26 Jun 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PROTECT_IP_Act>
Stop Online Piracy Act, Wikipedia. (2013) Web. 27 Jun 2013. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop_Online_Piracy_Act>.
Zetter, Kim. (2013). Reddit Cofounder Calls on Google’s Larry Page to Oppose CISPA <http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2013/04/reddit-opposes-cispa/>
