How The Impermanence Of Online Games Both Mirrors The Human Lifespan And Gives It Meaning: A Study Of How Cyberspace Occupies Time Through The Lens of Retired Online Gaming Platforms

As human beings, we have the pleasure and curse of occupying a relatively short amount of time within the existing timeline as we know it; from the moment we are born, we can make the fair assumption that we will live anywhere from 0-122 years old based on all prior recorded human lifespans. We can live comfortably knowing that no matter what we do, eventually our time on this Earth will end. We can leave remnants of our existence behind in the form of art, history books, nuclear waste, and to be more abstract our loved ones’ memories, but as far as we know there is no way to immortalize our existence. Art erodes, history books burn, nuclear waste decays, and families forget. No matter how much time we individually occupy, which I’ll define as any period of time that is touched by any result of one’s own existence so I don’t unnecessarily limit the impact a human life can have, a single human cannot have existed within our timeline from the beginning of time to the end of it. Some may argue that religious human figures such as Adam and Eve break this logic if they existed and are still known of today, but to that, I would argue that even before those first humans, time marched backward–for at least five days according to the original source text (The Bible). For those who are of a different belief, or are not religious, I would emphasize that there has always been a time before humans: whether it be a time of dinosaurs or a time of cosmic energy. Given all of the logic above, it is safe to say that we, as individual humans, occupy a subsect of time. If you give me three minutes of your short subsect of time, I’d love to tell you a bit about why I believe that just as we are allotted time to exist on the ultimate timeline, online games are allotted time to exist on the internet. Then, after that, if you give me one more precious minute, I’ll tell you a bit about how the impermanent nature of these video games should teach more about how we view our own lives and impact.

Part One: A Brief History of My Own Experience With Retired Online Games

Poptropica is an online role-playing game that was first released in 2007. It operated using Adobe Flash Player until 2020, when it was briefly retired before being reprogrammed to run with Haxe. In the transition, many of the original gameplay aspects were lost, but players could still access them using a Flashpoint work around or the Steam download of the game (with a few server issues). However, in 2024, with CoolMathGames’s acquisition of Poptropica, the Steam download has been rendered largely inoperable, and many of the old aspects of the gameplay have been lost outside of Flashpoint.

Two weeks ago, I was feeling a bit nostalgic for my childhood back in the late 2000’s (do you feel old yet because I do), and I wanted to visit my childhood gaming website: Poptropica. As I remembered it, the site was a beautiful Oasis in my elementary school computer lab where my after school care friends and I would congregate to solve puzzles located on in-game islands in order to unlock different achievements and mini-games. My favorite island, and one I can still remember every step to solving to this day, was Reality TV Island, where you could follow a sequence of steps as your character to effectively apply, get accepted to, and compete in a Reality TV show. Obviously, still on that nostalgia kick, I immediately went to look for that island after logging into my old account. What did I find? Nothing. A big empty space where the island was supposed to be located on the map. My hopes and dreams for reliving my childhood were crushed. Needless to say, I was more than a little upset, but this got me thinking: how many games has something like this happened to? I knew of Club Penguin, which was another of my childhood games that was recently retired, but I didn’t know of the over sixty online games that had gained a cult following online before being shut down. This list includes, but is not limited to, Marvel Heroes 2016-a free MMO released in 2013 and shut down in 2017, Firefall-another MMO released in 2014 and shut down in 2017, and Spark City World-an MMO geared towards girls released in 2008 and shut down in 2017.

An interesting pattern you may have noticed was that all three of the games I listed shut down in 2017. This is not the result of me manipulating data and only showing you games that shut down in 2017 on purpose, as the games I selected were entirely random. A better explanation, however, is that Adobe Flash Player was deprecated in 2017, rendering many online games that relied on the software as good as dead, as there was no chance for players to emulate them on their own machines. In a matter of months, due to a corporate decision, the lifecycles of these games within the timeline of the internet were officially ended. To make this concept a bit easier to understand, I’ll employ an analogy that helped me wrap my own head around the idea of relative time: humans are to the ultimate timeline as a game is to the section of the ultimate timeline that the internet takes up. Therefore, when an online game hasn’t existed for the entirety of the time the internet has existed, that game mirrors the temporary nature within the timeline of the internet that humans have within the ultimate timeline. If you’re a keen reader, which I know you are, you may take my examples of retired games and argue, “If you could find information about them on the internet, then their lifespan hasn’t ended yet.” To that I say, first of all you have a great point, but second of all you’ve got to think a little bigger. Think back to before the game existed-the game’s lifespan certainly doesn’t extend to the first ever instance of the internet, as the internet was originally created to house and parse raw data. Then, think to the future. If these games could be deleted because the software they relied on for the backend was given up on, the same can be said for every website that houses an article written about those games, as well as every website that houses a video, and every website that houses any information about it whatsoever. These games, therefore, are not immortal within the timeline of the internet, just as we humans are not immortal and all-existing within our own, ultimate timeline.

Part Two: Why We Should Care That Online Games Are As Temporary As Human Life

A representation of a wormhole, which Forbes uses to link to the possibility of time travel. For our purposes, it’s best to think of humans as at the very least occupying contiguous time. With our current scientific knowledge, for something to happen in the future, it must have happened in the past. For our theory, this means that the human who caused something in the future would occupy all of the time from when they started the future event to when the future event happens, as it happens as a result of their existence.

The fact that these games are not permanent will effectively allow us as humans to experience the games within the time of the internet as if we were the ultimate timeline experiencing humans. In the same way that we view these games as just a glimpse of an event within our lives, we are a glimpse of an event within the ultimate timeline. Nevertheless, just as the games were well-loved, fostered connections, and were entertained within their brief time allotted within the time of the internet, us humans are well-loved, connected, and entertaining within the time of the ultimate timeline. It is in this comparison that the main reason we should care as humans is revealed: no matter how short our allotment of time within the ultimate timeline, we can still make an impact on those who have the pleasure of perceiving the time we occupy. Just as we are impacted by perceiving the limited lifespan of the games, the ultimate timeline is impacted by perceiving the limited lifespan of humans. What we do may seem insignificant or small relative to such a large amount of continuous time, but if online games can make an impact within the timeline of the internet despite occupying such a small amount of it, us humans can do the same with the ultimate timeline. By recognizing that these games have limited time, we can hopefully become more comfortable ourselves with our own limited time, knowing that it can have an impact. I can only hope that through the lens of ultimate time I am as loved, cherished, and important as Poptropica is to me and the internet.

With love,

Lizzie

Sources:

Poptropica Picture: linked here ; Human Lifespan: linked here ; Retired Online Games Reference Buzzfeed: linked here ; More Retired Online Games: linked here ; Poptropica History: linked here ; History of the Internet: linked here ; Spacey Picture: linked here

The Butterfly Effect in Until Dawn and How it Taught 11-Year-Old-Me Empathy

Adolescents cannot be diagnosed as psychopaths, and ten quick minutes in the chat room of any multiplayer game will tell you why–all children are psychopaths. That is, all children are either psychopaths or sociopaths until they learn empathy. Empathy, defined as “the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another” person by Merriam-Webster, is learned through life experiences. It can develop rapidly or at a very early age for some people, or over time, but still before the age of 18 for others. A select few never develop empathy at all, becoming the psychopaths or sociopaths of the world (which is completely okay and a genuine medical condition). Although I can’t pinpoint exactly when I developed empathy, I believe that a big part of my ability to put myself in the shoes of others comes from watching others play video games in sixth grade.

After a bad friend group break-up at the tail end of my first year of middle school coupled with an announcement that my father was moving to another state for work, I turned to the internet for a bit of company. At the time, Let’s Plays were the big trend on YouTube. At the risk of exposing myself as a huge nerd in middle school, I’m going to let you guys delve into the psyche of 11-year-old me through my then most-watched YouTube creators. Dan and Phil would have been the top two, followed swiftly by PewDiePie, JackSepticEye, and Markiplier. Somehow I missed the Zoella train, but not to worry, Jenna Marbles was always a staple. I first got into Let’s Plays by watching Dan and Phil’s gaming series where they played the Sims. The videos were entertaining since I remembered playing a free, mobile version of the same game on my phone back in the good old days (elementary school). From there, the recommended bar pushed me into the world of the big three gaming YouTubers I mentioned earlier, but more specifically, it pushed me into the world of Until Dawn.

If you don’t know, or weren’t a victim of the YouTube algorithm in 2016, Until Dawn is a cinematic, modern, choose-your-own-adventure style horror game in which the Butterfly Effect plays an integral role in what ending a player gets. At its core, the goal of the game is to keep 8 college-aged people alive through the night in the snowy mountains surrounding their friend’s cabin. However, throughout the game there exist totems, physical parts of a totem pole that allow the player to see choices they may be presented with in the future in hopes that the snippet of information the totem gives them will be able to help the player make the right choice down the line. There are certain choices in the game that cannot be made if a totem revealing the proper choice isn’t found earlier in the game. Additionally, Until Dawn makes its connection to the Butterfly Effect very direct by announcing that a “Butterfly Effect” has been discovered when a player views a totem. All of the butterfly effects are also tracked in a virtual notebook so the player can see when they have had an effect on their personal gameplay. I’ve attached a picture of a totem, as well as the butterfly effect journal, below.

The final death totem in Until Dawn. When a player encounters a totem, they can pick it up and the game will flash a cutscene of a future decision to be made in the game as well as the immediate outcome of that decision.

The Butterfly Effect notebook within Until Dawn. When a player picks up a totem, the left side of a butterfly is filled in with the causal event. When an event occurs later in the game as a direct result of the earlier action (or inaction), the right side of the butterfly is revealed.

Watching others, most likely Jacksepticeye and Markiplier, play until Dawn in its entirety forced me to sit idly by while they made decisions that were the opposite of the ones I would have made. However, even though they were doing something that I didn’t want them to do, I still had fun watching. It also seemed like they had fun playing. Heck, sometimes they even stumbled into better outcomes by making those different decisions. Through this process of watching, but not having control, I learned that sometimes others lived experience led them to make decisions that would be better in the long run. I found that while watching them play the game, if they made a decision that I wouldn’t have made, and it led to a good outcome, I would switch what my decision was going to be to match theirs. If they made a decision that led to something horrible, and I would have made another, it still didn’t change how the course of their game went because the video of their gameplay had already been shot and recorded. These experiences, combined, taught me patience with others decisions and how to deal with my own emotions when the consequences of their decisions impacted my own experience. Watching them play the game taught me empathy, as well as respect for others independent decision-making.

Not only did watching others play the game teach me about empathy, but Until Dawn itself taught me how to put myself into others’ shoes. If it were only watching others play a game that taught me empathy, I would have learned the complex topic much earlier, while watching my sister play Nintendogs on our shared pink DS. Maybe I learned a little empathy during those sessions (for the poor dogs that had to deal with her agility training), but I certainly didn’t learn as much as I did while watching people play Until Dawn. Due to the structure of the game, the player is forced to play as all of the characters in the game at least once (with the exception of the non-human characters or any characters whose trustworthiness is meant to be unclear to the main group of 8). This procedure of having the player physically be in every character’s shoes forces the player to, at least for a little bit, make decisions from that character’s perspective. This means taking into account how their decisions when playing as that character will affect the other characters, knowing that they will have to play as the other characters later. As a programmer now, looking back, I have no idea how the game creators thought of these mechanics and didn’t immediately say “no way, that is going to be absolute insanity to code,” but I’m so glad they didn’t. In fact, they doubled down. The programmers said, “actually, we’re not going to make the players guess how their actions as a specific character affect that character’s relationship with the others, we’re going to directly tell them.” Which was a revelation to 11-year-old me who had absolutely no clue, or didn’t care to have a clue about, how my actions affected those around me. I’ve included a picture of that feature of the game below as well. You’ll notice that the character’s relationship with every other character is measured, as well as the strength of their own character traits. Of course, every decision the player makes affects that character’s traits as well as that character’s interpersonal relationships–because programming the game wasn’t already hard enough.

Mike’s character information screen. On the left, it lists his character traits, and on the right, it lists his relationship status with the other seven people at the cabin. The levels of these traits all change depending on decisions made in-game.

I’m not saying Until Dawn singlehandedly prevented me from becoming a sociopath, but I can confidently say that it sped up the process of my own learning about empathy. The cut-and-dry way of seeing how actions have consequences not only for oneself but for others in a very direct way that forces the player to have empathy for every character they play as was very easy for 11-year-old me to pick up on. If it could happen in the game, then certainly it also happened in real life, which meant that I needed to stop acting like my own actions didn’t have consequences. Overall, I’m glad a game like Until Dawn came out when it did, and although I would never want to program something as complex as it on my own, I hope that someday something I program can have the same impact on its users. I hear from the grapevine that a movie for Until Dawn is in the works, and I can’t wait to see how these elements translate to that form of media.

With love–Lizzie.

Sources: https://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/13/magazine/can-you-call-a-9-year-old-a-psychopath.html ; https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-couch/201810/can-empathy-be-taught; https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/empathy ; https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/until-dawn/