Funny things are happening in a virtual world called Real Life, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi, in his radio address Mann Ki Baat, said the decision to get rid of red beacons was aimed at removing the VIP culture from the mindset of certain in-game characters. He added that red beacons be replaced with an in-game concept called EPI — Every Person is Important. By banning red beacons, Modi is trying to make Real Life fair, and by introducing EPI, he is trying to make Real Life more fun for its 1.3 billion gamers.
Other virtual worlds haven’t passed any order against flaunting power. When warriors acquire their epic sword — a massive pillar of shiny red steel that is the red-beacon equivalent of Real Life — they flaunt it. In Blizzard Entertainment’s World of Warcraft, the most successful members of a warrior class have suits of armour showy enough to be silly. Yet they are the rage: if you have got power and wealth, you wave them in everyone’s face. And unlike Real Life, nobody seems to care about such red-beacon equivalents. There’s envy, yes, but nothing that needs to be addressed as a policy matter by the government (Blizzard Entertainment in this case). This much can be assessed from discussions on forums where players make suggestions and virtual-world governments see what issues motivate or demotivate gamers.
While Mann Ki Baat laments VIP culture and sees everyone as important, these forums never call for equality between players in different stations of virtual life. But in Real Life, inequality motivates anger and debate. For example, CEOs who get paid more should pay higher taxes than menial workers. In other virtual worlds, however, everyone thinks the more powerful and wealthy a character becomes, the greater the available rewards should be. Why? Because that’s the very nature of fun. So why stop anyone from peacocking? After all, one of my friends in Real Life dated a bureaucrat’s daughter just so he could zip through traffic in a red-beacon car. See how Modi ruined it for him by turning off the red-beacon lights. Thankfully, other virtual worlds haven’t dropped such fun features. So in an act of rebellion against Real Life, he migrated to other virtual worlds that allow him to flaunt red beacon and its equivalents (bad-ass sword, chain-mail armour).
Meanwhile, in Real Life we continue to hate inequality: we expect the rich to be humble. In 2007, the then prime minister, Manmohan Singh, urged executives to avoid conspicuous consumption and resist excessive salary, which he warned could deepen inequalities and fuel social unrest. Fast-forward to 2017: Modi bans red beacons. This shows the economic game of Real Life faces immense pressure to look fair. Why aren’t other virtual worlds facing such political pressure from their citizens? Why aren’t they banning status symbols such as red beacons or urging players to splurge less on virtual items? After all, these virtual worlds display inequality so vast that it dwarfs Real Life inequality.
The answer is equality of opportunity. In these games, all players start on an equal basis, hence inequality of outcome is not frowned upon. If players start on an unequal basis, the game is not fair, not fun. Hence, differential starting lines — someone is born poor, someone is born rich — pile pressure on the economic game of Real Life to look fair. But its policy response seems directed at symptomatic relief — banning red beacons, urging less splurge — and not at the root cause, which is inequality of opportunity. The idea of full equality of opportunity is far from policy agenda, whereas it is the norm in virtual worlds, where everyone starts in abject poverty.
In the space game Eve Online, a new player gets a thin-hulled little ship that can be easily blasted by all other players. Every new player must work himself up to a ship that can defend itself or boss around like a red beacon on an inter-galactic highway. But the bottom line: everybody starts with zero wealth. And to bring Real Life on par, this would mean banning all inheritances. This would mean madness. But at least this would stall exodus of losers to other virtual worlds, an exodus sparked by their links to bureaucrats’ daughters going in vain, because they can’t flash red and zoom past others anymore.
ashish.sharma@bsmail.in
