DKP is Market Socialism

A breakdown of the guild and its political economy.

Watch the full series:

Directed by Jacob Hurwitz-Goodman

[turbowhine]

Virtualization of so many things has benefited society, and this is a great way to look at how it could benefit economics. Great video, but can I choose someone other than Goz?

[DoctressZ]

Man what the fuck am I watching this fucked with my brain

[squamiger]

If you're familiar with classic WoW, the only part of the game that feels like actual capitalism is the thing that people hated the most: the Devilsaur Mafia. Generally, access to in-game resources is open to all, so the only factor for item price is how useful it is / how many people are willing to put in the time to farm it. The Devilsaur Mafia was a group of players that would no-life so hard that they would completely control the 4-6 Devilsaur spawns in Ungoro, preventing anyone else from accessing the valuable leather. This would involve cross-faction collusion, so if you showed up to contest the spawn on Horde, a mob of Alliance would kill and camp you and vice-versa. Monopolistic control over this resource would then allow the mafia to set prices artificially high. The gold generated from this would be used to gear-out the mafia members.

[blockchainshrek]

This was a super cool video. I wish he'd addressed the extremely intense, close-knit groups, who actually do have a financial incentive in real-world money because they get paid by lower level players to help them through boss fights. Like, there's money on the line, so there's a higher incentive to actually cooperate. Like if they don't get the best item to the person who benefits the most, the entire group will suffer, and they'll make less money. This feels sort of different than the dynamics he described. That being said, those groups are discouraged by blizzard, so I'm not sure if there are enough of them to actually be relevant to this discussion.

[Elajha]

Real genius here. Really appreciated the shooting scenarios too. I wanna see all the reference in the filming settings tho!
I see blade runner 2049, Joe rogan and Elliot rodger, what are the others?? :) <3

[SuperHipsterGamer]

I have seen far far more independent artists speak in favor of co-ops, than I have seen artists in co-ops.

[BurningMarmite]

Underrated video right here. Think u should consider a YouTube career.

[Chobucto]

Hello comrade, your guild and DKP system analysis is stunning. I’m curious to know your thoughts on the shifting political economy of World of Warcraft after Wrath of the Lich King. WotLK appears to be a neoliberal revolution with the erosion of guild dominance with WoW’s introduction of the cross-server match making system and 5 to 20-man raids. Under such precarious and flexible conditions, a single player on the free market of the match making system could team up with random players to do raids and never really form a communal entity. Interestingly, this era also marks emergence of the zero-hour flexible contracts IRL in Uber and reproductive match making like Tinder. One could work their flexible Uber job, go on their tinder date, and still make it in time for some basic Ice Crown Citadel action. However, leaving quality loot the Shadowmourne only feasible under the most dedicated guilds or capitalists.

[empiredirt]

hell yeah. also: "Debt: The First 5000 Years" is a good book.

[conor_byron]

This is a very compelling, even alluring concept. I suggest that anyone interested in these ideas also consider countering it with the work of Natasha Dow Schüll. Recently the podcast Game Studies Study Buddies (episode 43) did a very thorough analysis of her book "Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas"; this would be a very entertaining and enlightening introduction. Her NYU Game Center Lecture is also very good!

[noxfatalis]

is there empirical research on DKP guilds out-performing other governance types? i ask because i think i could make this research happen

[avnar]

Am I the only one that found the Video and first thought about the German Communist Party DKP?

[freedomunrestricted]

Plenty of drama that surrounds how the guild operates and how loot is divided up. Often there is corruption exposed that causes guilds to fail too.

[patximartel]

I hope Drive's publisher sends you a cease and desist letter.

[krn_gry]

How is any surplus value created by the system (5:15) if no one is being paid less than the value of their labour?

[oskarandersson]

great vid but why are you in elliot rodgers car????

[Zickafoose]

How do you assess risk and is that distributed evenly?

[kalebmark]

hold up, this video is blowing me away with its quality. The effect is simple but surreal and makes engaging with the content so much more interesting.

[Zahramasseyart]

god damn pjw background caught me off guard

[phartmanify]

This is great! But there's a whole bunch of theoretical errors which really let it down. Just because you can't rent and charge interest, doesn't necessarily mean that DKP does not function as in-game money, rent and interest are just forms of usury and Money can exist without usury. There's a conflation here of various values; exchange value and intrinsic value come to mind. DKP does have exchange value, otherwise why would members require / need it? I'm assuming you can use DKP to buy/sell things, no? It may not have intrinsic value, in that it doesn't generate 'new value' via interest or whatever, but these categories are distinct and have various consequences (later you mention surplus value, so you must be aware). The definition of capital is fuzzy at best.. Yes you can say it's a vector (value in motion). But it's also a mediator of relations between people, which is really the subtext of this work, no? DKP may not BE capital, but it's also not clear what you mean by capital. I think the meta narrative here which has been omitted is that, by playing this game gamers are generating value for Activision Blizzard which is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ.. This is capital. The best thing about the work is the visual language of gaming references. Look fwd to seeing the next video!