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According to Thomas Hobbes, there are certain types of government that lack legitimacy and effectiveness due to his employment of the “state of nature” thought experiment. While embracing certain political structures that are viewed in the contemporary world as undesirable, such as monarchies and aristocracies, Hobbes rejects liberal democracies and other similar systems that utilize divided powers. Hobbes does, however, provide adequate and justified reasoning for his conclusions as a result of analyzing the circumstances that will precipitate from a state of nature setup.
The widely-played modern online video game known as World of Warcraft seems to replicate a panoramic view of the state of nature from the absolute beginning of raw competition and universal invulnerability to the eventual end product of sophisticated economies and cooperative organizations that ensure order and enforce the rights of the individual player within the game. Warcraft, however, allows for the arrival at a different conclusion concerning the most effective forms of government and most notably disproves the Hobbesian rejection of separation of powers.
One of the most historically prominent theories of Hobbes was that of the state of nature. In this state, Hobbes attempts to recreate the various intricacies of human behavior and interaction prior to the formation of governments, complex economic systems, and societal customs and traditions. By exploring these conditions and the type of society they facilitate, Hobbes is able to achieve a line of reasoning that substantiates the most legitimate forms of government. The state of nature, according to Hobbes, operates under three preconditions.
The first condition states that although not everybody is born equal with the same talents and abilities, everybody in the state of nature is equally vulnerable to being attacked. The second condition follows the former in that it affirms that each individual has the natural right to self-preservation. Under this condition, everybody desires to maintain his or her own well-being and has the justification to act upon it. Although not everybody may value his or her own lives over certain greater causes or beliefs (in the cases of religious zealots, samurai, etc.), the fear of death makes self-preservation a priority for everybody in the state of nature. The third condition, as established by Hobbes, states that everybody has the right to every and anything they desire (there are no settled rights to property in the state of nature). The conclusion that can be drawn from this final condition is that the state of nature essentially equates to a state of war and strife.
In order to control such a chaotic and miserable situation, Hobbes emphasizes the importance of government for the purpose of upholding agreements made between individuals. Because there are no settled or binding agreements in the state of nature (i.e. the prisoner’s dilemma), the need for some sort of higher authority or sovereign (with legitimate enforcement powers) exists to establish order and maintain harmony. Acceptable forms of government include monarchies, aristocracies, and republics. Unacceptable forms include true democracies and systems that employ a separation of powers. True democracies lack any sort of authoritative power that can enforce laws (because everybody acts as a governmental official) and systems that employ a separation of powers create multiple sovereigns with divided powers, a situation that can only result in split allegiances and civil war (according to Hobbes).
In order to effectively criticize the conclusions of Hobbesian theories concerning the proper and most effective forms of government using World of Warcraft (or WoW), the game and its major facets must be fully understood. WoW falls under the video game genre known as Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG for short). The following is a comprehensive descriptive definition of the genre:
“MMORPGs follow a client-server model in which players, running the client software, are represented in the game world by an avatar — a graphical representation of the character they play. Providers (usually the game's publisher), host the persistent worlds these players inhabit. This interaction between a virtual world, always available for play, and an ever-changing, world-wide stream of players characterizes the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.”
Often times there are too many subscribers to be effectively hosted on one server, thus game manufacturers are forced to create separate servers, all running simultaneously under identical conditions. These servers are referred to as “realms” in WoW and the particular realm that will act as the model for the purposes of this analysis is named “Skullcrusher.” Skullcrusher has emerged as one of the more competitive and advanced realms due to player dedication and the formation of many successful teams, or guilds.
Warcraft guilds are groups of players who band together under an official charter (which each founding member is required to sign) for the purpose of organizing complicated tasks that can not be completed by a single player. Guilds develop their own constitutions and sets of rules to govern various aspects of player behavior and item distribution, much like a government does in a civil society. The progression that occurs on a given realm with respect to guild formation and structure is one of the focal points of this comparison and will be equated with Hobbesian ideas of the birth and legitimization of government in the state of nature.
When the WoW realms were first opened, a situation existed that shares many similarities with the state of nature thought experiment derived by Hobbes. All players who entered the Kingdoms of Azeroth (place name for the mythical region where the game is taking place) began at the lowest level ranking of one. In almost all MMORPGs, characters begin at level one and progress until they reach what is known as a level cap (in Warcraft it happens to be sixty). As a character levels up, he or she gains new and improved skills and abilities and is able to explore more difficult and challenging zones. This developmental progression is tedious and allows for the gradual formation interpersonal relationships that eventually dominate interaction in a given realm.
In order to draw parallels between the thought experiment of Hobbes and the environment fostered by Warcraft, the idea of universal vulnerability must first be examined. Although Hobbes noted that not all people were born with the exact same trait set, he also emphasized that no person was exempt from personal attack due to a given strength. The implied idea of a balance between the intrinsic shortcomings and talents of mankind as a whole allows for Hobbes to eventually arrive at the equation of the state of nature and a state of civil war.
In the World of Warcraft, players choose a certain class before beginning their quest. The classes can be divided into various subcategories based on their assigned roles during combat and each class is endowed with certain advantages and limitations. A rogue, for example, is a class intended to be the main damage producers during a hostile engagement. They are able to use most of the weapons available in game, do not rely on mana (or brainpower) to utilize their abilities, and even have the ability to turn invisible (under the proper preconditions). They are limited, however, by the fact that the armor they must wear is relatively penetrable and that they have no sort of ranged attacks whatsoever. Hunters, on the other hand, must rely on mana to cast certain spells and have very restricted melee capabilities. Their strengths lie in the art of ranged warfare, in which they prove to be the most competent combatants. These are only two of the nine possible classes available. Some classes, such as priests and druids, have the responsibility to heal their fellow teammates and usually refrain from focusing on the damage aspect of a given encounter. All classes have areas of expertise but are not immune from finding themselves in situations that expose weaknesses. The wide array of skills demonstrated by the nine classes represents the inequality and constant counter-balancing present in the state of nature.
The right of desire and acquisition within the state of nature, as portrayed by Hobbes, is also mirrored in WoW. All players are free to explore the different zones within Azeroth and try to acquire items (also referred to as “loot”) through the completion of quests (individual missions assigned by non-player characters in game) or the slaying of various boss monsters and villains. There are various tiers of armor and weapons based on rarity and value, ranging from commonly seen items to ones that are only acquired through epically difficult challenges. These tasks often require collaboration between players who either may or may not be trying to acquire the same item. There are no limitations on or guarantees with the acquisition and distribution of loot and there are also no mechanisms in the game’s interface that can allocate item drops based on relative or absolute need. Any agreements made between players concerning item distribution may or may not be made with total confidence and can be broken fairly easily without repercussions, thus presenting the need for some sort of organization that will try to maintain fairness and guarantee that such agreements are upheld.
Like the formation of governments in the state of nature, guild formation arises when players begin seeking a better deal than the one provided to them in a raw and anarchic environment. Players confer and determine that the formation of an organized group will result in mutual fulfillment. At the outset of the leveling process, the necessity for guild presence is very low; tasks are often simple and require small groups. Higher-level quests and objectives require the cooperation of as much as forty people to defeat a certain boss. As such events become increasingly more difficult as a result of the extended periods of time and effort required for completion, players begin to place more emphasis on the rewards they will gain and fear that other players, who might not have expended the same amount of energy, will interfere with these desires. As a result, players enter into a series of bilateral agreements with one another forming social contracts and founding in-game governments that manifest themselves through individual guilds. If Hobbesian conclusions on government are true, guilds should currently resemble systems with highly concentrated and absolute power. This does not turn out to be the case.
The setups of the prominent guilds on Skullcrusher embody several governmental structures that Hobbes argues are not legitimate products of the state of nature. Hobbes states that systems centering upon the separation of powers do nothing but facilitate civil war because they provide a state’s populous with multiple sovereigns. Because the three underlying conditions of the state of nature are present in the World of Warcraft, one would expect only the government types approved by Hobbes to compose the basis for guild organization. When examining the infrastructure of the most successful guilds on Skullcrusher such as Immortality, Transcendence, and Exodia, one finds that certain structures are present that do not suit the tastes of Hobbes.
Every guild has an executive position known as the “guild master.” When large and competitive guilds first began forming, various zones and dungeons were relatively easy to complete because they involved the efforts of anywhere from five to twenty people. At this phase in the game’s progression, the guild master held power that was nearly absolute because a single person could coordinate the sum total of all of the guild’s responsibilities (including recruiting new members, leading raid groups, and maintaining the guild website). More recently (within the past six months or so), new end-game content has been released by Blizzard (Warcraft’s developer) that requires very highly coordinated, forty-man raid groups to complete. Because such undertakings are both more difficult and more numerous, it has become difficult for a single leader to run all facets of guild operation.
Since the release of end-game zones like the Molten Core, Blackwing Lair, and Zul’Gurub, guild activity has multiplied exponentially. The Molten Core and Blackwing Lair require a combined twelve hours of raid time to complete (by groups composed of forty people). Zul’Gurub is limited to twenty people, yet remains challenging and requires approximately five hours to clear. After the release of the Molten Core in March of this year, a gradual process of power devolution can be observed in the three aforementioned guilds. Exodia and Transcendence were nearly crippled by discontent amount the member ranks due to the lack of responsiveness on the parts of their respective guild masters.
Because guilds often have far more than the forty people required to clear certain zones, there is always competition for spots in a raid group. The guild master, burdened by in-game responsibilities, often failed to uphold the social contract that members agreed to upon joining. This contract is basically understood to ensure that every player’s right to the pursuit of loot is protected by the group structure. Because the guild master himself is a member of only one class of players, he lacked the relative perspective to understand class priority in those other than his own (because item competition often resides between members of the same class, the idea being that most items are tailored to an individual class). Members began to show discontent because fair priority within their given classes was not always ensured and favoritism often acted as the agent by which people were either given items or spots in a raid.
The first dispersion of power within guild leadership lead to the creation of ranking officers and a position known as the “raid leader.” The officers are often chosen based on veteran experience and dedication and collaborate with the guild master to make important decisions. The raid leader, on the other hand, has the responsibility of coordinating efforts and formulating strategies during a given task. Although these changes allow for more member input and participation in terms of guild governance, people continued to show concern for the idea that the entire purpose of joining a guild and entering Warcraft’s “civil society” was being undercut due to the violation of player rights. Eventually, the creation and election of “class leaders” marked the most important separation and transferal of powers within guild leadership.
Class leaders are some of the most influential officials in the World of Warcraft. Their primary responsibility is to ensure a fair rotation of their class’s members into raid groups based on the potential items that could become available and they are elected by the fellow members of their class (whereas the guild master, guild officers, and raid leader are all appointed positions). Class leaders are also responsible for recruiting new members to fill out their class ranks. This arrangement allows for every class to be equally represented in the guild’s leadership and is the main guarantor that the core doctrines of the Warcraft social contract are preserved.
In the state of nature, these types of subdivisions would leech power away from the sovereign, creating dissent, and would not allow for an acceptable form of government according to the calculations of Hobbes. The opposite case is true in Warcraft. With the guarantee that their rights will be upheld, players are more likely to display enthusiasm and a willingness to participate in and remain a member of a Warcraft government. When loot priority becomes overshadowed by the whims of an absolute ruler, discord is likely to cause the breakdown of the guild’s governmental structure and an ultimate reversion to an anarchic system. This digression has been apparent with guilds such as the Apotheosis and Murder. In both of these cases, leaderships refused to reallocate executive power and the teams collapsed due to internal strife.
This criticism of Hobbesian governmental theory by the observation of realm progression in Warcraft does not remain unsubstantiated by other sources. In his analytical piece entitled Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, political philosopher Gregory Kavka takes a stance opposite to Hobbes and outlines some advantages of limited and divided government. The heart of Kavka’s argument lies in the fact that the various branches of a divided government will achieve more compromise because all the various representatives have a great deal to gain by upholding the social contract through the maintenance of peace. Kavka notes that “if [power-sharing officials] are reasoned as Hobbesian disaster-avoiders” they will make the necessary efforts to prevent disaster and the collapse of a government. Likewise, multiple heads or institutions in government can act as arbiters in disputes between the citizenry and government by providing different umbrellas of protection. “Critical disputes” that arise between a single head of government and his people often have crippling effects because of the limited options for mediation and reform.
The state of nature and the various realms of Warcraft share several of the same conditions. They both display the equal vulnerability that Hobbes emphasizes as being integral to the eventual formation of the social contract. In the state of nature, people are born with various talents and shortcomings but all share the equal vulnerability to attack. In the World of Warcraft, players choose from nine different classes, each of which has an understood role and skill set. These differing skills are intended to require partnerships and teamwork, thus negating the idea that a certain class does not need to cooperate and can rely completely on his own capacity for the completion of any task he chooses. The second fundamental phenomenon displayed by both ideas is that everybody has the right to anything they choose and can act upon this desire at will. In the state of nature, this ultimately leads to civil war, thus necessitating the presence of a sovereign to maintain peace. Similarly, players in Warcraft are entitled to any items they desire and will engage in constant conflict unless guilds are formed to maintain order and balance.
The only divergence between Hobbes’s experiment and the MMORPG occurs when scrutinizing government types produced by each. Hobbes argues that the only acceptable governments are ones that do not embody divided powers whereas Warcraft has clearly produced guild structures based upon division of responsibility and influence. Although Hobbes fears that divided government would equate to fractionalization of the populous, Warcraft has demonstrated the view espoused by Kavka’s analysis that the federalization of authority prevents the collapse of the civil society.
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