Hercules and Xena |
Do Online Fans Really Run Online Fandom? | Hercules and Xena Essays |
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Hercules and Xena |
Do Online Fans Really Run Online Fandom? | Hercules and Xena Essays |
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Do Online Fans Really Run Online Fandom?
Web sites, chat rooms, news groups, mailing lists - online fandom is pretty well organized for science fiction and fantasy. In fact, it's often hard to distinguish online fandom from, say, academia. Hercules and Xena fans even have a monthly journal, WHOOSH!, which examines all aspects of fandom and the shows. We are quite serious about our interests. But what you're not likely to find in, say, the physics community is an online role-playing game. Maybe it would be interesting for some people to play a black hole or a comet, but I doubt the appeal would be broad-based enough to support a commercial endeavor. And that's where I think online fandom gets interesting. Anyone can set up a role-playing game. Well, anyone with a server and access to the Internet. But some people are running games for profit. Simutronics Corporation has been running multiplayer games for 10 years. With games like GemStone III, DragonRealms, Modus Operandi, CyberStrike, and CyberStrike 2 to their credit, Simutronics saw an opportunity developing among Hercules and Xena fans and they developed Hercules and Xena: Alliance of Heroes (note: the game has been rebranded since this article was originally written). Everyone is a hero in the Alliance. Well, if you want to be. Simutronics has been reaching out to the fans and inviting them to try out the game. Elonka Dunin, Executive Producer for the game, even visited with fans at DragonCon 1998 in Atlanta, GA to tell us about the company and how it works with the players, and to scope out the action. We're looking forward to seeing more of Simutronics at future conventions. Simutronics has also put in appearances elsewhere, such as GenCon, and they have their own annual convention, SimuCon, which had over 500 attendees in St. Louis this past summer. Another company which has brought online adventuring to Xena fans is Macromedia Shockrave. This site requires a small plug-in that is fast to download. Once you sign up with them you can download and play the various game modules, including the Xena: Warrior Princess game. You collect hearts and chakrams as you work your way through the game. Your goal is to rescue Gabrielle. There are amateur games out there as well. You can find some of them listed on Xena Online Resources Xena and Hercules Games page. But the commercial games raise some issues that aren't found on the amateur sites. For example, if you enroll in a licensed game, are you actually engaging in a fannish activity? Is it any different from, say, attending an amusement park that just happens to have a Hercules/Xena ride? Would attending such an amusement park be a fannish activity? Online fandom defines itself, and is a community of people sharing interests. By definition, fandom has traditionally excluded professionally produced activities from its "roster" of fannish things. But the player communities which develop around these games surely are fannish communities. They are outgrowths of the original fannish experience, and the fact their gaming experiences are arbitrated through an online medium doesn't minimize the personal experience of the players. On the other hand, a company running a service needs to make a profit, and that means the environment must be monitored and controlled. Can full fannish expression develop in such an environment? Some people might be inclined to say, "No!" but I'm not so sure. After all, we have moderated mailing lists (of which the Chakram mailing list is the largest and oldest among Xena fandom). Fannish expression is given some limits in a moderated environment but it isn't repressed. Simutronics openly solicits fannish input and participation. They are building a network of linked sites to help promote not only their Hercules and Xena game but also the web sites of the players and other people who help promote it. What do we get for our linking efforts except a link back? Isn't this as much a part of the Web and Fannish experience as any other reciprocation we've known through the years? The great unanswered question really concerns the core presence of Universal Studios in all these licensed, "sanctioned" games. Are they manufacturing a fannish community? When you watch Hercules: The Legendary Journies and Xena: Warrior Princess, the credits inevitably are accompanied by a "Log on to the Internet" advertisement giving you the URLs for the official Hercules and Xena Web sites. These may be the most well-known URLs in science fiction and fantasy fandom. Universal Studios provided the first discussion forums for the fans, as well. Both the Hercules and Xena Web sites contain discussion boards where fans gather and talk about the shows as well as their lives. Universal doesn't actively promote the fannish Web sites, but they have tolerated a great deal of usage of their logos and trademarks. The result of this tolerant if not endorsing attitude has been a virtual explosion of online fannish Web sites, mailing lists, discussion boards, news groups, and other resources. Many fannish Web sites include link lists, and the link lists invariably include one or more commercial sites where you can purchase the comic books, pictures, mugs, shirts, hats, and other merchandise associated with the shows. We promote the very marketing franchises that are hoping to thrive on our interests in the shows. What do we get in return for such promotion? Well, maybe the satisfaction of knowing we are part of something big. It's now even possible to set up your own store on the Web. You can sell sanctioned merchandise through partnering programs through companies like Amazon.Com and Alt.Bookstore (the service is now inactive). The fans now have the opportunity to be a part of the marketing franchise, even though they'll realize few if any revenue dollars from the effort. Many sites now offer click-through purchasing for the books and tapes, so the competition for sales is fierce. So where can we draw the line and say, "Online fandom stops here"? The demarcation is not easily discernible. Some of the professionals may themselves become so involved in the shows and fandom that they become virtually indistinguishable from the rest of us. After all, they have personal interests, too. Can't they learn to love the shows as well as us? The evolution of online fandom is barely begun, and the studios will (I think) take a more active role in developing and guiding the growth of online fandom. Potentially everyone can benefit from the participation of the studios, but there will probably come a time when a split is mandated by the traditionally independent fans. Or perhaps the split has already occurred, and there will always be aspects of online fandom that express a certain independence of the marketing initiatives. One interesting experiment occurring outside the Hercules and Xena fandom communities is being engineered for Earth: Final Conflict fans. The official sites actually provide guidelines on how the fans may use the resources provided there. The guidelines are part of the Terms of Use, but Tribune Entertainment Company obviously recognizes the powerful and dynamic nature of online fandom. Their success (or failure) in nurturing and influencing the growth of online fandom will undoubtedly be reviewed by other studios in the future and perhaps help pave the way for new types of partnerships between studios and fans. Universal's acceptance of the online fans was the first step, and Tribune seems to be making the logical second step. Perhaps in the next year we'll see more examples of studios and marketers legitimizing the online fandom experience. In which case, we'll still be left to wonder, "Who runs online fandom?" |
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