Leveling Up to Immersive Dispute Resolution (IDR) in 3-D Virtual Worlds: Learning and Employing Key IDR Skills to Resolve In-World Developer-Participant Conflicts

Abstract

As technology improves, bandwidth expands and devices proliferate, hundreds of millions of people are engaging with ever-more realistic and complex three-dimensional (3-D) immersive environments for up to thirty hours per week. The growing variety of online 3-D spaces allows individuals to try on new identities as avatars and to interact, explore and shape either reality- or fantasy-based online worlds. In some of these virtual worlds, the emphasis is on developing personal relationships through social networking while others revolve primarily around achieving competitive game objectives. Participants may engage in a laundry list of mundane or whimsical activities from decorating your virtual home and chatting with fellow avatars to slaying mythical monsters or accomplishing quests in a hero’s journey. In a review of forty-five 3-D environments, one activity typically missing within the contours of the virtual world is an effective, in-world conflict resolution process to handle developer (or owner)-participant (or player) conflicts within the contours of the virtual world. Most of these virtual environments require adversarial conflict resolution either traditional courts or arbitration to process disputes between game developers and members. A few sites’ terms of use refer vaguely to “non-appearance based” conflict resolution options without further explanation of the nature of these processes. In other instances, developers can unilaterally take action against players through a variety of self-help remedies which have led to further court challenges. Incongruously, these virtual realities often teach some of the key skills necessary for collaborative conflict resolution methods outside of traditional litigation, including strategic analysis of one’s own and third party interests, understanding other’s perspectives through shifting online identities, balancing collaborative and competitive interactions with other parties, and exploring creative solutions to achieve objectives. Yet these virtual spaces seldom offer any meaningful opportunity for these skills learned in-world to be applied using the existing 3-D infrastructure to resolve these disagreements. This article calls for a new conflict resolution approach; the utilization of “immersive dispute resolution (IDR)” to leverage both the communication and graphical technological advancements in 3-D virtual worlds and the collaborative and strategic thinking skills virtual participants readily acquire in these digital experiences. In this paper, Part I will discuss research on learning in virtual worlds with a special emphasis on the key collaborative conflict resolution skills garnered through exploration, engagement and play in virtual environments. Part II examines current dispute resolution processes in forty-five 3-D worlds which emphasize adversarial methods and illustrate a failure to leverage the 3-D immersive technologies or the collaborative skills learned in these immersive environments. Part III will call for established dispute resolution professional and organizational providers to spearhead greater integration of 3-D technologies with facilitative IDR processes to help leverage player-acquired collaborative skills in resolving owner-participant disputes.