2019年夏季——《荒野乱斗》（Brawl Stars）与创建战队

● 人物：当时迦勒（Caleb）大约12岁。

● 事件：当游戏《荒野乱斗》推出时，迦勒非常喜欢。他每周会把2小时的屏幕时间全用来玩这个游戏。在暑假期间，我们允许额外的屏幕时间，迦勒周一到周四每天可以有30分钟，周五到周日则有2小时。迦勒很快发现了游戏的社交功能。游戏中有一个“战队”功能，你可以创建自己的战队并邀请朋友加入。一个战队最多可容纳100人。有多种方式可以对战队进行排名，并且你可以看到排名。迦勒有自己的战队，他想努力发展战队，看看能把战队提升到多高的排名。他告诉我他想这么做，并请求额外的屏幕时间，不是为了玩游戏，而是为了管理战队。因为我也玩这个游戏，所以我了解并熟悉战队建设。迦勒将会与许多匿名玩家互动，因此我们就如何在网上与人聊天、对方可能会说什么、迦勒可能会接触到什么进行了几次讨论。我同意让迦勒做这件事，但他必须经常向我汇报情况。此外，如果他受到任何不当骚扰、网络欺凌，我们需要谈谈，他可能必须停止。迦勒开始建设战队。他会寻找最优秀的玩家（可以查看玩家数据），和他们一起玩《荒野乱斗》，然后邀请他们加入战队。他意识到招募外国玩家成功率更高，因为外国玩家渴望练习英语或想交个美国朋友。迦勒在招募来自墨西哥和南美洲的西班牙语玩家方面尤其成功。他会打开谷歌翻译，用西班牙语通过翻译与这些玩家开始招募对话。他们会开始交谈，大多数时候，这些玩家会同意加入迦勒的战队。迦勒说，迄今为止，说西班牙语的玩家是他在网上遇到的最友善的人。几周后，迦勒的战队在数千个俱乐部中跻身前50名。他感到非常惊讶。又过了几周，迦勒告诉我他想停止了。他仍然想随便玩玩《荒野乱斗》，但不想再继续管理战队了。我问他为什么，他告诉我维持战队运营带来了巨大的需求和压力。其中有很多“政治”。有人要求在战队里晋升，争论谁该晋升谁不该晋升。有人要求迦勒把某些人踢出战队。当战队成员之间产生敌意时，迦勒不得不充当裁判来维持战队运作。诸如此类的事情没完没了。迦勒不得不取悦每个人以维持战队运营。这引发了一场关于“帝国建设”（empire building）的精彩讨论。如果一个人想要建立一个帝国，或者任何暂时性的事物（无论是企业、初创公司还是政治运动），这就是需要付出的代价。总会遇到持续不断的反对，这个过程可能有趣、刺激、令人上瘾、让人肾上腺素激增（迦勒经历了所有这些情绪和体验）。然而，归根结底，什么值得投资？什么能够持久？我们试图取悦谁？在帝国建设中承受所有这些压力的目的究竟是什么，这真的值得吗？我感激这次经历让迦勒和我能够一起探讨这些话题。

25. 2019 Summer time – Brawl stars, building a club

l Who – when Caleb was around 12 years old.

l What – When the game Brawl Stars came out, Caleb loved the game. He would spend all of his 2 hours a week playing Brawl Stars. During the summer break, we allow extra screen time where Caleb can get 30 minutes a day, Mon-Thurs. Then, he has 2 hours Fri-Sun. Caleb soon discovered social aspects of the game. There is a club function where you create your club and get your friends to join the club. The club can have max 100 people. There are a variety of ways in which the club gets ranked and you can see the ranking. Caleb had his own club and he wanted to build the club to see how high he can get the club to be. He told me that he would like to do that and he asked for extra screen time, not to play the game, but to build the club. Since I played the game also, I am aware and familiar with club building. Caleb will be interacting with lots of anonymous people, so we had several discussions on chatting to people on the internet, what they might say, what Caleb would possibly expose himself to. I agreed to let Caleb do this, but Caleb has to give me frequent updates. In addition, if he gets inappropriately harassed, cyber bullied in any way, we will talk about it and he may need to stop. Caleb started building the club. Caleb would find the best players (you can see players stats), and play Brawl Stars with them, then ask them to join the club. He realized that he was much more successful recruiting foreign players because foreign players desired to practice their English or wanted a US friend. Caleb especially had success in recruiting Spanish speaking players from Mexico and South America. Caleb would bring up google translate, and start a recruiting conversation with these players via google translate in Spanish. They would start and conversation, and most of the time, these players would agree to join Caleb in his club. Caleb said that Spanish speaking players, by far, were the nicest people he met online. After a few weeks, Caleb’s club was top 50 out of thousands of clubs. He was really surprised. Then, after a few more weeks, Caleb told me that he wanted to stop. He still wants to play Brawl Stars casually, but he didn’t want to build the club anymore. I asked him why, and he told me that there was so much demand, pressure, to keep the club going. There were lots of politics. People asking for promotions in the club, who deserves a promotion vs. not a promotion. People asking Caleb to kick certain people out of a club. Caleb had to act as referee to keep the club functioning when there is animosity between people in the club. The list goes on and on. Caleb had to please everyone to keep the club going. This led to a great discussion on empire building. If a person wants to build an empire, to build anything temporal, this is what it takes (be it a business, startup, political campaign). There will be perpetual opposition, and it can be fun, exciting, addictive, adrenaline rush (Caleb went through all these emotions and experiences). However, at the end of the day, what is worth investing? What is going to last? Who are we trying please? What is the purpose of all this stress in empire building, is it really worth it? I am grateful that through this experience, Caleb and I were able to process through these topics.