Usually I've never heard of anything you mention when you talk about videogame culture and ,judging from the lack of response when you bring it up here, I'm thinking not many other people in our little lbotalk community seem to know much about it either.
....
I've played almost all the games DRR mentions.
In fact, I'll be firing up GoW3 this weekend. I plan to send the kiddo to bed, kiss the wife goodnight and dispatch the gods and their filthy assistants to the oblivion from whence they came.
So, I understand his argument's trajectory even if I seldom (or actually, never) comment on gaming related stuff.
Still, we really can't say where any of this -- the digital commons thing -- will lead. If anywhere.
Seldom fiction writer/aging cyberpunk elf /futurist-for-hire Bruce Sterling projects a future divided between those who live in "gothic high tech" enclaves (the rich and their well or well enough paid servants, protected by UAVs and killbots...once scifi, now patrolling Afghan skies) and the bulk of humanity, compelled by Berlusconi/Sarkozy/Obama/Singaporean style post political, maximum security state, bullshitocracy capitalism into a state of "favela chic".
Wired, "disastrously poor" and everywhere.
So I see what DRR's going for, but don't share his faith (or perhaps it's more a strong hope) that these global networks will produce enduring freedoms.
.d.