Play’s Republic

This past weekend, Prof. Ted Castronova hosted the Second Ludium, this one on “videogames and public policy.” It was an extraordinarily interesting experience for various reasons, not the least of which was the outcome: A Synthetic Worlds Initiative-sponsored Declaration of Virtual Worlds Policy, comprising 10 planks relating to the future of virtual space. […]

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So much to point to, so little time. I’m heading to Ludium 2 on Thursday: For the nonce, here’s a really interesting note from Wired on the illusion-shattering nature of Voice Chat. We’re reminded that the willing suspension of disbelief takes more effort than some would suppose.

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If ever there were an interesting opportunity for political, historical, and rhetorical analysis of videogames, here it is. Wired has an photo-essay on “Lost Arcade Games of the Soviet Union.” See the accompanying article, too. A synchronic comparative analysis of Cold-War-era superpower videogames would be thoroughly original research that would make a […]

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There’s been a lot of talk lately about the looming death of the Sim franchise (the Urbz expansion pack, for example, was already DOA). But here’s a new twist that is both appalling and ingenious:

Of course, we needn’t even think about the possible dissolution of the play frame, and concurrent intrusion of the real […]

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Fresh from the UK’s Eduserv Foundation, here are some presentations on Second Life and education from their 2007 symposium. Some good material here, including information on the University of Edinburgh’s presence in virtual space and IBM’s place there, too. Plus: Lots of PowerPoint.
http://www.eduserv.org.uk/foundation/symposium/2007/presentations

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CALL FOR PAPERS
3rd International Second Life Community Convention (SLCC07)
August 24-26, 2007, Chicago, USA
Track: *Business in Second Life*
Visit the SLCC07 blog.
SCOPE
The emergence of virtual worlds and Web 3.D change the way of
doing business. Web 3.D is the synonym for Internet-based virtual
worlds, where people can create own 3-D *virtual*
personalities. One of the most famous of these virtual […]

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Early on in the course, we covered learning within games, primarily as a function of gaining faculty within a semiotic domain. We have never, not once, discussed games as learning devices used to learn about a specific type of content, however, and we especially didn’t talk about “edutainment” games. In the name of […]

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There’s great story to be had in Turbine’s new MMORPG version of The Lord of the Rings, “The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar,” (TLOTROSOA, in the parlance of the fanboy). At least, that’s the take of The New York Times, in today’s issue.
One sentence, particularly striking, suggests that the reviewer has […]

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Updated!
Stephen E. Jones is a professor of English at Loyola in Chicago, where he’s just finishing up an undergrad seminar on “Video Games and Textual Studies.” It is an undergrad class, so the reading load is considerably lighter, but the syllabus still makes for interesting (comparative) reading. Be sure to check out the […]

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