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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Yesterday’s The New York Times Magazine has a lengthy article about WoW gold farmers in China:
“The Life of the Chinese Gold Farmer” by Julian Dibbell

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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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(I’m not sure how long we, the students of last semester, will be able to keep on posting to the class blog, but I figured I would make a quick entry while I have access.)
The men’s magazine Maxim has released its “Hot 100 List” for 2007, ranking what they believe to be the 100 most […]

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For those of you who got hooked on World of Warcraft while fulfilling the requirement for this course:
The New York Times ran a series of articles written by Seth Schiesel on conquering The Burning Crusade expansion pack. You can access the series at Conquering the Burning Crusade. (The author was the first to hit level […]

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Just one more posting for y’all. Thought this map was pretty interesting. Enjoy!

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World of Warcraft is just about two and a half years old, now. It’s got the largest user base by far (Community). It’s a very viable product model, and has a bustling in-game economy (Commerce). The Burning Crusade came out in January (Content). So, where do we go from here?
This article […]

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