Oooh! A new webisode series that looks great!
Monthly Archives: July 2007
Is the Second Life hype brought on by overly eager marketing types, killing Second Life?
Yesterday my feed reader was bombarded with Norwegian articles and blog posts about Second Life. Now, being a ‘job hunter’ who wants to continue working within the virtual world field, I get quite excited about such days! When I hardly have time to read all the Norwegian news about a virtual world – that means my future job prospects are looking up, right? Ssshhhh – don’t answer that – let me continue being deluded, sometimes ignorance is bliss and hopeful! ;)
The attention, it seems, comes from Wired’s “How Madison Avenue Is Wasting Millions on a Deserted Second Life” by Frank Rose about how most places in Second Life are deserted and businesses aren’t finding the consumer wealth they were looking for. I’m not certain what to make of it all. Two thoughts spring to mind: 1) Refreshing to see Second Life getting som critical press coverage from Wired 2) Do I really care enough about Second Life to go defend it on the different critical Norwegian blogs and websites? Not really.
The Playing Columbine Trailer
The trailer to the documentary about Super Columbine Massacre RPG is out. Some may remember the controversial debate that followed after it was pulled from the Slamdance Guerrilla Gamemaker Competition. If anything at all this game has spurred great discussions about gameplay as documentary/storytelling/art. I’m not very opinionated about this documentary yet, except that I adore the debate and I’m looking forward to seeing the whole thing. But for some opinions check out Kotaku, Water Cooler Games and Game Politics.
"The top tier of Second Life is run by the women"
Excellent Metaverse Territories introduced me to a great blogpost about Second Life from Broken Toys called “Utopia Hidden Underground: Another Look at SL“.
All in all it sums up nicely with:
“That core of the singularity is what is actually Second Life’s core
strength, and what keeps its users struggling through the level grind and the
broken client and the lack of governmental, er, Linden oversight. Because as a
social MMO, once you get past all the clutter and dross, SL actually works. I
can honestly say that nowhere else online have I argued about Islamic
fundamentalism at one in the morning while lounging in a pool with a half-naked
demon-thing. Much like how people played Ultima Online despite its rampant
peekay and endless bugs simply because it was the promise of something new,
people find the core of SL is actually the other players. That’s something
that’s difficult to break.”
Naw – lawsuits can’t happen here because it’s virtual FANTASY world!
This is an odd tv segment. I found it interesting and just really weird (even odder – I was absolutely certain I’d blogged about the case – but apparently not, must be getting confused with my del.icio.us’ing).
So for those out of the loop:
- Stroker Alderman (aka Stroker Serpentine) designed a bed where avatars could have sex in in Second Life
- Selling these became a profitable business for Alderman(yes, in real life)
- Someone else comes along and steals the design and starts selling the ‘copy’ (authenticity is really difficult in virtual matters isn’t it? I mean – it’s exactly the same thing)for less
- Stroker Alderman ends up actually suing the avatar of the ‘thief’ (this is possible thanks to the recording industry’s efforts on suing online personalities – yup! it has a name in the American court of law: John Doe lawsuit)
Those Creative Spammers
Goldfarmers in World of Warcraft are becoming desperate as Blizzard has now inserted a new ‘text-filter on broadcast chat messages to prevent gold farmers from spamming users about their websites’ – I don’t get how it can work, but I guess it really does!
This just impressed me so! Dead gnomes dropping out of the sky to spell an url?! I’m sorry, that just blows me away! So now I guess WoWers will have to put up with rainy days of dead gnomes instead of text spam? I have such a hard time disrespecting such creativity, but then again I’m not a WoW’er so I’m not hassled with goldfarming spam. ;)
Via Wonderland
William Gibson coming to Second Life!
Wow! It’s a whole event, not just a lecture!
“Over the next few weeks – to celebrate and, yes, promote his new novel
Spook Country – we’re planning a range of William Gibson activities in Second
Life; we’re screening his fine and strange movie No Maps for These Territories;
there’s a competition to design an avatar for the man himself; we’re giving away
shipping containers packe with Gibson goodies and at the beginning of August,
William Gibson himself will be coming into Second Life to read from Spook
Country and answer questions.'”
Sounds like a kids tv show only for grown-up nerds. I’ll be signing on – I have no intention of trying to design his avatar (what a daunting task) but I wouldn’t mind watching No Maps for These Territories in Second Life.
You know what I’d pay to see? A debate between William Gibson’s Cyberspace vs. Neal Stephenson’s Metaverse – with visuals! Gorr! That’d actually be a great movie, if done wisely and creatively! ‘
Seems like we need to sign on to get the schedule.
WoW dancin’ originals
This is an excellent series of clips with the WoW characters dancing right next to their creator’s inspiration! I really enjoyed it! It’s by animpinabox!
My sister enters the world of blogging
My darling sis has started blogging! She’s always been the hardcore gamer of our family and offers some interesting stories from her WoWing. A few weeks in and she’s already in Cerise writing about the frustrations of being a non-stereotypical gamer customer.
She’s also an avid reader and offers her thoughts on the recent books she’s read.
Welcome to the world, Strumpet (honestly…I have no idea where this nic comes from).
South Korea claims tax on Virtual Goods
Worlds In Motion (which I’ll get back to later) reports that Korea’s National Tax Service (NTS) “has begun adding the new tax automatically to all virtual transactions involving real money as of July 1st, says the report, translated as follows:
Sellers who do between 6 and 12 million won ($6,500 – $13,000)/half year in
business will have VAT auto applied by transaction’s middle-man.Sellers who do more than 12 million won/half year in business will need a
business will need a business license and will pay the tax by themselves”
Remember What The Dormouse Said 