Category Archives: Academia

Math and Games

27 April 2006

Leave a comment

So…I never hear about the really cool things going on at this university until it’s too late! I’m sitting here drinking my morning coffee and I drop by mortenjohs’ blog, Globular Game Log Online. From what I can gather the guy’s Bergenese and currently living in Lyon, France which makes this even more frustrating!

He informs me that there’s a seminar today at 14.15 at Høyteknologisenteret with the title “On combinatorial precursors of Sudoku”; This talk, a sequel to that by Randi Moe in January will attempt to place Sudoku in the historical setting of combinatorial research, sparked as it so often has been by recreational puzzles and games that turn out to have more serious applications.

Now…fair enough! It does sound a bit too advanced for my little mind but I was intrigued when the description of the seminar led me to “All kinds of mathematical games are a good thing” which apparently there’s some dispute about.

But alas! I can’t go! I found out too late and my schedule today can’t be shifted last minute! I’m not too upset, as I’m sure the lingo would be completely greek to me! But I thought maybe I’d pass the information along if someone reading this would be interested!

Sony Station Exchange and GMs responsabilities

25 April 2006

Leave a comment

So, yeah! I’m still trying to write about intellectual property rights within MMORPGs. I’ve pretty much come to the conclusion that reputation is a commodity in MMORPGs, both for the game developers and the gamers themselves, and I’m wondering if it is this reputation that is or should be protected within intellectual property rights! Firstly I’ve used Eriksson and Grill’s DiGRA 2005 paper “Who owns my avatar? – Rights in virtual property” for inspiration to illustrate the different interests game developers and gamers have in intellectual property rights. From their excellent paper:

“Two main interests are discernible in connection to the game producers:

  1. Subscription interest – virtual trade may decrease a game producer’s income from subscriptions. If new players buy advanced characters for real money they won’t have to spend time in the game (which they consequently would have to pay for) advancing their own avatars. The subscription interest is also affected by the fact that the game producer may get a bad reputation by letting people with more money than time buy themselves into the game, resulting in gamers leaving the virtual world
  2. Control interest – developers have an interest in remaining in control over their creation. In part, this may be a purely creative interest, quite separable from the subscription interest. Often, producers wish that their virtual world should remain a game only. The recognition of ownership rights in the virtual world of their game may thus conflict with their wish to control that world. Producers therefore try to establish norms implying that trade in virtual property with real money should not exist”