To those of you who haven’t been curious enough to enter Second Life yet – here’s a great little tour of some fabulous stuff Second Lifers have created! It’s beautiful, I must say! And they’ve even made they’re own version of Guiness; Goodness – awwwww…isn’t that sweet?!!
Taken from Pierce P. tv – there’s more machinima there if you want it!
This game is just starting to sound more and more fabulous!! I’ve just listened to a podcast from the GDC 06 of Caryl Shaw’s (Producer, Maxis) talk about “Building Community Around Pollinated Content in Spore” and I’m in complete awe! I almost feel guilty for criticising The Sims Online, but I’m sure anyone would agree with me there. And I almost think they’re kind for keeping the game going as I’m sure there are only a couple of thousand players (huh…need to check up on that) since those that still are there are still passionate about it.
Keywords for the talk: technology, content, community; generative content; small file sizes; “bragging rights”, flickr inspired tagging; stories behind the objects; massively solo player game
I’m truely pumped!!
Also check out Will Wright’s talk with BBC Technology about “User-generated future of gaming”. At one point they actually talk about letting avatars roam through different gaming spaces – interesting!!
Mr. Bogost has written yet another brilliant post on the media coverage, which really needs to be read in full – I’ll cut’n’paste the summary here though:
“Most of all, I am deeply worried by this culture of ineffability, a culture that would rather not talk about anything at all for fear that it might make someone uncomfortable. This trend descends from Theodor Adorno’s argument that the holocaust becomes “transformed, with something of the horror removed” when represented in art, thus his famous statement that to write poetry after Auschwitz would be barbaric. These events are considered “ineffable” — unspeakable, unrepresentable. It is a tired sentiment that we must move beyond. Of course topics like 9/11 should make us uncomfortable. Of course Columbine should make us uncomfortable. But that is no excuse to put these issues away in a drawer, waiting for some miraculous solution to spring forth and resolve them for us. If we do so, history is much more likely to forget them. I don’t care if we make videogames, films, novels, poems, sidewalk art, cupcakes, or pelts as a way to interrogate our world. But we must not fear that world.”
I’m literally on my way out the door from work but I just had to comment on this! By the way, is it nerdy not wanting to leave work on time because you wanna finish blogging? I’m beyond hope now aren’t ?!
But just look at this New Ties project:
The NEW TIES project is growing an artificial society using computer
programming
that develops agents–or adaptive, artificial beings–that have
independent
behaviours. The project is the first of its kind to develop a
large-scale and
highly complex computer-based society. The project’s results
may have larger
implications for information technologies design,
evolutionary computing
systems, artificial intelligence and linguistics.The project’s goal is
to evolve an artificial society capable of
exploring and understanding its
environment through cooperation and
interaction. The agents are sufficiently
complex and their environment
demanding, which enables them to develop a
communication system to learn how
to cooperate and to adapt.
Completely stolen from Mark Wallace’s blogg!
How cool isn’t this?!!!
BUD – “A lightweight passively multiplayer online game where your data is your playfield”
I’m not certain I understand the gaming element in this or even the fun factor but it certianly is interesting.
“bud.com is an experiment to turn our personal data trails into a playfield for a web-based massively-multiplayer online game. Call it passively multiplayer – the reality of communication networks. Already, Web 2.0 and social networking sites keep track of our relationships and communications. bud.com proposes to make that web more engaging through surveillance with non-threatening stakes: browser-based multiplayer play.
Honestly, I still like to be in control of what information I share with my networks – this sounds kinda scary and I’m sure my surfing would become more tactical than the freedom of my own curiosity. But it certainly is an interesting concept – and I’ll be eagerly following his progress!
PlayByWiki – the pen is the sword
Yes! It’s a Role Playing Game using Wiki! Looks really interesting! And to be honest I’m thinking this is more of a collaborative story telling than a game! Oh how those definitions are blurring my mind! It looks great! What a truely interesting concept!
Red Herringreports:
I don’t know….I just don’t know! There’s supposed to be live DJs and bouncers but there is ‘no punching, hitting, or kissing’ – I can’t help but wonder if that’s just not a tad too boring!
Social places like this need som kind of common denominator – like gaming. The article doesn’t really dwell on what gaming features are available – so I may be wrong here. I very much agree with Mortensen that in order to create new social spaces there has to be a common background and challenges and tasks (she lists more, but I’m sticking with these two for now). I’m not so certain that this can be found by going to a virtual nightclub – but ofcourse if they’re looking at the MySpace tendencies they’re hoping that groups of already established friends will come there to hang out. But this is still different. It seems they’re focusing their attention on the consumer culture and the bodily form of the avatar and things.
So how come this is going to be popular and There never was? And yet…social games like Habbo Hotel are a huge success! Spot the difference?
They’re marketing towards teenagers, but the article fails to mention if it’s restricted just for teenagers. But here’s the thing I think is smart though, “But unlike Linden Lab’s popular Second Life and other massively multiplayer online games, Doppelganger isn’t primarily a full-screen experience. The idea is to slide into the multitasking world of teenagers, with a minimized buddy list screen open at all times”.
This is a type of convergence I can see working (and I’m hating myself now for going to the South Park talk and not Eirik Solheim‘s lecture ‘(?)at the Nordic Media Festival). Just like BBC 1’s festival and their virtual BBC 1 radios in Second Life! I was fortunate enough to experience David Zach‘s talk on Friday – and as he mentioned – the culture today is very obsessed with not letting anyone tell us what we can and cannot do, say or buy – yet most teenager rooms are EXACTLY the same. So I don’t know! Maybe it will catch on, but if it does I’m certain that there needs to be some form of ‘complete individual freedom to do, say and buy’ illusion for these teenagers to think it’s cool! After all, isn’t that some of MySpace‘s allure?
Speaking of My Space…have you noticed the new proposed bill:
Guardian Games Blog led me in the direction of an interesting piece at Apogeevr, about ‘real’ emotions in virtual worlds.
It reminded me a lot about the dramatical yoooha in The Sims Online. There was always someone who had been hurt by another because of cheating or being unfaithful! Private Investigator’s in virtual worlds are thriving from their business! Lots of them are employed by real life husbands and wives who want to know what the hell their spouse is doing in-game, but a lot of business is being generated from virtual relationship drama as well! If a virtual spouse ‘suddenly’ disappears, the PI will try and see if they’ve started a new account as a different avatar a.s.o.
So keywords here is real emotions, real relationships in virtual worlds. But I’ve never truely understood this! I don’t understand how anyone can form a relationship without trust! And I suppose that’s what I came across most often with lovesick avatars; their constant paranoia which led to constant and tedious drama! But it is impossible not to get emotionally attached to the world – so I guess I understand it to some extent.
Well this is just too bloody interesting, scary or brilliant! I can’t make up my mind!!!
It’s funny how games are starting to open up to their gamer’s creativity. I’m baffled by it, and I’m not sure I’m comprehending exactly what’s happening here. Is this maybe a bad move from Linux? Or is this a revolutionary moment? I’m confused! So I’m just cut’n’pasting for now – but the future of games truely does seem exciting!
Clickable Culture reports on a lawsuit made against Linden Lab for “a virtual land deal gone sour”. From what I gather, Marc Bragg found some glitch in the system (bug?) of Second Life where he could buy land for under the market value. He decided to invest in this discovery and see if he could make a profit when he proceeded to sell the land for market value.
And from what I gather something suddenly happened that made him loose his Second Life account. According to Bragg, Linden Lab terminated his account “without explanation, without citing any violation of community policy, and have since refused offer a credit or a refund”.
Bragg in a statement says: “These games are like the virtual Wild West, but Linden Lab is still obligated to honor real-world contract law and consumer law, even if their world doesn’t really exist.”
Of course he’s right! Second Life has a potent market with US dollars and since they’ve issued Intellectual Property rights to their citizens – they really do have to think about real life contract and consumer law. Second Life very much exists then, if you ask me. But by what laws should they adhere to? Don’t get me wrong, I love what Second Life has done! But with it comes some democratic responsibility and not dictatorial rule. I’m no lawyer, so I’m not sure – and to be honest, lawsuits like this kinda scare me for what’s going happen in the future. I, for one, don’t want too much reality in virtual worlds although it is exciting to see it evolving, it’s like a whole new society being born – and that is fun!
I find it really suprising if Linden Lab truely has behaved in this manner. They must have been prepared for this happening somehow, haven’t they? And I’m sure they’re within their rights of punishing those who take advantages of bugs for profit (after all, we’re not talking about a game here, we’re talking about reality) – but to just cut him off with no reason, no explanation and furthermore no dialogue! I’m sure they could have worked something out, somehow and learned from this ‘glitch’! So…I’m not sure if this is really the way it all went down – I’m looking forward to hearing Linden Lab’s response!
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:
Remember What The Dormouse Said 