European Adverstising in Games Forum was last week in London and according to Ian Bogost at WaterCooler Games it was quite tragic.
He also mentions a few facts which I thought I’d sum up here. There seems to be only 3 in-game advertising network provider; Massive, IGA Partners and Double Fusion. And they support only 6 games between them!!! Which is mind blowingly low, in my opinion. But then there are hidden advertising deals around as well, they just don’t go through game advertising network providers. The Sims Online, for example has McDonald’s all over the place! Yup! You can actually buy a Big Mac for your avatar which was suprisingly popular. They actually did provide an alright service for those keeping skilling houses because the owners didn’t have to go through the tedious task of making food for everyone all the time. There was also the service provided by Everquest and Pizza Hut. While playing Everquest II you could just type the command /pizza and be guided over to Pizzahut.com. Not to mention the mini-advergames in MMO’s like Wells Fargo in Second Life. But I’m rambling now.
The market is ofcourse expected to soar now that the next generation consoles are more ‘connected’. And I know I’m rather unpopular in saying this, but I rather enjoy what Massive have done for Anarchy Online. I rather think it’s tasteful and definately not invasive in any way. At a time when production costs are extremely high isn’t this an acceptable step?
I am scared of the evolution of in-game advertising, however. There are just so many dangers and I’m not going to depress myself by dwelling on them here. And to be perfectly honest, I’ve pretty much forgotten what the point of this post is.
Advertising is going to hit games big time, there’s really no doubt about that. I find it really strange that it hasn’t already.
But if we are to enforce advertising in MMO’s, I certainly feel that the player’s ‘rights’ becomes an even more important issue. If companies reserve the right to advertise their products in these virtual worlds, certainly a player should have the right to free speech! And the EULAs definately need to be discussed more indepth!
Gamasutra has this as their ‘Question of the week’ discussion! “Do you think that in-game advertising is going to be important to the video game industry in the future? What business models and placement tactics for in-game ads make the most sense to you?”. I can’t wait to read the results!!

According to Deutche Welle, Germany’s been itching to ban Counter Strike ever since the Erfurt school shooting incident, but that’s virtually (don’t you just love how this word has double meanings, now?!) impossible.
The article mentions that Andreas Scheuer, a member of parliament for the conservative Christian Social Union, has proclaimed that “…parents should take responsibility for the games their children play, but that the government should do its bit to help less media-competent adults by introducing a “complete ban”. “
Of course this raises oppsition from the industry a.s.o.
I’m not very familiar with German government so I was a bit suprised when I the article states that Mr. Scheuer is “in charge of youth protection”. Does this mean he’s a minister of youth protection? I’m not sure I understand what his responsibility really is. To protect all of Germany’s youths? Or just specifically against media? Hmmm…definately something I have to read up on sometime.
I really don’t like it when people start using the word ‘ban’ around games. I suppose I feel offended and well…scared. Before they banned books, now they’ll ban games? And, I’m sorry, but is there some massive outbreak of kids going around with machine guns killing people that I’ve missed? Isn’t crime amongst youths actually lower than it’s been for a while? Maybe I’m just being naiv and ignorant here, but is there really a big problem of violence that’s spurred from computer games?

Wonderland is so right when she calls this presentation by Raph Koster poetry. It’s beautiful, pleasant, frank and yeah…absolutely poetic! I’m always amazed at how Mr. Koster manages to break down ‘complicated’ questions and turn them into a fairytale type story. No wonder the man’s a guru within games!

Aimee Weber has an incredibly interesting article in SLOG – a second life resident blog. She’s tried to map out the different political parties of Second Life and quite eloquently. She’s divided them into two groups, the political parties that consider Second Life to be a country and those that consider it to be a company! I’m not going to repeat everything she’s written, because she’s done it so well!
But I do have to mention that I was very pleased to see “The Gamer Party” – “…believes Linden Lab should worry less about preserving the value of the Linden Dollar, and instead give away money to players so they can buy more stuff and have more fun!”.
I think it’s great that people are actually fighting for the gaming rights in Second Life. Mostly I only hear of virtual world economy, laws and intellectual property rights (probably because that’s what I’m supposed to be writing about), it’s just refreshing to see that there are virtual citizens out there that want to put focus on the gaming aspect!
Although, there is a difference between MMORPGs and I’ve been focusing my attention more on the ‘social’ MMORPGs, which (I think) means that the focus of the game is more on building communities and social networks, which makes me question whether they deserve the definition ‘game’ at all! They become more of a social playground instead of a game. But maybe I’m just focusing on a dilemma that’s pointless to ponder on, yet again!!

I haven’t been by Nick Yee’s fabulous Daedalus Project for a while, so this may be old news, but I was by today and he’s taken a brilliant initiative to create a MMORPG Lexicon. He’s definately not the first, but what I love about it is that it’s written in blog form, so the comments are priceless!!!

My favorite contribution has to be:
Run = (Noun) A period of time in which the character continously gains abilities, often at a rate faster than through usual playing. Players usually experience “runs” during Power Leveling or Grinding their character to increase their ability through repetitive tasks such as practicing a skill or combat. Usage: “I’m on a run now in Magery, 8.2+ in 30-min.” or “I’m on a run, only 20K exp. to Level Up.” Source: Came from Ultima Online power level training using the 8×8 tile method of movement for increasing abilities by performing an action in one spot, then moving 8-tiles in a North or South direction, repeating the action to gain another point in that ability.)

But that just might be the nerd in me having a little laugh! Definately worth a read through though!!!

Malaysia is to enforce a crufew on gamers. No games after midnight in cyber cafés. And they think this will ‘cut crime’? I sincerely doubt it!
So yeah…I guess computer games are starting to be taken seriously. Looks like they’re even getting their own little police force as well!!

“Local lawmakers say they plan to deploy teams of officers to check on popular internet spots” from BBC

I know there’s a problem with addiction…but this just doesn’t seem right. I don’t know how we’re supposed to help these kids who play 48 hours straight. I really don’t know. But this cannot be the answer!!!!

Bob Moore at PARC has figured out that it is the conversational attributes of MMO communication that remind us that these virtual worlds are unreal on the PlayOn blog. He’s made a list of “10 features of avatar interaction systems that reduce interactional realism, plus 10 tips for increasing it”. The whole issue makes me feel kinda awkward. I suppose treating MMOs as chat rooms has always kinda appealed to me. Nr. 7 on his list is “Gesticulate freely: real-time motion capture using a camer enables players to use their bodies to gesticulate freely”. I don’t know, maybe I’m being too close minded and not understanding the thrills of experiencing more ‘real’ interactions in MMOs. It is however, a very interesting list and I like the way it pin-points the unreality of interaction (or lack of interactional realism) in MMOs. And I suppose it’s true when he points out that we can’t study social behavior in MMOs until such points are at least discussed.

Aleks at The Guardian also points out “is it right for academics to study the participants in virtual worlds as if they (we) were rats in a cage?”. This is something that I’ve been wondering about myself. I’m having a hard time writing about the conversations I’ve had and observations I’ve made in TSO. I feel like I’m betraying a trust and I really don’t feel comfortable with it. Which I think is pertinent. We should stop and think about our morals here.

So…every once in a while I come across a story that has absolutetly nothing to do with gaming or my thesis. I promise to do whatever it is I have to do to get a topics option on this blog during Christmas (why am I always fooled to believing that I have so much time on my hands during the holidays?) so please forgive me if you’re reading my blog for gaming news (ha ha ha! Look at me taking myself seriously!).
This was just too good to keep to myself however.
Apparently there’s a big problem in the US; Americans are buying cheap drugs from Canada. So The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA) commissioned an author, Julie Chrystyn, to write a novel to scare off Americans from buying these cheap drugs.
Which ofcourse is hillarious and scary in itself, but when PhRMA read the novel…they felt that they needed to dumb it down so it would appeal to women so they brought in Kevin Spivak, or that’s kinda unfair of me to say it was Chrystyn who asked for his help. But isn’t that kinda funny? A woman writes the novel, is told she needs to dumb it down so women will like it and for that they needed a man? I find that charming and humorous!
Anyways, it’s all gone down the drain but I thought it was interesting. Found it at Stay Free! so drop by there if you want to read more!

Well this is just a ‘must’ for anyone interested in studying MMO’s! Edward Castronova’s long awaited book, Synthetic Worlds is out. It’s actually been out for a while now, I’ve just neglected to write about it. Castronova is an entertaining writer and I often find myself forgetting that it’s all academic. BUT I haven’t read it yet, infact its on my Christmas wish list. I’ve sadly had to come to terms with the fact that I need to cool down on the reading and start gearing up on the writing so I’ve decided to leave it for my cozy Christmas reading.
I also might mention that Peter Ludlow and Mark Wallace’s book Only a Game: Online Worlds and the Virtual Journalist Who Knew Too Much is coming out in April 2006. I was hoping that it would come out before Christmas, but alas, luck is not on my side!

So, actively trying to avoid the task of the day (finishing up the whole ‘what is a game’ issue), I’ve been surfing through some Machinima films (yep…I’m addicted). I found this little gem! I have to say, it’s really refreshing hearing some ‘real’ female voices contributing.