State of Play IV: Building the Global Metaverse
January 7-9, 2007 (Singapore)
Sponsored by Harvard, Yale and New York Law Schools as well as Trinity University in Texas and the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, we are convening thought leaders from Asia, Europe, Africa and the Americas to engage in a lively discussion about the unique regulatory and cross-cultural challenges posed by the growth of transnational virtual worlds.
Whether they take the form of games, social spaces, or educational environments, virtual worlds are now truly global in scope. The popularity of virtual worlds in Asia is phenomenal. From Thailand and Malaysia to Indonesia and the Philippines, the Asia Pacific region's on-line gaming market generated approximately $1.4 billion in annual revenues last year – a figure that is expected to reach $3.6 billion by the end of the decade.
Much of this growth will be propelled by 180 million Chinese Internet users, the majority of whom will play on-line games. Jaw-dropping insight into China's hunger for on-line games can be seen in the turnout for last month's ChinaJoy conference. Now in its fifth year, the event attracted approximately 124,000 game developers and enthusiasts -- almost twice the number who attended E3 at its peak in 2005. As industry analyst Frank Yu points out, "this makes it the most attended game event in the world." Unlike E3 and CES, which emphasize graphics hardware and home consoles, ChinaJoy focuses on virtual worlds and casual games.
Of course China is just part of the story. Throughout Asia, people of all ages are gathering in cybercafes to participate in "deep" virtual worlds such as Lineage II and World of Warcraft or to play casual titles such as PangYa. With the highest broadband penetration rate of any country on the planet, Korea is currently an epicenter of gaming innovation, pioneering a free-to-play business model that seriously threatens subscription-based titles. Meanwhile, analysts note that India is poised to become a huge player once it builds out the necessary technological infrastructure. India is already the region's third largest market for on-line games, despite the fact that less than .02% of the population has broadband access.
When you take into account the fact that NGOs and many government development agencies hope to seed the Asia Pacific region with inexpensive wireless broadband notebooks, it is clear that we are witnessing something completely unprecedented. We are eager to tease out the implications of these developments, and are intentionally convening virtual world industry experts, game scholars and technological neophytes to deepen our shared understanding.
In addition to premiering two documentaries, this year's SoP will include an extemporaneous discussion about the future of virtual worlds between Neal Stephenson, Cory Doctorow, and our own Julian Dibbell. The legendary Jane McGonigal also has something exciting planned for the opening night.
Panel topics include, but are not limited to: virtual property, regulation of virtual worlds, qualitative and quantitative metrics, digital youth cultures, the interpenetration of the physical and the virtual, cross-cultural interaction, taxation, the state of the industry and virtual worlds as learning environments.
Confirmed speakers include, but are not limited to:
Alice Taylor (BBC Worldwide)
Cory Doctorow (Boing Boing, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom)
Frank Yu (Microsoft Research Asia Advanced Technology Center in Beijing)
Ge Jin (Director of the Gold Farmers documentary)
Greg Boyd (Kenyon and Kenyon)
James Grimmelmann (Information Society Project at Yale Law School)
Jane McGonigal (I Love Bees)
Jerry Paffendorf (Acceleration Studies Foundation, Metaverse Roadmap)
Joey Alarilla (Founding President of Asian Gaming Journalists Association)
Joshua Fouts (Director of the USC Center on Public Diplomacy)
Julian Dibbell (Play Money)
Neal Stephenson (Snow Crash)
Nick Yee (Stanford / PARC)
Ren Reynolds (Terra Nova)
Richard Bartle (MUD, Designing Virtual Worlds)
Unggi Yoon (Gamestudy.Org)
Yehuda Kalay (Director of Center for New Media at UC Berkeley.
Conference schedule and registration information will be posted on September 1st. Please continue to check http://www.nyls.edu/stateofplay for more details. If you have any questions, please contact the conference coordinators:
Dr. Aaron Delwiche
Organizer, State of Play
Assistant Professor, Department of Communication
Trinity University
Matthew Cuttler
Organizer, State of Play
Institute for Information Law and Policy
New York Law School
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