Terra Nova

Lipsticking The Chicken

Joel (Spolsky) on Software has a fine new start to a promising series of articles on software design ("Great Design: What is Design...").  His perspective is outside of game development and its industry, yet unsurprisingly, there are similarities.  After all, there is software in "them hills."

How should we parse the distinctions between the design of the MMOG as game vs. the design of the MMOG as an application?   As with all software -- especially those structured around deep human-computer interactions -- distinctions among different types of design (domain vs. engineering) are tricky and to a degree, artificial.  In the end it is always about the art of the possible.  Yet it is still worth considering these relationships from time-to-time in the hope that we may better parse the constraints imposed by one form upon the other.

Then there is a point about chickens and  lipstick...

And the sign said...

Want to have a WoW guild that welcomes gay/lesbian/bi/trans players? Better not ask,and not tell. In Newsweekly reports on Blizzard's censorship of guild names and descriptions. Cory Doctorow comments, as does Jason Schultz.

UPDATE 2/7/2006: Kotaku reports that Blizzard appears to be backing off; Lambda Legal applies pressure. Thanks, Naomi, for the link!

UPDATE 2/10/2006: In Newsweekly reports further on Blizzard's changing position; includes plans for a recruitment channel, GM sensitivity training.

But is it Pr0n?

TN reader and president of Blacklove Interactive Kelly Rued asks whether:

“player agency in an interactive sex game affects the media’s status as porn (legally and socially).”

Magic Vessel of Cheerios +5

RIT Professor Andy Phelps, creator of the MUPPETS project, has a great  essay comparing parenthood to RPG play.  It is a great read and delves into one of my favorite topics: the tension between "play" and "work":

At a superficial day-to-day level the process of managing life with a young child can be viewed as a game, a steady process of learning the ins and outs of the event/response pattern of the world around you.

And it can be just as rewarding. When she was screaming in the mall and I whip out the Magic Vessel of Cheerios +5 and hand it her, I have this weird tingle of happiness that I was able to anticipate her desires and have come well prepared to the situation. Not unlike the ending of an RPG in which you have all the items, spells, and armor to defeat evil and save the world. We place intrinsic value on the first, call it ‘good parenting’, while the latter is merely ‘wasting time.’ But what if the way we waste our time was helping us do the important stuff better?

Read the whole article here.

Invidious Comparison

Every now and again we host a “Friends of Terra Nova” cocktail party at one of a number of undisclosed locations. The last one we hosted was aboard our yacht (the “Acqua Nova”) which happened to be tied up at the Piton moorings near Cap d’Antibes. In looking around, some guests noted the gaudiness of the other boats, and began talking about conspicuous consumption and the meaning of ownership in the real world and in the virtual worlds. We hurriedly convened a Roundtable to discuss the issue; the following transcript is a lightly edited account of what took place.

The tape recorder missed the first part of the conversation where a number of people referenced Thorstein Veblen’s “The Theory of the Leisure Class.” In that work Veblen coined the well-known term “conspicuous consumption”, but more generally proposed that economic value in work came about through the separation between exploits and drudgery: initially exploits in battle or hunting come to be signified by trophies and booty, and then in time this material wealth came to stand for the honorable activity itself. As a result, as a leisured class emerges honor attaches to those who have greater material wealth than others. Thus “invidious comparison” becomes a fundamental feature of ownership, since the psychological and ethnological value of an item is determined in large part by the fact that some people are not able to access it, and some are.

The participants in this conversation were Tim Burke, Julian Dibbell, Roger Fouts, Dan Hunter, Eric Nickell, Alan Prosser (our boat builder, and a serious MMOG player), Mark Wallace and Dmitri Williams.

[Editorial note: The abrupt end of the conversation occurred when Prosser knocked the rapporteur’s dictaphone into the waters of the Mediterranean.]

Chen Nian to IGE: Eat me, Western barbarians!

And so the culture wars in item trading begin. I simply had to post this, from Pacific Epoch:

Virtual Item Trading Site Founder Chen Nian: IGE Will Fail In China

Chen Nian, former Joyo vice president and current chairman of online virtual item trading website Uoyoo.com told Sina on Tuesday that no multi-national Internet company will achieve success in China's virtual item trading market, including leading US online game virtual currency and item trading platform Internet Gaming Entertainment (IGE). Chen said that IGE's biggest weakness is its lack of understanding of China's online gaming and virtual item trading market. Chen confirmed that Uoyoo.com has expanded its business to some game servers in Taiwan. Chen said Uoyoo.com will directly compete with IGE in the international market. According to Chen, Uoyoo.com is targeting 100 million Yuan in revenue in 2006. Chen said Uoyoo.com was jointly invested by himself and Kingsoft CEO Lei Jun.

"100K Group" lists? (Or, 'The Numbers Game' Part 2)

You may have noticed that the sidebar of virtual world sites on the left has
been changed.  No longer does it include groups for games/worlds with 100,000
or more users, but now just includes an alphabetical listing of some of the virtual
worlds that one or more Terra Nova folks have been to. 

This was the subject of a lot of discussion between TN authors and is
something we think is worth discussing here.  In short, what's a user and
why do we care?

Virtual Transvestitism: An Introduction

Transvestitism is common in virtual worlds.  That, if nothing else, is undeniable. 

While it may be hard to effectively determine just what percentage of toons are actually controlled by cross-gender players, transvestites have a presence in all types of online social environments.  Whatever the details of their personal experiences, these virtual cross-dressers are using the medium of cyberspace to experiment with the bounds of gender ideologies and performance... whether they like it or not.

This post will hopefully be the first in a series exploring tranvestitism in virtual environments.  Today's topic: Where and how does virtual transvestitism take place?  On worlds, chat rooms, forums, and console games...

The 99

According to Naif al-Mutawa, superheroes fall into two archetypes Judeo-Christian and Eastern. The DC / Marvel types are outcast loaners with many powers but a fatal flaw and often a mysterious past. Pokémon types have only one power each and need to work collectively.

Enter, The 99, superheroes based on Islamic archetypes reflecting the 99 attributes of the Islamic concept of God (see NYT piece for a bit of background).

MMO to follow? City of 99 Heroes? 99s vs 88s?

I’m sure that the mix of religion and pop culture will be controversial on all sides of the equation: propaganda on one side / disrespect on the other.

But what I’m interested in, and maybe those better versed in Islam can advise, is whether there is anything genuinely different in these archetypes and whether they might, in an MMO context, lead to innovative game design.

Which Broader Market?

Phrases like "broad market" or "mass market" are common when people talk about the future of MMOs.  Many of us (but maybe not all -- see below) have a desire to see virtual world-games move beyond the current fantasy model (often somewhat pejoratively termed "men in tights" games).  From a design POV, doing so allows us to explore new forms of online games that haven't been touched.  From a business POV, doing this gets us out of the perceived niche of single white male gamers without social lives and hopefully significantly increases the number of people playing MMOGs overall. 

The problem is, when we talk about "broad market" I think sometimes different people mean very different things.  Which broader market do we want, if any? 

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Portables Go Online, Instantly Get RMT

The Nintendo DS hand-held is wireless-enabled and takes 30 seconds to get you online. If you're playing Animal Crossing: Wild World, you can invite a friend's character into the world that lives on your machine. For the right dollar price, Edge reports, your friend can bring millions of bells, the local currency, and give them to you.

The Zerg Beyond

A while ago Clive Thompson forwarded an essay on language and lingo development based on computer game experiments conducted by Bruno Galantucci (also see The Economist article).  The conclusion was that necessity was the mother of invention; given need folks would find a way to communicate.  Clive then went on to emphasize this interesting question: is the spark of communication all about copying? 

Jim Rossigonal recently published an excellent recap of the Korean gaming scene.   It is first-hand and well-written.  I was struck by Jim's observations about how Starcraft has become a "self-perpetuating phenomenon" in South Korea...

How a Gold Farm Works

Mindy Basi, AKA Kwill of Kwill's Quill and a PhD from University of Illinois (see a summary of her work on race, gender, and MMORPGs in the middle of this page), emailed me about a discussion happening on the EverQuest boards. The thread, here,  is invaluable for the openness with which the writers discuss the day to day reality of running a gold farm. A behind-the-scenes look that also clarifies how RMT effects end up imposing costs on all the players. What a tremendous resource . Mindi: /thank /bow.

The tagline of the story is that professionalization and low-wage foreign competition are driving American mom-and-pop gold farmers out of business. Mom and Pop are unhappy. Should we care?

Just Say No to gold farmer ads

Journalists often talk about the wall that's supposed to exist between editorial and advertising, and I say 'supposed to' because more and more, in all kinds of journalism, that wall has been breached, often for questionable ends. But now it seems the scaling of that wall has resulted in something that many magazine readers will appreciate -- the editor of PC Gamer has announced that the periodical will no longer accept ads from companies like IGE. Honestly, I'm amazed.

Predictions for 2006

With a 0.550 batting average for 2005, clearly I wasn't reaching enough with my predictions, so for 2006 I'm going to live a bit more on the edge. Without further ado, 10 fearless predictions for 2006:

1) A winning candidate in the 2006 US Congressional elections will have campaigned in an MMO or virtual world
2) Apple's share of the PC market will double to 5%
3) Second Life's peak concurrency, currently at 5000, will reach 20,000
4) WoW will end 2006 with fewer players than it has today
5) Peter Ludlow won't send me an autographed copy of "Only a Game"
6) A Second Life resident will begin selling a service for exporting SL items to a Fab Lab (such as Berkeley's Squid Labs) in order to create them in the real world
7) A Virtual Research Foundation, based in a virtual world or MMO, will be created to gather games and virtual world research, create research standards, and provide funding to researchers
8) The US Democratic Party, in an attempt to capture the "family values" vote, will demonize games during the 2006 election cycle
9) A business or service in a virtual world will successfully file for a trademark
10) A Terra Nova author will testify before Congress about virtual worlds

Digital Communities 06 / Prix Ars Electronica

We received the following details and thought it worth sharing:

For the third time, Prix Ars Electronica, the foremost international prize for computer-based art, is starting its call for entries for "Digital Communities" projects. The category "Digital Communities" has been a great success in its 2004 and 2005 editions and is singling out for recognition projects of great sociopolitical relevance.

BDSM in a World without Pain

It’s hard to feel pain in virtual worlds; in fact, it’s downright impossible. Simulate any other facet of life – love, childbirth, the perfect pair of shoes – but experiencing physical pain is out of bounds. No amount of roleplaying can recreate it. Real-life pain requires a real-life body, one thing virtual worlds just can’t provide.

Not that anyone seems to be complaining. Virtual life has its advantages, and one of them is freedom from real-life restrictions like pain. This freedom makes online environments ideal spaces for experimentation, both personal and sexual. Needless to say, virtual worlds are rife with exploration of all kinds, much of it kinky. But in worlds without pain, what happens to those very masters of kink, the men and women who know pain best, virtual sadomasochists?

Welcome Bonnie Ruberg

We're really fortunate to have Bonnie Ruberg join our happy band of ne'er-do-wells. Ordinarily when an author joins us I try to write some witty commentary about the subject matter that she is going to cover. But since Bonnie is perhaps the leading (and definitely the most interesting) writer on sex and virtual worlds...well, let me just say that all the earlier drafts of this announcement were likely to get me divorced, fired, or jailed. So let me use her own bio to announce her, and just say "welcome" from all of us here at Terra Nova central command:

The Prisoner

In the past week or so there has been much discussion (e.g. Slashdot) regarding Second Life's use of a corn field as a novel means of punishing misdemeanors. 

The Early History of Real Money Trades

A while back, Peter Edelmann wrote to us about the early days of Real Money Trades (“RMT”). He said:

“I came across this in one Mark Wallace's Escapist pieces:

"Out-of-world sales of gold and other virtual items have been going on since the early days of text-based "multi-user dungeons" and other online spaces, in the late 1970s."

Which got me to thinking about the earliest documented cases of RMT. The late 70's seems a little early - and it would seem widespread external markets didn't emerge until Ultima Online (post 1997/98). I wouldn't be surprised if there was some informal RMT taking place much earlier - possibly even the mid-1980s (like in Habitat or the GEnie worlds) - but I haven't seen any documented cases. Any thoughts about this?”

Well we thought that it was a perfect question to ask our resident gurus who were there at the beginning of this thing and who are responsible for much of what we take for granted in MMOGs and VW design. So we decided to have a fireside chat with our very own Richard Bartle and Jessica Mulligan. For those who don’t know them, Jessica and Richard claim to be extra-terrestrials from the far future, sent to our Earth to interfere with the timeline and prevent the galaxy-wide RMT wars of the 39th century. However Richard is best know for programming the world’s first multi-user dungeon—MUD1—with Roy Trubshaw between 1978 and 1981. Jessica’s worked on numerous online games including the original NeverWinter Nights on AOL, Warcraft II Online, and Ultima Online. We grabbed them on their way back from holidaying at Richard Branson’s private island.

May it please the court

I served as an expert witness in the case of ESA v. Blagojevich, better known as the Illinois video game case, last fall. Many readers here have had experience with the legal system, IP, First Amendment issues. I had not, and found the whole process pretty eye-opening. From the legal n00b point of view it was hard not to notice the worlds of law and academe not so much colliding, but talking past one another. The goals and methods are radically different. (The lawyers here may commence giggling)

Still, explaining how MMOs work to a federal judge is partly entertaining and partly intimidating ("Yes, your honor, that is what a fed ex quest is."). If I ever needed proof that the fun and games we study here are serious, this was it.

Law and Virtual Borders

I'm reading James Grimmelmann's wonderful essay on the interpenetration of real and virtual worlds (here's a link ) -- and you should too.

I, RealmStalker, being of sound mind...

Ted and I had a conversation last month in WoW that has stuck with me. We are all familiar by now with the explosion of exchange in virtual worlds, whether of the moral (gifts, reciprocity) or market varieties. But what about inheritance? In these worlds, that appear able to persist beyond not only the duration of our interest in them but also, perhaps,  our mortality, will there come a time when we want to find the right home for the valuable, but also particularly meaningful objects we have? But the possibilties don't stop there. Consider bequeathing an avatar...

The Numbers Game

There’s been an interesting backchannel discussion between several TN folks about the numbers of people in various online worlds. Or at least, the numbers publicly claimed and what they might mean.

Many of us track these census numbers almost like we track the stock market, especially for “traditional” MMOs. This has made SirBruce’s mmogchart.com very popular in a certain segment of the population (even though the data is currently out of date); it’s common to see graphs from his site appear in business plans and market analysis reports. 

There’s a general sense among many MMO/virtual world observers that the size of the market has been woefully underestimated -- almost all of us were surprised by how quickly World of Warcraft leapt to over a million subscribers for example, and I don’t believe anyone would have predicted a year ago that the game would have over five million subscribers by now. 

At the same time, there remains a sense of disbelief in some quarters (notably old-school game companies and many VC-types) that the market for MMOs/VWs is as big as its made out to be. 

So the question is, how many people really play these games, and what do the various numbers mean? 

Virtual World Philanthropy

Randal Moss of the American Cancer Society is actively interested in ideas about encouraging philanthropy within virtual worlds, and about using virtual worlds in the ACS's fundraising activities. Below the fold is the announcement about how the ACS is expanding its presence within Second Life. It's obviously a great organization and a great idea, so I recommend it to you.

Apart from providing the announcement the ACS is interested in feedback about how it might use VWs in its fundraising generally, and so it (and we) welcomes feedback in the usual way below. One idea that was mentioned is a kind of "estate bequest" for those leaving their favorite game and donating the RMT profits to the ACS.

God knows what the devs would say about that.

Other information can be found at Randy's blog and updates will be posted there in the coming weeks and months.

[Update 12:16pm: Forgot the URL. Go here for more info]

-----

The Drop Kick

On Jan 1, Doug Flutie of the New England Patriots "produced a single point on a play that was deemed obsolete in the NFL (National Football League) at the outbreak of World War II."   The Boston Herald went on to note:

Flutie, 43, very likely played in his last regular season NFL game... was bemused by the fact that his final contribution to the NFL would be the reinvention of an extinct play.

Furthermore, quoting Flutie:

“That was fun and I was pretty fired up about just scoring an extra point. I was fired up that it went through, and to be part of that was fun. That’s what football is supposed to be.”

This is just where it starts.  Eve-Online, World of Warcraft and Kabuki theatre is where this strays...

BBC News does MMOs

This evening the BBC ran a 10min+ segment about MMOs and SL on Newsnight, its flagship serious news program. A part of the show was even ‘broadcast’ from within SL. For anyone that knows anything about MMOs the report was un-amazing. From a data point and media coverage point of view it was staggering.

A summary can be read here and the report can be streamed from the page (warning – the video contains moving images of Philip Linden).

The Taxman Cometh?

It's official: The IRS has its eyes on your virtual gold.

Well, sort of official, anyway. And maybe more like just the corner of one eye. But as Yours Truly reports in the latest issue of Legal Affairs magazine, IRS advisers specializing in the arcane field of barter income recently offered the opinion that any trade of one virtual item for another--gold pieces for thick leather, uber drops for plat--could very well constitute a taxable, income-generating exchange according to the IRS's rules on barter.

I repeat: Not dollars for dragon scales. Not sterling for staves. Every blessed, innocent, RP-consistent trade of one virtual good for another, so long as each good has a determinable fair-market value (and name one that doesn't these days).

New Year's Scoring

It's that time again, to grade my predictions fom last year with the painful certainty of actual knowledge. Read on for the painful details:

Little Timmy, Uber At Last

We haven't just been talking on the Terra Nova backchannel about the evil or lack thereof of the Horde, but also of our visceral personal reactions to the social psychology and symbolic content of gameplay in synthetic worlds. I've lately been revealed to my TN colleagues as, well, something of a powergamer in World of Warcraft (though, cough, fellow Terra Novan Joshua Fairfield has me beat all hollow). I've been reflecting about that development some, because it's never been my orientation in any previous game of this kind, even back into my pen-and-paper prehistory. There's no doubt that the relatively friendly levelling curve and design of World of Warcraft is what has allowed me to develop this posture in the game, of course. Old-school powergamers laugh at the idea that anything in WoW could be regarded as such. But I'm still thinking about what I've learned through this experience in terms of my larger analysis of synthetic worlds.

Daedalus Links

A new issue of The Daedalus Project is out. Some highlights:

- A much revamped and elaborated version of "Yi-Shan-Guan" on tellings and re-tellings of the gold farmer story.
- A New Disorder is Born: an opinion piece on "gaming addiction" and why only certain media forms get labeled as being addictive.
- More numbers on the "playing together" issue. This time looking at the reverse side. Of all the players who do have romantic partners, how many actually play with their romantic partner?
- A look at the previous gaming experiences of MMO players. How many already had extensive video gaming backgrounds before MMOs? How many were table-top D&D players?

All this and more at The Daedalus Project.

Lindenomics and liability

In introducing Point to Point (P2P) movement in Second Life, Linden Lab fundamentally altered the economic structure of the virtual space. In response to protests Linden has offered to buy back land as a form of ‘compensation’. Taken together with the recent FBI reports is this the dawn of a liability culture within Second Life heralding a new form of virtual space?

Unlived life

I recently had a character powerleveled, for some research that I'm doing. This morning I logged on to that account for the first time to have a look at the results. I have to say that I came away disoriented, and vaguely disturbed.

VWR 2005 Round-Up

I’ve spent the past few days going over traffic stats for Virtual Worlds Review  and thought I’d share 2005 world rankings for those interested in the social virtual worlds scene.  VWR’s Top 10 Social Virtual Worlds in 2005 were…

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Welcome to oh oh ooooh6

Sex sells – but will it sell enough to support five MMOEG / MMOVSGs that are scheduled to be released 06?

[note: this is an adult themed thread and many of the links will take you to content that is ‘not safe for work’]