Terra Nova

Lehdonvirta on Virtual Consumption

I write to recommend Vili Lehdonvirta's dissertation, Virtual Consumption, which includes several academic papers with a thought-provoking introduction and conclusion. Vili has been an important source of energy in VERN, the Turku School of Economics, the HIIT, and no doubt many other organizations that I am unfortunately overlooking.

Vili gets it all right. He directly addresses the foolish notion that virtual goods are not real, and he does so using plain-language theoretical approaches in sociology and institutional economics rather than formal mathematical models and rational choice. In so doing, he situates virtual consumption in the ongoing discussion of post-material culture.

I would especially recommend his thoughts on the idea that virtual goods are real, and that indeed there are no virtual worlds. Rather, we all participate in play worlds and different spheres of interaction, all of which share in varying amounts of "fantasy" and "reality." 

Vili is not the first to say such things, of course (neither am I!!) but he makes the case extremely well and thus links the economics of consumption to broader discourses about the evolution of society in the digital age. 

Highly recommended.

Gender differences in MMOs

The latest paper from the Virtual World Exploratorium group using EQ2 data is now out. "Looking for gender (LFG): Gender roles and behaviors among online gamers" covers gender differences in the player base, including their playing habits, attitudes and outcomes.

Highlights below the fold:

FTC Report to Congress on Kids in Virtual Worlds

This morning the Federal Trade Commission released its long-awaited report on kids and virtual worlds.  You can read the report, entitled Virtual Worlds and Kids: Mapping the Risks here.  There are several things that strike me about the report, below the fold.

Ask Not What Educational Games Your Country Can Design for You...

From friend of the show Beth Noveck (founding impresaria of the State of Play conferences, now White House Deputy CTO) comes news of an Innovations for Healthy Kids Challenge, in which the U.S. Department of Agriculture invites "entrepreneurs, software developers and students to design a creative and educational game" that gets "tweens" eating healthier. The intent, it seems, is to wring some wholesome fun from a newly released nutritional dataset -- USDA's contribution to the White House's full-court Open Government Initiative -- and man, when they call it a challenge, they aren't kidding. Dig these judging criteria, as outlined in the press release:

"The Web-based games will help motivate kids to learn about healthy dietary habits and the importance of eating more nutritional foods. Using the foods dataset, the game should be centered on educational messages that emphasize one or more key nutrition concepts from the Dietary Guidelines for Americans ( www.dietaryguidelines.gov ) and the MyPyramid Food Guidance System ( www.mypyramid.gov )."

My fellow Terra Novans, you may say I'm a dreamer, but in my heart I believe that somewhere out there is a person possessed of both the perverse ambition and insanely brilliant skills it will take to turn these design specs into a game that somehow does not suck. Maybe it's one of you. Maybe it's someone you know. But to each and every one of you this day my challenge is to do whatever may be in your power to speed this person toward his or her rendez-vous with destiny.

For the tweens, of course.

Won't someone think of the tweens?