Terra Nova

My Cup Runneth Over

Holy hellions, Batman, 2012 is off with a bang.

Too bad about SWTOR and the LEGO Universe, but Guild Wars 2 might actually ship this year, and there are some other exciting things brewing.  Tera Online might emerge unscathed from its legal machinations and make its promised launch date of May 2012.  Blizzard is making a 'casual' MMO (with product placements)...

But here's what I'm waiting for...

The Secret World (April 2012) - This one is exciting even among the 'I'm not an MMO person' crowd.  To me, it's like the game I've been waiting for.  Here's why:

• The lore is wide-ranging and accessible, if you're one of those people who has paid attention to mystery schools, secret societies, fairy tales, monsters, alien conspiracies, black ops, and the like.  Basically 'everything is true' in a rich 'what if?' environment.  Tied into history, popular culture, etc. 
• The game is set in the modern-day world, and takes advantage of all the amazing beauty of this planet, its cities and its citizens.  The details and how they are leveraged are really incredible-looking.
• There are threee factions - the Templars (England), the Illuminati (New York)and the Dragons (Seoul).  The initial experiences are very different depending on the chosen location.
• Visually STUNNING, based on the Dreamworld engine used for Age of Conan.  Feels like a quantum leap.
• The game takes an alternate reality (ARG) approach by embedding the game with puzzles that must be solved via research online.  Building information literacy, of course, and mimicking the skill development that all we digital denizens need. (BTW, here is a podcast I did recently on this topic...)
• Character classes are thrown away in favor of a flexible abilities system.  It works a bit like a card-based game like Magic: the Gathering - the player has the option of selecting 7 active and 7 passive abilities and can re-organize them at will.  There are also templates that allow the player to map abilities toward certain configurations (like the Monk, a healing/magic using hybrid).  But the player is never locked in.  So if I want to tank today and heal tomorrow, I can do that with the same character.
• The creation of characters seems to have some of the fun aspects of creation in games like City of Heroes/City of Villains.  Many of the characters portrayed in the trailers are female, too, and cute/powerful without the mega boobage and bare assed armor we progressive women balk about.  Clothing is customizable and stat free, but your abilities also progress with equipment and items.
• Players affect the environments via their actions.
• There are various mechanisms for rallying players into group pursuits.
• Quests involve exploration of the world to uncover what needs to be done, and NPCs lead players through the locations.
• The developers (Massively) are based in Norway and were also responsible for Anarchy Online and the Age of Conan.  The interviews make it clear that this game has been really well thought out.
• This one is for Ted - the algorithms for NPCs and monsters are based on population mechanics rather than respawning rules.  I'm not sure how that's going to work out, but it sounds very interesting.
• The learning curve is well managed with in situ introductions to the game mechanics, lore and skills.
• PvP is well supported.  Guilds are called 'cabals'.  Encounters involve all 3 factions.
• Quality writing and voice acting!  Cut scenes that I might actually watch!  Clever/funny dialogue! OMG!

Want more?  Check out the initial announcements at PAX 2009, or more recent trailers and interviews.  Register for the beta, if you haven't already.  Watch out for the government.

Also, don't forget that DiGRA (the Digital Games Research Association) is holding its semi annual conference in Tampere, Finland (where all the very cool kids are).  They need papers and reviewers, so get in touch!

Where Are All the Sex Games?

Ha, got your attention, eh? But this is actually an important topic, of the 'reality is broken' variety. Like the fact that we're obsessed over sexting and other digital phenomena related to sex, yet we have done little to improve sex education in this country. In fact, we have vilified and cut funding to Planned Parenthood and other organizations that save people's lives by providing them critical information that affects them physically, emotionally, spiritually. I ranted about this on Quora recently:

Sexting isn't the issue. The lack of good, ongoing and honest sex education and support (from elementary school) is. I personally don't care what kids do in this regard, as long as they are well-informed and not succumbing to pressure from peers or romantic partners. And obviously this behavior is probably not appropriate in classrooms.

As an anthropologist, I will tell you that sex play in early pubescence and later is very, very normal, and in some cultures, very well tolerated with positive effect. We are extremely backwards in our proclivity to bury our heads in the sands.

I do, however, think all kids need to be educated on the potential ramifications of having a digital trail of activity like this, and what it can mean in terms of reputation (immediately) and career later. It's outrageous that kids learn most of what they know about sex from each other, tv/movies and the Internet. This leaves gaping holes in their knowledge and their judgment about something that can affect their lives in such profound ways, and can even lead to illness and death.

I've been thinking for some time that games could play an important role in helping to eliminate a lot of the misinformation that is spread among kids and teens. Typically this sort of thing is handled a la the serious game: take some existing curriculum - the sort of thing you'd see in a high school sex ed class (if a school is lucky enough to have it). 'Chocolate-covered broccoli'. Seldom about the realities of sex and the social and emotional contexts that surround it. And boring.

One of my favorite sites is Ask Alice, a community effort from Columbia University that provides a forum for kids and teens to ask any question about sex, drugs, what have you, and get a truthful and reasonable answer. I think it's an incredible resource, but most people don't seem to know about it. So where are people getting their sexual educations?

I was really inspired by a TED Talk a lovely woman by the name of Cindy Gallop gave not long ago. You should watch it yourself, otherwise I might ruin it, but I will tell you that she makes some rather stunning points about how porn culture has distorted the way people think about sex. Clearly we need to figure out some better ways to communicate all of this, aside from ignoring the groundswell of sexual activity that is incredibly normal for our species.

There's rather a dearth of recreational, digital sex games, a fact that surprises me given the proclivity of clever porn mongers who hawk every kind of sex ware imaginable. Have throughout history, using any available technology. It's well established, for instance, that early photography and film thrived on sexual innovations. And we certainly spent a lot of time discussing the ins and outs of cybersex back in the day, when everything digital was a novelty. Are we jaded? Or recession economics?

Well, it seems like a business opportunity to me. They appear to sell plenty of books and board games in those novelty sex shops. People could certainly use some variety in their sex lives. Yet the ecosystem somehow manages to eschew innovation, just like the video game industry. Microsoft, for instance, is blocking sexual uses of their Kinect device, citing 'unintended puposes' (imagine a mash-up of a Kinect device and teledildonics - long distance love, FTW!). I did find A-Chat , but it seems like a graphics enhanced chat room app, and that's boring, too... I suppose there's the seedy underbelly that is Second Life's sex subculture, but it seems, well, seedy. And not terribly educational. But if people are into it, great. Let's just have some other options.

Most sex and videogames conjecture has been about either glorifying or bastardizing sexual content. There are few balanced perspectives: Brenda Braithwaite's work is very insightful, and Bonnie Ruberg has made quite a few contibutions, too. That's sort of not the point I'm trying to make, though. Sure, we could be more mature about sex and sexual imagery in games. But I sort of don't care about that stuff. I want us to ask, yet again, how can this incredible platform for persuasion be used for the greater good? How can we inform people, encourage safe play and experimentation... delight with escapism, encourage fantasy and role-playing... do all the things that we know video games are so good for?

So, brilliant Terra Novans... what games would you design to solve this problem?

Virtuality and Methods of Understanding

Inspired by Mark Chen's project summary and ensuing discussion, I have been thinking that we should collect on our collective experience and document some of the ways we achieve insight in an area as rapidly evolving as virtuality.  In the associated comment thread, Richard and I discuss method, and I explain a lot more about participant observation and why it is sometimes ok to be subjective.  We have also had more than a few discussions about method over the years.

That said, it's still a highly emergent and tricky area, with researchers and practioners inventing and reinventing methods on a constant basis.  This, arguably, is a good thing.

In my MMO research I made a lot of methodological decisions based on technological parameters/ limitations (WoW, for instance, didn't have an easy way of collecting chats, yet City of Heroes did - critical to my method that I can collect qual data such as this, therefore it had to be CoH).  What are the rules?  Is it a spectrum inclusive of scholarly and commercial efforts accompanied by a range of expectations about what constitutes evidence, truth, and calls to action? 

 A lateral thought:  I have also been pleasantly surprised to see more and more speculative ideas about virtual worlds, virtual life, the virtual sel(ves), etc. etc. etc.  (even entire tv series). I appreciate the big picture perspective:  what got us here, and where we might be going.  I'm also involved in some projects that remind me how far we've come, and how much further we have to go.

Of course, history tells us that we tend to overestimate some of technology's impacts while simultaneously overlooking others (Alan Kay?).  My role as an anthropologist encourages me to look around me and try to ascertain what aspects of our culture are likely to survive, to morph, what technologies are emerging, what sub-cultures will thrive, what people will care about, how they will play/work, how kinship and learning and philosophy change, or don't. Etc.  Really not a lot of crystal ball gazing, just observation coupled with intuition and a deep embedding in the culture(s) in question.  We even accept anecdotes in this 'verse.

My role as a futurist attempts to project what our world might look like within that context, or better yet, within some variations not even imagined, or imaginable.  In a usability lab, I might take advantage of specfic data collection methods that prove a point in graphs and charts of what happened in that one session on that day.  Extrapolation is, of course, possible, but not 100% accurate, once observer effects, natural vs artifical environments and longer term behaviors are evaluated.  However, there are seeds of some possible future(s) in these observations.  The question, ultimately, is what will stick, and what will fade. Or as an old friend called William Shakespeare said:

If you can look into the seeds of time and say, which grain will grow, and which will not, speak then to me.

Tricky business.  'If Union Pacific had realized they were in the transportation business, instead of the railroad business, we'd be flying on Union Pacific planes'.  (someone said it).  Decoupling technologies from cultural shifts is the first step in understanding.  Or at least that's my opinion and my preferred approach, which is really only a variation in perspective, not better or worse than other approaches, but pieces of the puzzle.

Above I have commented on some of the methods I use in achieving a deeper understanding of virtuality.   I know psychology, law, economics, education, cybernetics, cultural theory and communications have yet other perspectives, while commercial research's distance between, say, market research and observational player research, is often a cultural chasm that doesn't take advantage of those perspectives in symbiosis.  Yet it achieves other things, so in combination with other approaches, it becomes a way of observing in details some facets of the overall possibility/problem space to be explored.  Different types of data persuade different categories of stakeholders, eliciting the change(s) desired.  A constellation of methods can better assure success (inspiring relevant change/innovation) in the distributed, interdisciplinary groups we work within.

Soon I will post a more thorough introduction to my preferred approaches, one of which is cyborg anthropology (if you just can't wait, you can buy the book or hear Amber Case explain it...).  In the meantime, Marshall McLuhan:

“We become what we behold. We shape our tools and then our tools shape us.”   

 

Prediction Time Again

It's that time again... the persistent rush at the beginning of each new cycle of time to reflect and predict. Well, we like that sort of thing around here. Sometimes we're right, sometimes wrong. But we're always trying to draw out our inner oracles...

My 2011 (and onward) predictions:
- our small people will continue to overrun our Facebook accounts as  they fiend for more and more digital bling, especially since Facebook apparently doesn't let kids under 13 have their own accounts.  I will continue to  shell out the credit card for $10 of 'presents' for my kid's best gamer  friends.  Perhaps this economic boom will fuel the 'maybe we will survive this media change!' mentality.
- the fantasy MMO reaches saturation levels except for the truly committed.  This is not a lore problem, but a pattern matching one. Expect regeneration in 5-10 years or when the new LOTR movie comes out. Oh wait.  Guild Wars 2.  Does war count as fantasy?
- more 'brand-affirming' virtual worlds.  Some might be good.
- more alternative/augmented reality and transmedia MMOs (mobile plus tv plus Kinect plus books plus movies plus 3D-everything).  More and more exodus.
- more sci fi, speculative fiction, near term possibility exploration (simulation, as predicted by Ted eons ago)
- Is the MMO inside out yet? More and more I find myself gaming with people like my ex mother-in-law (lovely woman, not a gamer of any description tho!)
- More worlds, fewer games? (does Facebook count as a world?)
- The phrase 'casual gaming' will die as everyone begins to game, casually and otherwise.  Already so in South Korea (I find it useful to consider parts of Asia as possible reflections of our future(s)).
- The gaming industry will more fully begin to fund and rely on research.
- Singularity?

There are far too many of my interests resurrected in this post.  Please add  your favorite memes and join me in documenting our predictions! (how will we otherwise remember?)

A Kinected World

Call me a fan girl, but I think a little revolution snuck up on us while we weren’t looking.

[nepotism alert: I do work at Microsoft, but not currently in games. However I have been hearing about Kinect for a long time, under the codename Project Natal, whispered around the usability labs with a reverance usually limited to the more deserving nirvana or mecca.]

Moving your body instead of your controller(s) creates a range of viscera that surely denote a million possible magic circles. Sure Wii paved the way and some may continue to like that experience, but this is true evolution. The controller-less interface liberates developers to entertain any possibility for interaction. Select the best aspects, refine them, imagine what’s possible, and what people want that they don’t even know they want.

I have been watching my kid play since digital Santa delivered the magic device: dancing, delighted, shouting AWESOME!! repeatedly, enchanted by the physical experiences enabled by a small black bar, with wonder shouting ‘Mommy, I can fly!!’, nurturing pets and programming hamsters to compliment her in the way she loves. Always, always MOVING! ‘You can do two players and you don’t have to select anything, the second person can just jump right in!’, she crows. Techno-ambivalent auntie is even awed as they play dodgeball with one person controlling legs and another controls arms.

I'm enchanted in a somewhat uncustomary way:  gamer-me, parent-me, vain-me (unboring exercise!), citizen-me and educator-me. We’re living in the future, people.

And now we have it, a Kinected WoW. Next time you see me: 30 pounds lighter.

Intended and Unintended Consequences (or the Nightmares of Dr. Bombay)

I am with A360 on the current child safety debacle, and it raises a conversation that needs to be had (and re-had) before we get a whole lot further. In 1998's My Tiny Life (free pdf) , Julian Dibell  chronicles, among other things,  the experiences of a virtual rape victim and (her) MOO community.  Seminal on multiple levels, the work explores many aspects of identity, ethics and permission in a post-modern, techno-centric age.  

So here's the question.  In an exodus recession, were do we draw the lines with economies made up of adult, child, and child-like beings in virtual worlds? With their child-like or grown-up avatars?  With AI(s), inhabited or not?  What's appropriate, what's not?  What's criminal, what's not?  What is slavery?  Labor?  How do we simultaneously allow freedom(s) and conversations and experiments and deviations and enterprise, and protect from harm?  Does hacking or enslaving one's or another(s) virtual being(s) to elicit behavior other than intended by the owner consitute criminal activity? At what point(s) are we complicit?  Which pathways of influence do we fear?  Applaud? What precedents exist? What forms can teaching a lesson take?  Is it/can it be therapy? Is it 'promoting hatred'to discuss such things openly, or is opening the can of worms a good thing overall?  Let's summarize and rule.

 

Please Welcome Guest Author Dr. Mark 'Danger' Chen!

Mark and I have collaborated on a number of things these last few years, and now that he has finished his doctoral work (woot!), I invited him to guest author and summarize his work for us.  Mark is another virtual worlds researcher who relies on traditional anthropological methods to understand social dynamics and learning.  He's a great researcher and an extremely passionate gamer.

Using ethnographic methods, Mark Chen focuses on teamwork, communication, and expertise development in situated gaming cultures. Currently, Mark is a post-doctoral scholar at the UW Institute for Science and Mathematics Education, working with computer science folks to study player learning through science and math games that take advantage of massive amounts of computational and human power. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Washington, College of Education, looking at the practices of a group of gamers in the online game World of Warcraft. Prior to doctoral work, Mark was the webmaster and a web game developer for the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry in Portland, OR. He holds a B.A. in Studio Art from Reed College and grew up in the Bay Area as a child of the 80s. You can read more about Mark on his blog...

Re-rolling Terra Nova

  I have recently taken over shipwright duties (with greglas' help), re-skinned TN, and added some social media bling.  You should expect to see some more changes in the next day or two.  Perhaps more widgets (like a library, links to papers, conference calendar, etc. etc. etc.)

As TN lives on Typepad, this is really only a superficial change of template and layout.  If you have any comments/suggestions/feedback, please post below!

Flipping the switch to the new design now!

(image is a Wordle of our RSS feed)

Step into my Neverland

On IGN, an announcement for the Michael Jackson MMO we've all been waiting for: Planet Michael.  The announcer 'couldn't stop laughing'.  No violence.  You win using 'the power of dance'.  Using your keyboard, not your actual body. Free to play. Virtual items will be available for 'real-world currency'. Charitable contributions enabled. 

From the press release:

Planet Michael will be an immersive virtual space themed after iconic visuals drawn from Michael’s music, his life and the global issues that concerned him. Entire continents will be created that will celebrate Michael’s unique genius in a way that underscores his place as the greatest artist of all time. Michael’s longtime fans will feel at home as they find themselves in places that seem familiar and yet unknown at the same time, and new generations will discover and experience Michael’s life in a way never before imagined. At its core, Planet Michael is a massive social gaming experience that will allow everyone, from the hardcore fan to the novice, to connect and engage in collaborative in-game activities with people worldwide.

Though my initial inclination was to disparage, maybe this could work... MMO universes drawn from the world-views of famous individuals.  Elvis-verse?  BeatlesWorld? DalaiLamaUniverse?  PicassoPlanet?   LadyGagaLand!  I'm impressed that Planet Michael's mechanics are designed to uphold his pacifist leaning and philanthropic efforts, and I can imagine that forays into his imaginings are ripe with possibility <chortle>.

I predict the vanity MMO will become a trend, and as much as I hate to say it, could be the break-through-to-the-mainstream (the Second Life commercial push all over again).  What do you all think?  Will we see the Housewives of Beverly Hills obsessed with their first virtual worlds?

An MMO Manifesto from the Guild Wars 2 Team

^{Disclaimer: I confess to being a fangirl of NCSoft, publishers of City of Heroes, which I studied  for about 5 years.  They have also published the Lineages, the original Guild Wars and Aion.}

So...

The intrepid warriors from NCSoft and ArenaNet are presaging the pre-holiday beta launch of Guild Wars 2 with a declaration of independent thinking. More on that in a sec.

First off, let's review its pre-cursor, the original Guild Wars. What made it obsession-worthy?

- accessible to the 'casual', newbie MMO gamer.
- highly instanced combat (Sir Richard cringed).
- grouping that includes NPC mercenaries.
- very beautiful emotes like the Monk's dance.  Amazing landscapes, architecture, everything.
- alternative play modes allowing high-level play for the low-level n00b.
- observer mode: enjoy the gank gladiator-style, you emerge un-scathed.
- 'no loot stealing, spawn camping, and endless travel'.
- guild capes  (I confess to leaving guilds if they had ugly designs that didn't match my outfits.  How shallow of me!)

I have more than a few opinions about what an exciting, 21st century MMO might encompass.  Happy to say it appears that true evolution is in the works.  Deviations/expansions of established MMO conventions in Guild Wars 2:

- Doing away with the grind.  Not all will agree this is a good thing, but as my kid says, there is nothing worse than a videogame that is both 'hard and BORING'.
- New character classes (professions) like the Ranger.
- Personalized story-lines.  NPCs remember you.  You are not on the exact same quest path as everyone else, with the same goals, outfits, spells, items, etc. at the same levels.
- Cause and effect prevail, personal agency is paramount.  Changes you effect on the environment persist.
- Dynamic events, a mechanic that has worked very well for CoX.
- PvP in non-zoned, non-instanced areas.  Huge-scale world vs world combat events.
- Variations on healing and death rituals.

And for the techno-geeky among you, it's all being built on a new physics engine, Havok,  that allows the designers and developers to more fully realize their conceptual vision:

We're creating a world, and what's the point of exploring a world if there isn't the awe and wonder, you know? We try to create those moments of awe and wonder. - Jeff Grubb, ArenaNet

For those of you who don't readily embrace change, Guild Wars servers will continue running, and an ongoing free trial is on offer.

Any predictions on the effect on social dynamics, innovations that are likely to stick, etc?  Other games trying new things? My kid, for instance, is obsessed with Wizards 101, a pay-for-stuff-the-kid-MUST-have MMO that creates accessibility and safety for the semi-literate aspiring gamer.

I think things are about to get very exciting in Videogame Land. To over-use an over-used term, epic!

More on GW2:

• The official website.
• Wikipedia is chock-full of up-to-the-minute details.
• Guild Wars 2 Community Hub (wiki, blog, video - share, share, share! - talk to devs and they will listen!)
• The art of Guild Wars 2, in coffee-table-book-format. (when you can't stand to look at your computer anymore)
• A playable demo of the game is available at Gamescom 2010 (August 19 until August 22, 2010). Another playable demo will be available at PAX, from September 3-5.

Everything's Virtual, Part Deux

2010 does not disappoint!

Microsoft has finally announced the super secret Project Natal, a controller-less virtual/physical environment called Kinect for the Xbox 360.

People like it.  GAMERS appear to like it.  Someday people will stop comparing it to Wii.

Watch some video if you haven't seen it!

As I was watching the demo, I could not help but imagine the Kinect-enabled MMO, in which I can emit magical powers from my fingertips, create virtual shields/forcefields for my team-mates, and otherwise INHABIT a digital game space. With buddies.

F*!king Hell.

(disclaimer:  I do work for the Xbox Support team, but this excitement is gamer-me, not researcher-me, per se).

In other news, Nintendo rocks the 3-D universe! (adorable video)

Any thoughts?

It's 2010! Let's predict!

• What's in the pipeline?
• What are the major trends in MMOs and virtual worlds?
• When's the Star Trek MMO coming out?
• Who will be TN's next contributing author?
• What conferences will rock?

This is your chance to give TN all of your opinions, so please do!

Prior crystal ball gazing:

2004 Predictions...
2006 Predictions...
2007 Predictions...

I dwell in possibility

On Monday I am defending my dissertation via video conference to New Zealand, a semi-public review of a five year effort. I even got written up in a tome on Internet ethics, after being interviewed on my made up on the fly research methods.  Awesome.  But I am a little cross about something.  The examiners have an opportunity to send me questions that arose for them while reading my dissertation. There is an insistence on positing that the digital world is scary and littered with bad intentions, faulty manners, some creep-o-rama here and there, and really nothing really good at all.

I am annoyed that this is a major question that appears in both examiners' reports, amidst all the possible questions and areas of possibility and exploration, I am criticised for not being negative enough.  One examiner accuses me of 'techno-optimism' or 'techno-celebration'. Therefore I have developed this statement:

Why is it considered mandatory in media studies and related disciplines to explore the dystopian perspective (see page 33 of the thesis), and why is my work considered faulty because I believe in focusing (while explaining rather comprehensively, I think) on what’s positive and possible and hopeful and different about digital spaces and my experiences within them?  I in fact did review and integrate all the major 'negative' or 'dystopian' literature, as well, because my committee wished that I appear ‘balanced’, however I am in rather violent disagreement about this necessity.  In fact, I think the focus on negative aspects of media culture are a bit of an albatross around media studies’ neck.  I think the Internet is the most amazing thing to have happened to humanity in several hundred years.  Not perfect, but amazing.  I find the constant nagging to explore and predict all of the horrible facets quite disconcerting, and rather a waste of time.  These aspects exist, yes, but are typically the outliers, sometimes sensational, yes, but I believe it is my right as a scholar to choose to focus on the positive aspects without being  taken to task for some lack of judgment or critical thinking.

Now, if it is mandatory that scholars of media studies take these stances: ‘the media are out to get us!’, then perhaps my ultimate disciplinary home will be a different one.  I understand the legacy, of propaganda, radio, Nazis, mass media, effects and impacts, and other drivers of thinking in this area; media studies considers itself responsible for informing and protecting the unassuming media consumer.   I suppose this is a useful task.

 But I am an unabashed techno-optimist, and I think our populous is becoming much more capable and empowered and broadly literate via these technological vehicles and venues, and I think that should be allowed with some suggestion that my decision to focus on what I believe to be the truth is somehow lacking.  My focus on the positive does not mean I am not rigourous; it just means that I have dismissed the writings of pundits such as Oppenheimer as I think they are a bit crusty, certainly dogmatic and prone to fear mongering, and often have no actual experience in the areas they choose to consider so critically.    In a way, I do not even believe they deserve any attention at all, however we continue to demand that their insight be heard and integrated.  I am not sure this is right.

I do make a point of reading them (know your enemies, right?), but I find their scholarship typically weak and their research projects built in order to vociferously and crossly prove particular (rather negative) points.  The world used to be so much better before were all interconnected.  Spam will destroy us.  Kids spend a little too much time indoors.  So do I. Yes.

Perhaps I am guilty of this coddling of my dogma, as well, but I believe that this area needs to be generally balanced, and that is why I took the approach I did.  Also, the cultures and environments I study are typically extremely positive cultures and ecosystems that thrive happily, even with some occasional ganking and bad language and homophobia (that’s gonna take a couple thousand more years to resolve, or so it seems).  I am taking an inside out approach, not the outside in observation and conjecture so typical of media effects research.  And as a participant observer of gaming cultures, starting at age 12 or earlier, I know intimately what I am talking about.  I also know several dozen gamers personally, in addition to the 10,000 surveyed in my study.  Despite some insistence that these sorts of entertainment must be folly, and that which will take all real culture down, I believe their gaming experiences constitute the development of critical and fundamental literacies that are critical to life in digital spaces, and the exploration of which is the basis of my thesis.

I hope this clarifies why I have not taken one of the more expected positions.  My focus is on habits, practices and opportunities, not a limited set of concerns or visceral reactions to our changing world.  ‘I dwell in possibility’, not a mere assessment of digital spaces’ less perfect or less savoury aspects.  I will leave that to others more concerned than I.  Change is not disconcerting to me.  People do some messed up things when cloaked in anonymity.  We will live.

Me vs. The Archbishop

My dissertation is currently being examined, so I have been holding out on posting it.  But there has been a whole new round of 'the Internet is bad for you' talk that makes me get my knickers in a twist, so I will give you all a sneak preview.

The latest, courtesy of the BBC:

Archbishop Vincent Nichols said MySpace and Facebook led young people to seek "transient" friendships, with quantity becoming more important than quality. He said a key factor in suicide among young people was the trauma caused when such loose relationships collapsed.

"Friendship is not a commodity," he told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper.

He added: "Friendship is something that is hard work and enduring when it's right".

The fact is he has this ENTIRELY wrong and I have data to prove it.  My research project involved, among other things, a 50-question survey that asked participants to describe the online gaming experiences (City of Heroes/Villains), with a focus on grouping, social dynamics, skills development, and yes, friendship and belonging.  The results were staggering, even to a gamer veteran like me.  For one thing, I got almost 10,000 responses in 3 weeks (this was in 2006).  For another thing, there were several open ended questions in the survey.  I got responses like this:

The long time it takes to progress during the later levels has greatly improved my patience as of late, allowing me to stay calmer under stress as a side-effect. Separately, forming and organizing pick-up groups has given me a venue to practice my leadership skills, and to a lesser extent my organizational skills. I've had co-workers and friends notice the improvements in patience and organization repeatedly, and the few that have been around during a situation leadership was called for noticed my improvements in that area as well. 

The fact that I am in charge of an super group in both City of Heroes and City of Villains has encouraged me to take a leap in my job: I've applied for a management position. I doubt I'd have ever even made the attempt had I not been in a position of leadership within the game.

Being in a super group comprised of people from all over the world has taught me to be patient when dealing with others and compromise my position on things. I often hold high positions in super groups/guilds and need to be patient with its members. This has transferred over to real life where I've learnt to be more patient with others in a work environment & a social one.

Needing to plan and prioritize has been a big thing for me, as has communication (though I've always found text-based communication much easier than face to face, which is easier than voice with no face a la Teamspeak). I've also found that I can deal with real life social situations better by being able to analyze them as if they were in game situations. (But I'm autistic, so my RL social skills have always been a bit lacking. Having a simplified model to compare them to has been a
boon to me.)

My chief reason for playing City of Villains was because I could not, physically, do much else. I was recovering from a traumatic brain injury and was going stir-crazy with the few hours a day I was actually conscious. This gave me a way to interact with RL friends because I was unable to get together with them. From there, it stemmed off into a way to communicate with them, and form other friendships. I have met several people from my super group at various locations, and that alone
is worth the playtime.

I have 10,000 of these comments, some even more poignant than those I just quickly grabbed.

Here is my proclamation:  digital game/social spaces have the power to be the most transformative social experiences some humans have ever had, indeed sanctuaries from our physical lives, as Ted Castronova has suggested.  This is sad, but it is true.  What Mr. Archbishop has wrong is the notion that because it's not physical it's somehow not real. Wrong!  This falls in the category of 'don't talk about things you know nothing about!'

I'm also gonna write Obama too and tell him to lay off the videogame criticism.  Wonder if he will read my diss?

BIG News from Great Britain: VWs Make People Lonely and Sick

Yay, a super-scientist with all sorts of opinions about virtual worlds and their ill effects.  I am SO tired of this silliness.

Here's the lead-in:

Britons' health at risk from time spent in virtual worlds, says Dr Aric Sigman
Britons could be jeopardising their health as they spend more time in virtual worlds than the real one, according to the psychologist Dr Aric Sigman.

And the conjecture:

He claims the amount of face-to-face contact people experience has fallen by two-thirds over the past two decades, from six hours a day in 1987 to just two in 2007.

At the same time, he believes the amount of time UK citizens spend sitting in front of the TV, playing video games or visiting websites has doubled to eight hours a day.

Then:

"One of the most pronounced changes in the daily habits of British citizens is a reduction in the number of minutes per day that they interact with another human being," he said.

Does he know anything at all about virtual worlds?

He goes on to cite loneliness as a major cause of ill health:

'In an article published in the journal Biologist, he cites research that claims lonely people are more likely to suffer a stroke, develop high blood pressure or dementia and even die earlier.'

Well, in my experience (and doctoral research) VWs are a massive panacea for loneliness, a lack of belonging and other societal ills.  People do NOT have to have face-to-face meetings to have meaningful and lifechanging interactions with the millions of other occupants of virtual worlds.

Any other comments?  We have had lots of discussions here about what's really happening in online spaces, and how play and various online interactions (thinking discussion boards, support groups, etc.. here) can transform people's lives.  How do we connect the dots to other disciplines, research communities, etc?  How do we make 20 hours of WoW mandatory before writing ANYTHING about VWs?  Sheesh.  I'm indignant.

(Virtual) Virtual Worlds Symposium: The Future of Retail in Virtual Worlds and Web 3D

My good friend John Eyles is an educator, philanthropist and activist, and also leads research and alliance efforts at Telecom New Zealand.  He is organizing this symposium to explore possibilities for retail endeavors in virtual worlds (ideally imagining possibilities beyond the usual brick and mortar simulacra).  I am doing a session on mobile gaming and virtual worlds (a la Parallel Kingdom, which launches Oct 31st), and he is also looking for some more contributors for other sessions that might be of interest, or inspire some new thinking in this area.

It's Oct. 29th - 31st, running for 30 hours so people world-wide can participate.

More information at http://www.futuretelco.net.  Schedule, etc. is forthcoming.

An Atlas of our Terra Nova?

Truly a herculean effort has been undertaken!  The Association of Virtual Worlds has compiled 'The Blue Book: A Consumer Guide to Virtual Worlds", an index to 250 virtual worlds from all over our physical world, all neatly meta-tagged and linked.  Oh, and there's a glossary... 

Did We Ignore the Rise of the Personal World?

In a week when Sony has announced yet more delays (another in a longer series of gaffes that has spawned endless humiliation) in the development of their much hyped virtual space, Home, and when even the roar from WoW’s success seems to be fading into an echo, a reminder about the incredible success of a little game that could...  Like All in the Family or this year's indie darling Once (or the Aeron chair, for that matter), it almost never got made 'cause people making decisions about such things didn't believe Will Wright (who doesn't believe Will Wright?!) when he said it would be the best thing ever. Cause after all, who the heck would want to play in a virtual dollhouse?   

Let the Total Inundation Begin...

Amidst our talk of a possible virtual world winter,  and the frantic efforts of pundits looking for bright spots in a somewhat dismal holiday retailing season, more and more suggestions that kids will fuel the next wave of virtual world development ('the most annoying trend since Beanie Babies')....

From the NYTimes...

Second Life and other virtual worlds for grown-ups have enjoyed intense media attention in the last year but fallen far short of breathless expectations. The children’s versions are proving much more popular, to the dismay of some parents and child advocacy groups. Now the likes of the Walt Disney Company, which owns Club Penguin, are working at warp speed to pump out sister sites.

“Get ready for total inundation”...

Or is this just a new cog in the hype machine?  What happens when your 5-year old is inconsolable when they can't log on?  My prediction for 2008:  a fresh crop of virtual world 'addicts', and all the requisite concerned voices to go along with them, including the likes of...  wait for it...  Dr. Phil.

Talking trash about intellectual trash...

I quite enjoy it when people get sick of hype and decide to rain all over the parade.  The problem is that too often people do it when their annoyance causes any degree of balance and levity to flee, as in the case of  Malcolm King writing in 'Australia's e-journal for social and political debate', who clearly has seen one too many articles about the amazing wonders of Second Life and the residents therein... Yes, he's a bit late to the SL bashing party, but the level of vitriol smells like a pile of fetid backlash to me (predicted by Ren for 2007.  Check).

You know virtual worlds have arrived when...

There is now a customizable digital Barbie that connects (with included cradle?) to a virtual world - 'a next-generation fashion doll and stylish MP3 player all in one'.  You need the device to connect to the world, but once there can create a room, shop, and do other typical social VW stuff (all with parentally controlled permission settings).  From Amazon (who are suggesting I buy one):

The hottest toy of the season is finally here! The interactive Barbie Girls let you do more with Barbie than ever before! At www.BarbieGirls.com, girls can create their own, personalized online space--everything from designing a "room" to creating a character--where they can then play games, chat with gal pals, watch videos and even shop with earned virtual money. They even play MP3's! Parents will appreciate extras such as word filters, moderation tools and other safety features to ensure that the virtual world stays friendly and fun for all visitors. Barbie Girls are the newest, coolest way to play.

Apparently the site has been up since April, but this is this first I've heard of it... anyone else got kids obsessed with Webkinz?  Mine calls hers Websky.

Check out the video...

The Singularity, Virtual Worlds and AI Babies

I'm reporting from the Singularity Summit (AI and the Future of Humanity) in San Francisco where a bunch of fascinating luminaries (from MIT, IBM, Google, WorldChanging, etc.) are discussing the possibility that despite a lack of excitement in AI research lately, we might yet invent artificial intelligence that is smarter than we are.  (The term singularity, though I'm sure you all know this, was first pulled from the physics/big bang/black hole vernacular and used in this context by Vernor Vinge, then popularized by Ray Kurzweil, who is speaking via video conference tomorrow). Some people get as excited about the Singularity as Christians do about the Rapture, thinking it might solve all of our problems via a positive feedback loop emerging from intelligent systems that are capable of making themselves recursively better.  Others refer to it as a nerdpocalypse and tell tales of Hal-like doom and gloom or economic and network catastrophes that will inevitably arise from AIs (either malevolent or just behaving stupidly because of bad programming) running rampant.

Hey, Who Filled My Ivory Tower With Carbon Monoxide?

Sorry, kids, but I just really needed a post with this title.  Did you all read this beauty (scroll down to 'Terrifying Teachers') buried in comments?  Freaking awesome.  They have no idea just how terrifying we are.  Muahhaha!

Organizing the Virtual Organization

Wikipedia defines a 'virtual organization' as one that exists 'as a corporate, not-for-profit, educational or otherwise productive entity that does not have a central geographical location and exists solely through telecommunication tools'.  Since the 1990s, virtual organizations and teams have seemed like a panacea for a lot of problems that arise from RL collaboration (real estate, travel costs, time wasted commuting, etc. etc.), but there hasn't been all that much useful data on what makes a virtual organization or team work well, despite the fact that there are many that are majestic examples of virtual organization (and more notably, self-organization) that flourish beyond anyone's wildest expectations.  Likewise there have been horrible failures resulting from efforts to contrive a successful organization in a virtual setting (think of some of those horrible groupware experiments).  And while  I suppose there are those who might debate whether MMO play constitutes productive activity or not, it does seem clear that the skills one develops via participation in MMOs might be hugely relevant to other types of virtual organizations.

Prodigal Players

Via BoingBoing, news surfaces of a Chinese MMO that is inviting banned players back into the fold if they agree to donate blood.  That's real life blood, of course.  1 pint of blood = 1 restored game account.  Platelets FTW!

Beam Me In, Scotty

If the forthcoming Star Trek MMO isn't enough to satisfy your fantasies for epic space travel (or if you just like your MMOs served up with a healthy side of RL-relevant content), then do we have some news for you! 

Liberté, égalité, fraternité et réalité?

French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, author of Simulacra and Simulations, has vacated our reality. Seems right to pause a moment and consider whether ‘hyperreality’ is truly upon us, and if so, does it mean we have sold our collective soul for the promise of bigger, better, faster, more, convincing ourselves in the process that pale imitations of precious human activities are fulfilling us?

It is more difficult for us to imagine the real, History, the depth of time, or three-dimensional space, just as before it was difficult from our real world perspective to imagine a virtual universe or the fourth-dimension. The simulacra will be ahead of us everywhere. The simulacrum is never that which conceals the truth — it is the truth which conceals that there is none. Since the world is on a delusional course, we must adopt a delusional standpoint towards the world. - Baudrillard

So, let's talk about our delusions...

Dreaming of An Educational MMO

Finally, via Joystiq, a productive use of time for those of us who worry that repeatedly whacking monsters is not actually contributing to improvements in our zen… Or maybe it is, but soon it will be possible to learn Chinese in Zon – The New Chengo Chinese MMO, and we'll be able to both get zen and spout koans right and left in their intended language! And maybe even be able to play someday with our  millions of  Chinese fellow WoW fiends, or at least lambast the gold farmers appropriately...

A New Backbone for Our Metaverse(s)?

This just in via CNET...

The International Association of Virtual Reality Technologies (IAVRT) has just announced plans for the Neuronet, an initiative that "will evolve into the world's first public network capable of meeting the data transmission requirements of emerging cinematic and immersive virtual-reality technologies".

Why?

"Today, the best and the brightest innovators in the world are pushing the boundaries of virtual reality and gaming. Virtual worlds such as Second Life, The Sims, Everquest, and World of Warcraft continue to attract legions of followers while new game systems from Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft offer near life-like character renditions. In business, companies like IBM and Sun Microsystems are investing heavily in virtual reality business applications. These VR trailblazers, and many others, have been limited by the confines of the Internet. The Neuronet's communication bandwidth and real-time VR and gaming data transfer protocols will enable them to reach their full potential."

Have they really been limited?  I'm not so sure.  But certainly thinking about fancy infrastructure for the MMOs that might exist from 2009 onwards (the date this will be ready for 'consumer applications') must be a good idea, right?

Domain names - .vr (for 'immersive virtual reality neurosites') and .cin (for 'cinematic virtual reality neurosites') - will be available next year...

 

Games & Culture CFP

For those of you who want to escape family obligations today and tomorrow, tell them that you have to work on a submission for this call for papers!  It's for a special issue of the Games and Culture journal, focused on Gaming in the Asia-Pacific region. Read on for details...

UCLA Mediascape CFP

UCLA's film, television, and digital media e-journal would like to solicit contributions from the TN community for the features and reviews section of an upcoming issue.

Read on for more details...  (but hurry, deadline is Jan 1, 2007!)

The MMO Brand Goes Bad?

It’s easy to look at the graphs of MMO growth over the last few years and think that it’s a game category that will continue to grow exponentially.  In fact, I have often said that since games have always been largely social (and single player gaming an anomaly that resulted largely from technological limitations), that once people have a taste of gaming with others few will choose to go back to solo play.  And I do believe that.  Other players represent that sort of super sophisticated AI that no NPC can begin to approach.  And for me, the only thing that makes the average MMO grind at all fun, for instance, is the chaos and uncertainty brought forth by other random players.  Social structures make games more complex and interesting, to be sure.  But is that always a good thing?

Are Virtual Worlds Good For the Soul?

Dmitri recently received an e-mail from Mike Fred, a Behavior Intervention Specialist who uses WoW therapeutically as part of his work with challenged kids: 

I play WoW with a few of the students from my school. It has proven to be beneficial to the students socially, academically, and therapeutically. In general these students lack social skills. Even when they want to make friends, they often behave inappropriately and tend to push people away. Yet, as these students have gotten involved with playing WoW, they have made social connections - not only with each other, but with other players online. They are all active members of their online guilds… their online relationships are not deep. However, the fact that they make relationships at all is significant. Moreover, two of these students have developed a real friendship.

Time to Turn the MMO Inside Out?

Joystiq reports on a recent talk by Thomas Bidaux of NCsoft Europe at the Develop UK event where apparently it was revealed that 'everything we think know about MMOs is wrong'.  Mr. Bidaux  has a number of opinions about how MMOs are going to be revolutionized, turned on their heads even, via platform innovations (though anyone who played Everquest on the PS2 might be a bit skeptical that this is a positive move), Xbox Live style persistence in terms of player rankings and achievements, novel payment models, and yes, 'a lifestyle revolution' enabled by our experiments with Web 2.0, 'collective intelligence (e.g. Wikipedia) and viral content (e.g. MySpace)' that  'provide opportunites for community and collaborative efforts'.

Well, we like our trend watching here at TN...