A recent post (appended) in an Eve-Online forum suggests at least one person's balk at too much uniqueness in their virtual world. How unique do you want your worlds to be? After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers.

Slashdot has covered it, but we want to get the word out: Project Massive is one of the few sources we have for information about MMORPG users. They've got the results from one survey wave up and are looking for more. After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers.

Imagine it wasn't an academic textual world, though, but was a commercial graphical world. Would people still play it, or something like it? It also raises some interesting non-design problems. It looks to me as if it would discourage RMT, for example, because investments won't necessarily be seen as sufficiently long-term. The truth is World of Warcraft Gold doesn’t HAVE to take a long time to get, especially in the higher levels. Buy WOW Gold here, and then enjoy your excited WoW life! Warhammer Online Gold will keep your high power. On the other hand, if RMTers persuade the courts that people own what their characters own, the whole concept of a purge might be threatened.

There's all sorts of things that interest me about this turn of events. It's not necessarily a precedent for anything, given that the readership of all three strips is almost all composed of gamers, but the interconnection of media audiences and their loyalties with the sociality of guilds and in-game rivalry strikes me as a good demonstration of the cultural potential of virtual worlds, their ability to connect to and amplify the connections between our lives and our popular culture.

Hmm. Then later, we hear (from the president of a brand marketing firm, no less) that this kind of thing has "elements of a gimmick to it." The best way to put the assertion (and this is all it is at this point; and again, please keep in mind that there are a number of familiar exceptions) is that the practice of game software development generates a way of seeing and defining problems (as essentially precise, logical, and algorithmic), and creating solutions (through linear, text-defined code) that makes other ways of accounting for what happens in VWs seem at worst nonsensical and at best irrelevant or quixotic. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.

"There's a quality that doesn't exist in any other medium," said Bill Lichtenstein, president of the company that produces "The Infinite Mind," the radio show that put on the Vega performance, built a radio booth on Second Life, and plans to broadcast more interviews and performances. The best way to put the assertion (and this is all it is at this point; and again, please keep in mind that there are a number of familiar exceptions) is that the practice of game software development generates a way of seeing and defining problems (as essentially precise, logical, and algorithmic), and creating solutions (through linear, text-defined code) that makes other ways of accounting for what happens in VWs seem at worst nonsensical and at best irrelevant or quixotic.

The sound was only vaguely related to the images: a mix of camera angles on an avatar of Suzanne Vega and her recalcitrant guitar in a room full of other (quasi-famous "FIC"?) avatars that was more or less backdrop. The best way to put the assertion (and this is all it is at this point; and again, please keep in mind that there are a number of familiar exceptions) is that the practice of game software development generates a way of seeing and defining problems (as essentially precise, logical, and algorithmic), and creating solutions (through linear, text-defined code) that makes other ways of accounting for what happens in VWs seem at worst nonsensical and at best irrelevant or quixotic.

For those who knew the joy of dropping quarter after quarter in the addictive coin-op classic Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, boy do I have a game for you. Sure, Capcom Puzzle World joins the ranks of their two Collection compilations for the PSP that resurrects familiar Capcom classics, but when the star of the show is Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo and is followed by four other puzzle games, non-puzzle fans will wonder if it's worth the purchase price.

Capcom Fighting Evolution takes familiar faces from previous Capcom fighting games and brings them together, creating a tournament where street fighters, dinosaurs, ninjas and vampires duke it out for reasons unknown.

Anyone around my age can remember the good times we used to have back in the 80's packing into the car and heading out to our local Chuck E Cheese or local arcade to spend all of our allowance money on video games.