World of World of Warcraft

Onion News Network has a funny piece on virtual worlds, taken to their logical limit: ‘Warcraft’ Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing ‘Warcraft’.

“My avatar is the biggest World of World of Warcraft fan in the whole World of World of Warcraft world. … The graphics are amazing, uhh, they’re revolutionary. I mean, I mean, when you stare at the computer screen you actually believe that you’re in a dimly lit basement staring at a computer screen.”

Posted in social media, virtual worlds | 1 Comment »

Free self-organizing conference on Social Computing this Sat in Baltimore

Many online games have a strong social component to them — from Second Life to World of Warcraft — and the trend toward making games social is increasing. If you are interested in social media and social computing systems, you might consider going to a free self-organizing conference on the topic taking place this Saturday at the University of Baltimore. Lunch and parking are free and supported by the sponsors, which include UMBC. Here’s a press release for SocialDevCamp East, which describes itself “the Unconference for Thought Leaders of the Future Social Web”

BALTIMORE, MD (5/5/08) — Where is the social web going? It’s going mobile, to geocentric services, and to open platforms. On May 10th at the University of Baltimore a community of like minded developers, social media gurus and thought leaders will attend an unconference to discuss the future of the social web. Thought leaders from DC to Boston will converge upon Baltimore to meet, forge relationships, and envision the future.

SocialDevCamp East is a BarCamp-style event. BarCamp is an international network of user generated conferences — open, participatory workshop-events, whose content is provided by participants. The first BarCamp was held in Palo Alto, CA in 2005. Since then 31 BarCamps have been held in cities around the world. And now under the guidance of planners, David Troy of Roundhouse Technologies, LLC Ann Bernard and Keith Casey of WhyGo Solo.com, Baltimore will be added to the list.

According to Dave Troy, “Part of what we’re doing here with SocialDevCamp East is telling a story: a story about how there is latent intellectual capital and talent here on the East coast that wants to emerge, evolve and change the world. It’s the story of a new kind of silicon valley happening here – an Amtrak metropolis from DC to Boston rich with talent, schools, and industries that will shape much of the future of technology.”

With registration well over 150 the conference has gained lots of momentum using the social media tools that the conference will explore. As with all BarCamps, the attendees will create the sessions. Currently suggested topics include: Where is the social web going? How will location-aware devices affect the social web? How will platforms and data portability play out?

SocialDevCamp East - Charting the Next Course will take place Saturday, May 10, 2008 from 8:30am - 10:00pm at the University of Baltimore, Thumel Business Center Building, Baltimore, MD The event is free to attend. To find out more information go to: http://barcamp.pbwiki.com/SocialDevCampEast

Posted in Events, social media | No Comments »

Gaming sales growing much faster than music or movies

Ars technica has a post Growth of gaming in 2007 far outpaces movies, music summarizing the health of the gaming industry in 2007.

“2007 was a banner year for video gaming, and the industry has the figures to prove it. The Entertainment Software Association announced today that total sales for 2007 were $18.85 billion, with $9.5 billion of that spent on games (both PC and console) and $9.35 billion on consoles.”

Most of the software sales (70%) were for console games with handhelds accounting for another 20% and PC games picking up the last 10%. But here’s a quote I fund most interesting.

“There were also some changes in terms of who was purchasing the games. Two groups whose game-buying habits changed drastically during 2007 were people over age 35 (guilty) and females. Much of that is due to the incredible popularity of the Nintendo Wii, which has made gaming accessible to a whole host of people who would otherwise have never picked up a controller.”

and then this graph tells the story visually.

Posted in News, industry news, social media | No Comments »

Alternate reality gaming as viral marketing

Alternate reality games, also known as immersive games, blend fantasy and reality in ways that blur the difference. We are not talking about virtual reality technology that require their users to don special helmets or use kinematic effectors, but games that embed their narratives and interact with players using everyday aspects of the the real world — Web sites, email, instant messages, phone calls, letters and billboards.

The genre has largely been used by conceptual artists, advertising agencies and marketeers. Here’s how Dave Szulborski describes it on his This is Not a Game site.

“Alternate Reality Gaming, sometimes also called Immersive Gaming, Viral Marketing, or Interactive Fiction, is a rapidly emerging genre of online gaming and is one of the first true art and entertainment forms that was developed from and exclusively for the Internet. Alternate Reality Games have been wildly successful when used for multimillion dollar marketing campaigns, such as the 2004 game I Love Bees, used by Microsoft to help launch the hugely anticipated X-Box video game Halo 2, and the game that started it all, the Beast, used to promote Steven Spielberg’s science fiction epic A.I.: Artificial Intelligence in 2001.”

Wired has an article, Secret Websites, Coded Messages: The New World of Immersive Games, that describes an a viral marketing campaign to promote Nine Inch Nails. Muhammad Saleem blogs about the online viral marketing campaign it used to promote the move The Dark Knight. Finally, ReadWriteWeb has an interesting post, Alternate Reality Games: What Makes or Breaks Them? that attempts to deconstruct ARGs.

Alternate reality gaming is definitely unusual, but it draws on many of the skills any student of gaming should be developing: the ability to construct a rich narrative, the capability to design an environment that reveals itself as players explore and gradually discover and solve underlying puzzles, and the skills to exploit the latest digital technologies.

Posted in immersive gaming, social media | No Comments »

IBM using Second Life to build online communities

As seen on slashdot:

IBM has an unconventional take on virtual worlds for business use. Rather than strictly adhering to the laws of physics, IBM is letting its employees hold virtual meetings up in the air and under water. Employees are also being given wacky chores, such as kicking a giant boulder 1,400 kilometers. The virtual world, known as the Metaverse, has been in development for two years. Michael Ackerbauer of IBM says, ‘I’d say more people are still finding it a novelty than a business tool. But … if you build enough tools that they can use, they will come.’” IBM seems to be following a trend of involvement in virtual worlds, which we have previously discussed.

UMBC alumnus Pranam Kolarispent several summers as an intern at IBM and brought back reports that IBM was using Second Life in interesting ways.

Posted in Second life, industry news, social media, virtual worlds | No Comments »

Q&A with Second Life creator

Last week the Feakonomics blog invited readers to submit questions for Second Life creator Philip Rosedale to answer. There is an obvious economics connection, since Second Life has a robust and growing economy, but the motivation was broader.

“You could argue that Philip Rosedale has done more than anyone else to help millions of people live their dreams. As the founder and CEO of Linden Lab, the San Francisco-based company that created Second Life (which we’ve blogged about now and again), he has taken virtual reality to a whole new place.”

The questions asked about many things. I thought that this answer was interesting, and applies to interactive games and entertainment of all kinds.

Q: How do you feel about accusations that by providing a literal “second life,” you’re contributing to a trend of physical isolation that’s damaging the social abilities of an increasing number of teens and adults?

A: Whether sitting in front of a computer is bad for you is a function of whether what you are doing there is more or less challenging than real life. If you are mindlessly shooting monsters, the environment has the risk of making you oversimplify the real world. If, on the other hand, you are confronted with a complex human environment with people from all over the world who are demanding of you in your interactions with them, you could actually be better off in front of the computer. Second Life can teach people new skills and connect them with new cultures in a way that the real-world environments of many places cannot.

You can read the full Q&A session on the post Philip Rosedale Answers Your Second Life Questions.

Posted in Second life, social media | No Comments »

Make games for OLPC with the Etoys programming environment

Etoys is a computer environment and object-oriented programming language for use in education that is getting increased attention these days because it is included in the One Laptop Per Child XO. A post in Lambda the Ultimate notes:

“Etoys was invented by Alan Kay’s research group and is in continuous development and use as an integrated feature of Squeak Smalltalk. The Squeak/Etoys community includes lots of researchers, programmers, teachers, and kids around the world. Squeaky Tales is a series of short tutorial screencasts designed to each people to program with Etoys. I’m very excited that this may be what’s needed to make Etoys programming easy to learn for people at home. My experience has been that it’s easy and fun to teach Etoys programming face-to-face with everybody using their own laptop, but that it’s very slow and frustrating to try and learn Etoys by yourself just by installing it and clicking around. If Squeaky Tales makes it easy and fun to learn Etoys all by yourself at home then it’s quite a contribution to the world!”

Posted in CS, Programming, social media, sofware | No Comments »

Social Dynamics of Online Games

IT Conversations has a podcast with host John Udell talking to Dmitri Williams and Jake Vickers about the Social Dynamics of Online Games. Dmitri Williams is an assistant professor at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication who studies the social dynamics of online games. He is also a member of a World of Warcraft guild in which George Vickers, a 17-year-old college student, plays a key leadership role. The conversation explores the ways in which leadership and organizational skills can be developed in an online multiplayer game.

Posted in MMOGs, social media | 1 Comment »

CSI in Second Life

It might seem like we’re obsessed with Second Life, but the reason that we’ve had some many posts about it lately is that there are new and interesting things going on with it. It’s a good example that the technologies underlying games are broadly applicable and their use will continue to evolve.

I’m not a CSI viewer, but I know it’s a very popular main stream program, so an episode that takes place partly in Second Space might be significant. Many are expecting a rapid convergence of computers and television that will come to full fruition as digital television becomes mandatory around the world.

Second Life is bracing itself for an influx of new members this coming week with the long awaited episode of CSI:NY does Second Life to be shown in the United States on Wednesday. The episode will see Mac Taylor (Gary Sinise) entering Second Life to pursue a killer who has killed a Second Life user in a case of virtual stalking gone too far. CSI:NY fans will be encouraged to join Second Life and investigate the case by following a link on the CBS website. CSI:NY will have three options for CSI-related inworld activities. The first option will allow viewers to walk around virtual New York buildings and visit a CSI lab and play forensic games. (link)

Posted in MMOGs, Second life, social media | No Comments »

Introduction to Second Life, 1:00pm 10/16, ECS 023 @umbc

Join Gale Zasada (aka Gamay Nouvelle) at 1:00pm Tuesday, October 16, 2007 in ECS 023 for an introduction to Second Life, including a virtual tour of Info Island and the rest of the islands that make up the library and education archipelago. In her “First Life,” Gale Zasada is currently an instructor for the Library Associate Training Institute in Maryland, where she teaches search engine skills and Web 2.0 technologies.

Seats are limited, so register to ensure a place.

This workshop is jointly sponsored by the Library, Faculty Development Center and Office of Information technology.

Posted in Events, Second life, social media | 1 Comment »