A new report has been released on the utility of 'serious games' and in-game marketing in virtual spaces like Second Life; OTOinsights, the research arm of One to One Interactive, takes a look at the success (or lack thereof) of marketing attempts by major firms. They describe the results as 'uneven' and make some suggestions on how companies can better utilize virtual spaces to pitch their product(s):

"Serious games" refers to the use of games and game technologies for non-entertainment purposes. Traditionally, the education, health, and military sectors were the primary actors in this domain, but in the past few years, marketing has arisen as a major sub-domain of this area. Examples range from the selling of advertising inside video games to dozens of small, experimental corporate-sponsored spaces in virtual worlds such as Second Life, to the fully realized first-person shooter America's Army, developed as a recruitment tool for the U.S. Army. The results have been uneven, as most of these early efforts have had an experimental edge. This report releases findings that compare player engagement in some of Second Life's most successful user-generated areas compared with some of the more ambitious corporate-sponsored efforts in Second Life.

From Worlds In Motion:

In its study, the firm noted that overall, the top user-generated sites are more popular than the top corporate sites in Second Life. "Perhaps the explanation for this disparity is that corporate sites offer different content or experiences than user-generated sites, and builders of user-generated sites are more effective at offering the content users want. Or perhaps the corporate sites offer similar content, and the reason is that Second Life users are simply resisting corporate influence as a part of their hipster ethos."

Oh, snap. Starbucks, we don't want your kind here.

Serious Games for Marketing [One to One Interactive via Worlds In Motion]

Those concerned with 'virtual worlds' — as opposed to 'games' — spend a lot of time contemplating the role of virtual worlds in a wider market; over at Terra Nova, Bruce Damer looks at the potential future of virtual worlds, which could be a lot bigger than most people imagine. Some potential answers to keep the industry growing? Piggybacking off platforms that are currently growing at a rapid clip, making sure virtual worlds are 'worth' something — perhaps some as of yet undiscovered little platform will be the key:

As we can see from the history of computing, it is often the case of “the small gobbling up the big, and everything else”. Trivially small, lightweight yet rapidly replicating platforms often grow up to become all-encompassing solutions. DOS grew up to become Windows and along the way the PC triumphed over the time-shared mainframe, minicomputer and workstation. Could it be that there is some small world platform out there that is destined to become the standard? Dick Gabriel of Sun Microsystems has written much wisdom and books on this phenomenon (http://www.dreamsongs.com/Books.html) in which he posits that one of several ways to create a virally spreading success is to hitch your wagon to something that is already growing. Does this mean that a small world embedded in Facebook or some other social network(s) is the answer?

It's an interesting article that pulls examples from other (formerly) 'new media'; the rise and sustainability of virtual worlds is an interesting problem. I suspect even the 'big ones' will be trucking along pretty quietly — not unlike a lot of the popular free to play MMOs from abroad.

Virtually Eternal: A Positive Pathway to a Healthy and Sustainable Virtual Worlds Industry? [Terra Nova]

Now I know why they're not inviting the press yet. Home is still in its good-in-theory phase. In execution it's still lacking. I'm all for Betas having rough edges. That's the point. But I was surprised that the Home Beta doesn't seem to have that something special — the thing that yet makes it obvious it's going to be a hit.

Sorry for the vague terms, but Home is a vague kind of thing. Are you supposed to have fun with it? Or, like most other interfaces, just take pleasure if it works smoothly?

I spent about 10 minutes with Home. I loaded it off the PS3 cross media bar, taking control of a lone avatar. During my brief time in Home I saw no other avatars. The service looked as it has in screenshots. It still has a virtual PSP for an interface as well as a diverse set of pre-canned emotes. I made my guy dance.

I went from an outdoor area to the movie theater lobby to an amusement area containing a bowling alley and an arcade. If that all sounds familiar it's because it was. The Beta wasn't packing any pleasant surprises.

Instead, what I encountered was a lot of loading. Each area my avatar stepped into had to load. This could be because the person who's PS3 I was using hadn't used Home before. It did underscore how key swift movement is going to be in Home and how frustrating it will feel if it takes too long to get from, say, the lobby area to the area where you'd go watch trailers. In the current Beta, loading isn't done even once you're in an area. In the movie theater, for example, framed wall-hangings initially displayed screens with loading progress bars on them. The videos that needed to display took a moment to show up.

The arcade was the best area I saw. It has a few stand-up video game machines including a Chop Lifter-style game that's been shown before as well as a locomotive-stacking puzzle game. I tried bowling and found it about as basic as Grand Theft Auto IV's implementation.

There's a reason projects are in Beta and not release. All the kinks aren't worked out. New ideas are surely being considered. And, clearly, Home can't be accurately judged when no one but yourself is in it.

So what's the big takeaway? Home is clearly still a work in progress, functioning not that differently from what you heard about more than a year ago. Whatever it needs to make it a hit, I don't think it's in there — yet.

User generated content is something of a hot issue, with even universities like Stanford getting in on the game of how to make it easier and more intuitive for people to make their own stuff for games. At the recent Social Gaming Summit, a couple of industry types got together to talk about user generated content in virtual worlds, and why the model works for their games (such as Habbo Hotel or Puzzle Pirates):

"The more tools that you provide can lead to richer behavior, but often it's the simpler things that people enjoy most," began Daniel James, CEO of Three Rings. "As designing games constraints can lead you to designing better games, constrained environments can lead to more fun."

"The simplest games are the ones everybody can join in and play," expanded Ted Rheingold, founder of Dogster and Catster.

The panel also went on to discuss why we should think of 'virtual spaces' instead of 'virtual worlds' when looking at game design — design from the avatar up, not the 'world' down. Clearly this would not work for everything, but with casual MMOGs getting ever more popular, probably not a bad idea to go forward from for some developers.

Why User-Generated Content Matters For Games

Things kick off June 23rd with a keynote speech from Linden Founder and Chairman Philip Rosedale and newly appointed CEO Mark Kingdon, both of whom better have some pretty kick-ass avatars. If they don't have at least jet packs and glowing eyes I'm laughing them off the stage. Cue my character's temporary ban in 3...2...1.

Hit the jump for details on some of the milestones that SL will be celebrating, or visit the official site for a schedule of events.

Linden Lab Celebrates Second Life’s 5th Birthday With a Virtual World Fair

Keynote Addresses by New CEO Mark Kingdon, Founder Philip Rosedale and Board Member Mitch Kapor Highlight Two-Week Long Celebration

SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Linden Lab®, creator of 3D virtual world Second Life® (www.secondlife.com), has announced that it will hold a two-week long Virtual World Fair to celebrate the 5th birthday of the Second Life community. The virtual fairgrounds, created in tandem by Linden Lab and Second Life Residents, will host a series of roundtable discussions, parties and exhibits that showcase the vast creativity of Residents as well as groundbreaking organizational uses of the Second Life platform. The event will be held in various regions in Second Life and will take place from June 23 – July 7, 2008.

Open to Second Life Residents, Linden Lab employees and industry thought leaders, the event will explore such topics as the evolution of Second Life’s culture, the role of virtual worlds in business and the opportunities the platform offers for education, art, philanthropy and health care, among others. Founder and former Linden Lab CEO Philip Rosedale and newly appointed CEO Mark Kingdon will each give an opening address and Linden Lab board member Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation, will offer closing remarks.

Some highlights of the first five years that will be discussed and celebrated include:

2003

June 23, 2003 – The highly anticipated Second Life virtual world comes out of beta and launches to the public

November 14, 2003 – At the State of Play Conference, Founder Philip Rosedale announces that Linden Lab will allow Residents to retain all IP rights to the content they create in-world, a groundbreaking move that while initially questioned by industry leaders, epitomizes Linden Lab’s approach and philosophy and has greatly helped establish its leadership position

2004

June 15, 2004 – Linden adds a Custom Animation scripting engine to Second Life, enabling Residents to more fully develop and personalize their avatars by adding distinctive moods and movements

August 15, 2004 – Second Life surpasses 10,000 Residents – to celebrate the milestone Philip takes the entire office to a Giants game; by the time the game ended, residency had jumped to 13,000

2005

April 25, 2005 – Having outgrown its office, Linden Lab moves to a much larger office on Sansome Street in San Francisco. A short time later, Linden would move again to its current location at 945 Battery Street

October 3, 2005 – Linden launches the “LindeX” – its own hosted currency exchange - L$400,000 is traded on the first day of business

2006

January 5, 2006 - Second Life surpasses 100,000 registered Residents

May 1, 2006 – BusinessWeek cover story “Virtual Life, Real Money” further validates Second Life as a revenue-generating vehicle for individual entrepreneurs and businesses

September 15, 2006 – Second Life surpasses 1,000,000 registered Residents

2007

January 8, 2007 - Linden Lab announces that it will release the code to its viewer software – further opening the world and enabling Residents to have more control over their experiences. An audacious and unusual move for a company in a leadership position but indicative of the company’s approach and ethos and a key step towards Linden’s vision of a pervasive 3D online environment

March 26, 2007 – Second Life surpasses 5,000,000 registered Residents

September, 2007 – In the month of September, Second Life surpasses: a) 10,000,000 registered Residents b) 25,000,000 total monthly usage hours and c) 50,000 concurrent users logged in at one time

2008

April 3, 2008 – Linden Lab announces that IBM will host regions of the Second Life Grid behind IBM’s firewall, combining the operational scale and security of IBM’s BladeCenter with Second Life’s dynamic content creation tools and vibrant user community. Combing these solutions together has the potential to make custom-created, security rich virtual environments a viable option for enterprises

April 22, 2008 – Philip steps down as CEO of Linden Lab, assumes the position of Chairman of the Board and names Organic’s Mark Kingdon as his successor; Mark officially began his tenure on May 15, 2008

“It’s amazing to look back and reflect on everything that we’ve accomplished in such a short time. From our initial launch, to the decision to allow Residents to retain their IP, to opening up the Platform to third parties, most of the decisions we’ve made have gone against the grain of conventional wisdom and that’s made all the difference,” said Philip Rosedale, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Linden Lab. “While we’ve come a long way in our first five years and have surmounted significant challenges, there’s still plenty of work left as we continue to advance the medium. With Mark’s leadership and the passion and creativity of our Residents we are extremely excited about what the future holds and the evolving role that Second Life will play in business, arts, education and communication in general.”

The experiment is significant because the signals his brain sent to move the character came from the man imagining that he was walking. He also used a microphone to meet and converse with another Second Lifer. Then a swarm of flying penises surrounded him and the appalled researchers. OK, just kidding about that.

Researchers are studying a system that would let people select letters for a text message using the same type of brainwave controls. They surmise that, in the future, paralysis patients could use virtual worlds as a surrogate interaction with the real world — for example walking through a virtual mall and making purchases the same way one would in real life.

The research may also deliver mental health benefits as well as physical ones. Researchers hope that the activity will motivate and inspire people who are otherwise too depressed to attempt rehabilitative exercises they consider futile.

Paralysed Man Takes a Walk in Virtual World [AFP via Yahoo! News] [picture]

In a somewhat bizarre interview with The Times Online, Nancy Smith (head of the Sims division at EA) said that " in light of the popularity of virtual worlds ... the Sims may soon become a multi-player game." The article fails to mention the failed experiment of The Sims Online, later rebranded to "EA-Land" and scheduled for closure in August. But Smith talks of potential new (and old) modes for online play:

Ms Smith was adamant, however, that The Sims would not break wholly with its past, and would continue to require players to buy and install software on their machines before being able to play. Some virtual worlds, such as Club Penguin and Habbo Hotel, can be played entirely within a web browser ....

The Sims franchise would also continue to explore new revenue models that have become associated with virtual worlds, she said, including sponsorship and the sale of 'virtual goods', as on the fashion-focused virtual world for teens, Stardoll.com.

It's a really odd interview in light of the online element that already fell flat on its face; maybe second time will be the charm for the Sims?

The Sims prepare for a sociable future [The Times via Worlds In Motion]

"Despite a multitude of challenges, virtual worlds present a unique marketing opportunity to target a highly sought demographic, and virtual worlds should be part of a company's marketing portfolio," according to Harvey Cohen, President of Strategy Analytics.

Hear that? You might as well sign up now. Go ahead and IM Caliban Karas on SL if you need to know where to pick up your furry avatar.

Study: One Billion Virtual World Users in Next 10 Years [GameDaily]

My summer will be filled with exactly the same things my school year is (herding students along to enlightenment, reading, and research), minus pesky seminars, but for the younger generation, gainful summer employment is getting harder to come by. One solution? Turning to virtual worlds for employment:

In the real world, summer jobs are in short supply. Only about a third of teenagers are expected to work this summer, the lowest levels in 60 years, according to the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University. Summer youth employment has fallen from about 45% of teens in 2000, a downward trend made worse this year by the faltering economy.

But money-making opportunities in virtual worlds have grown as such sites go mainstream.

The WSJ piece also has a look at seven high school and college students who have been making virtual worlds — what they do and how much they make.

My Virtual Summer Job [The Wall Street Journal via Virtual Worlds News]

... Gartner's analysis isn't nearly as dire as its headline. Gartner notes that throughout the process lessons have been learned, many of the attempts were relatively low-cost experiments, and there's still plenty of opportunity. "Businesses have learned some hard lessons," Steve Prentice, vice president and fellow at Gartner, said in a statement. "They need to realise that virtual worlds mark the transition from web pages to web places and a successful virtual presence starts with people, not physics. Realistic graphics and physical behaviour count for little unless the presence is valued by and engaging to a large audience."

The end of the report also has a reasonably sunny prediction: "By 2012, Gartner estimates that 70 per cent of organisations will have established their own private virtual worlds and predicts that these internal worlds will have greater success due to lower expectations, clearer objectives and better constraints." That could be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your perspective.

90% of Corporate Virtual World Efforts Fail in 18 Months (Chalk It Up to Experimentation?) [Virtual Worlds News]

Ok, so virtual property disputes aren't exactly new, but there's a little wrap up on some of the current issues over at a Canadian website. Most of the issues discussed revolve around Second Life, but the questions of virtual property and other virtual issues are getting increasing attention:

[Entertainment lawyer Susan] Abramovitch said the virtual economy has opened the door to new legal issues that are only starting to be addressed around the world.

"The original question is, do we actually need to specifically regulate the virtual economy?" Abramovitch said. "Is it different enough to create challenges or do the regulations that exist in our physical world apply?"
The answer, she said, is gaining importance because private companies currently dictate the "rules" of the virtual world through their end user licence agreements.

Concerns regarding EULAs have gotten a fair bit of (academic) attention in the past couple of months, but the fact that these "virtual" cases are getting real world settlements raises a lot of interesting questions.

Virtual world disputes landing in real-world courts [Canada.com]

"To me, the CEO role at Linden Lab combines perfectly my passions for art and design, business and technology. Until Second Life, we experienced the digital world passively in two dimensions. By enabling users to create a rich and immersive virtual world, Second Life is transforming the way we connect, collaborate, learn and transact online.

Linden Lab Appoints Mark Kingdon As Chief Executive Officer Former CEO of Organic to Lead Company into Next Phase of Its Evolution

SAN FRANCISCO—(BUSINESS WIRE)—Linden Lab®, the developer of the 3D virtual world Second Life®, today announced that its board of directors has named Mark Kingdon to serve as chief executive officer. In his new role, Kingdon will lead the day-to-day management and operations of the company, working closely alongside Linden Lab founder, former CEO and current chairman Philip Rosedale.

Since 2001, prior to joining Linden Lab, Kingdon served as chief executive officer of Organic Inc., a leading digital communications agency, establishing its reputation as a groundbreaking, innovative provider of user-centered design. Prior to Organic, Kingdon worked with idealab!, providing strategic guidance and operational support to emerging companies. Before that, Kingdon was a partner with the consulting division of PricewaterhouseCoopers, LLP (PwC), where he held a variety of senior roles throughout his twelve-year tenure. He received an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and a BA in Economics from UCLA.

"Our search for the leader of Linden Lab demanded both tremendous business skills and a deep understanding and passion for Second Life and where it is going. Mark is the perfect choice," said Philip Rosedale, founder and chairman of the board, Linden Lab. "His management style, unwavering leadership in the face of great challenges, and approach to team-building exactly matches Linden's needs. He is a passionate believer in the potential of virtual worlds to change the world, and I look forward to working by his side while we watch it happen."

"We wanted to find someone with an exceptional blend of strategic, analytic, business and leadership skills, but also with endless creativity and a passion for the company and growing the virtual worlds category," said Mitch Kapor, founder of Lotus Development Corporation and a Linden Lab board member. "Mark has demonstrated all of these attributes throughout his career, particularly at Organic, which, like Linden Lab, puts an incredible emphasis on overall user experience and design."

"Joining Linden Lab at this moment in its evolution, with so much growth and opportunity on the horizon, is incredibly exciting and I look forward to working with Philip and the Linden Lab team to help Second Life realize its limitless potential," said Mark Kingdon, Chief Executive Officer, Linden Lab. "To me, the CEO role at Linden Lab combines perfectly my passions for art and design, business and technology. Until Second Life, we experienced the digital world passively in two dimensions. By enabling users to create a rich and immersive virtual world, Second Life is transforming the way we connect, collaborate, learn and transact online. I am thrilled to be part of this epic transformation."

Kingdon assumes the position full time on May 15, 2008.

As with Habbo Hotel, Virtual Magic Kingdom was developed by Finnish studio Sulake and shared many similarities with the social networking site. Players with registered accounts are able to decorate their personal rooms, earn and spend in-game credits, and participate in a variety of online events and activities with their customized avatars, all in a "safe, non-threatening environment."

Disney Closes Gates To Virtual Magic Kingdom [Worlds In Motion]

...we got employees from all around NASA - the 10 geographies around the country - showing up at these Tuesday afternoon meetings. We formed a community of NASA and non-NASA, started coworking in Second Life. Cultural change started to take place at the agency...

We are all learning how to use virtual environments so when we go back to the moon, we can collaborate better. We can go for the ride in a participatory collaborative kind of way.

*NASA employee walks in with 10-foot clown penis*

"Am I late?"

NASA: How CoWorking Opened Us Up [psfk][image]

Another popular way to teach English in "Second Life," says Boahn, involves role-playing and quests. "I once dressed up as a pirate, had a ship and everything. I was kind of rough on the students," he admits. "I put some of them in cages, and had them confront language in a shock-and-awe kind of way. They seemed to like it, and they learned all sorts of new words, like 'loot' and 'booty.'"

Boahn's approach may appear nontraditional, but he feels a new medium calls for a new way of teaching language. Even using the game's English interface gives students a chance to practice what they've learned. "We like to encourage teachers to see 'Second Life' itself as a classroom," he says.

How To Spark Remote Learning [Forbes via Worlds In Motion]

Wu began by discussing the recent Bragg v. Linden Labs court case — in brief, a legal battle between a Second Life user and the world's parent company over land that Bragg apparently improperly acquired, resulting in a ban from the world by Linden. That case, Wu says, was a landmark in that it demonstrated that virtual property rights have tangible value in the court system ....

"What are the prevailing customs that should apply?" Wu asked. "Is it the country where the company is based? Is it the country where the customer lives? We don't even know what the basic virtual property rights are that we should be concerned with."

These sorts of issues will get nailed down eventually (maybe?), it's a serious balancing act in a lot of ways. And once you mix in the reasonably global nature of many MMOs? Well ....

Human and Property Rights in Virtual Worlds [Worlds In Motion]

Is it relevant for the qualification as theft whether the stolen fortune stays officially in game? Well, not to me. I see no reason for distinguishing between virtual and physical theft. The original owners of the stolen Habbo furniture obtained the items after they bought credits with real money, and do attach value to those items. As long as the original owner looses something of value (such as virtual items) due to the act of another individual who gains possession over the item, it should in my opinion be qualified as theft, no matter whether the locus delicti is in the physical or the virtual world.

I love this virtual law stuff, so many areas are so vague - I do wonder what sort of changes are going to be going on the books in the next decade or so.

Why not qualify the taking away of virtual objects as theft? [Terra Nova]

Reynard will seek to identify the emerging social, behavioral and cultural norms in virtual worlds and gaming environments. The project would then apply the lessons learned to determine the feasibility of automatically detecting suspicious behavior and actions in the virtual world.

They do describe it as a 'seedling' effort that 'may increase its scope to a full project' if early results are promising. I have nightmarish visions of TSA meets virtual worlds, which won't be pretty. You can find the full PDF version of the unclassified data mining report at Wired.

U.S. Spies Want to Find Terrorists in World of Warcraft [Wired]

The second day of MetaverseU had much more of the University in it. While the first day certainly had an academic bent, it also featured discussions of technology developments, products, and practices. TL Taylor led the second day with a discussion of online embodiment, ranging across game and social worlds. Jeremy Bailenson took a more quantitative approach, quickly running through 9 experiments and studies, looking at identity, avatars, and persuasion. (Amazing and fast!) Kari Kraus then took the stage to look at how people are approaching the preservation of virtual worlds.

The whole set of entries relating to Metaverse U is great and worth a look through, if you're into that sort of thing.

Liveblogging MetaverseU: TL Taylor, Jeremy Bailenson, Kari Kraus [Virtual Worlds News]

PMOG stands for Passively Multiplayer Online Game. Players play without playing; clicking around the internet turns into experience points and currency. A battle between Order and Chaos rages online, between people tagging and people spamming; this game gives people the weapons they need to wage that war in real-time in their browsers.

This unconventional massively multiplayer online game merges your web life with an alternate, hidden reality. The mundane takes on a layer of fantastic achievement. Player behavior generates characters and alliances, triggers interactions in the environment, and earns the player points to spend online beefing up their inventory. Suddenly the internet is not a series of untouchable exhibits, but a hackable, rewarding environment.

It's currently in beta, but this is a new take on the classic MMO and seems perfect for the lazy among us.

Multiplayer Web Surfing? [Worlds In Motion]

Wait, wait — letting users take the helm of stories is good, right? Letting them contribute content, take ownership of it, guide the direction of a game world's evolution? You want to have that kind of input and control, don't you? Maybe you do, but think of this — to have that, you'd have to give the same right to every idiot, unimaginative automaton, disruptive teenage jerk and mouth-breathing drag you've ever played a video game to get away from. As I pointed out in the case in favor, games have always been a closed world. And that's how gamers wanted it.

The cases for and aganst will be worked out eventually, and media convergence isn't ever going to go away — just maybe people should be careful what they wish for.

The Case Against Entertainment Media Convergence [GameSetWatch]

From Maple Story to Silkroad Online, there is no shortage of MMOs in the free to play space. In the same vein, there is an abundance of virtual worlds such as Second Life or Kaneva. It seems as though the vast majority of new free to play game since 2005 have been virtual worlds or MMOs.

Perhaps it's the very reason that these games have proliferated in the free to play market; MMOs and virtual worlds are inherently more inclusive than an FPS. Still, it would be a shame to see the free to play space flounder due to constant reiteration of the same genres and themes, turning away players seeking a different experience.

Considering the quiet inroads a number of free to play options have made in the American market, I would be surprised if the market didn't continue to grow - and I'm not convinced flying under the radar is such a bad thing.

Top 10 Free To Play Growth Killers [Free To Play]

Attached at the end of the white paper is a series of three vignettes, detailing narrative form how MyBase will operate for each sector: recruiting to and inspiring the public after a recent terrorist attack with games as well as social settings; training new cadets in a virtual Squadron Officer School (vSOS) with avatars of famous historical thinkers, guest lectures at the University of Texas, and full-blown simulation of what it's like to watch an air mission from the ground in an Army M1A2 Abram; and, finally, using avatars as interaction methods for research about security issues and further training.

Ooooook. Well, they've projected plans running through 2030, so we'll see how long it takes for the USAF 2.0 to become reality.

Air Force Unveils Potential Plans for MyBase Virtual World [Virtual Worlds News]

The Complaint (which is, remember, by its nature entirely one-sided) tells a dramatic and undoubtedly controversial story about virtual property company IGE. It starts at the beginning, when the founders allegedly met playing Everquest, and proceeds like a script for a straight-to-video movie.

It includes third-hand allegations of cash from an earlier venture being spent on illegal drugs, a claim that Pierce's dog was shot by the "Spanish FBI," and allegations of minors being transported across state lines for sex. The complaint even takes a swipe at former-child-actor Pierce's filmography (Pierce played a young Emilio Estevez in The Mighty Ducks and The Mighty Ducks 2, and the lead in First Kid). In short, this is not your average business spat.

PlayNoEvil has some insightful comments up regarding some general problems this case points to. In any case, rare is the court filing that is this entertaining.

Lawsuit Against IGE Founder Brock Pierce Alleges Underhanded Dealing at Virtual Property Company [Virtually Blind via PlayNoEvil]

WHERE: Annenberg Auditorium, Stanford University
WHEN: Saturday the 16th and Sunday the 17th of February 2008
WEBSITE: http://metaverseu.stanford.edu

Stanford Humanities Lab (SHL) is thrilled to announce the Metaverse U conference at Stanford University. This two day conference will be held on February 16th and 17th 2008 and feature speakers from a range of disciplines spanning industry and academia. Our lab has worked in virtual worlds for some years now and have seen interest in the space grow exponentially in recent years. We believe that the time has come for an event to tell the interesting stories from the evolving metaverse. The current generation of spaces is part of a larger historical picture and many lessons have been learned over the years. Our ultimate goal with Metaverse U is to create a broad conversation about the pressing question of what the metaverse should be.

Metaverse U's list of speakers includes Raph Koster (Metaplace), Brewster Kahle (The Internet Archive), Jeremy Bailenson (Stanford University), TL Taylor (The IT University of Copenhagen), Cory Ondrejka, Tony Parisi (Media Machines & Web3D), Jon Brouchoud (Wikitecture), Wm. LeRoy Heinrichs (Stanford Medical Center), Rebecca Moore (Google Earth), Parvati Dev (Innovation in Learning), Byron Reeves (Stanford University & Seriosity), Kari Kraus (University of Maryland), Christain Renaud (Cisco), Mike Liebhold (Institute for the future), Daniel Huebner (Doppelganger), Vladlen Koltun (Stanford Virtual Worlds Group), Howard Rheingold, Henry Lowood (Stanford University)

For more information please visit: http://metaverseu.stanford.edu

Registration is open at: http://metaverse.stanford.edu/registration/register-now

It may not be completely obvious why research like this is so important, so we'll spell it out at the risk of over-simplifying matters. If virtual words are to proliferate, one major bottleneck to that proliferation will be visual design. Let's face it: few of us can draw something as simple as a tree well in two dimensions, let alone three. However, if a system could be devised that would allow everyday people to participate in the crowd-sourced construction of virtual worlds, then that particular bottleneck could be done away with.

While it's limited right now to trees, the team clearly hopes it won't be too long until even the least artistic among us can design buildings and objects for virtual worlds. It's an interesting read (including thoughts from Prof. Vladlen Koltun, who headed up the project) on how some academics are trying to do research that will applicable in the not-too-distant future.

Researchers hope to enable crowdsourcing of virtual worlds [Ars Technica via Worlds In Motion]

I do feel like this massive trend of open-world, do-it-yourself characterization that's been gathering so much steam might steam out before long. Like any big-big trend, we'll synthesize the useful lessons from it and integrate them into what we already know, for a neater and more subtle evolution on our familiar baseline.

The uncertainty comes in when you realize we're talking about a medium that is only a bit older than I myself am — we're beyond calling games "nascent," but we could call them pubescent, maybe, even as of only this year. Gaming hasn't been around long enough to even parse out a single solid baseline; the idea of considering them with more depth than simple arcade toys is fairly new, if not for all of us, than for a good majority of us. So the crystal ball looks a little foggy.

But "you" is not the star for everyone. At the end of the day, we love games for the experience they give us and the worlds they create. If it were about us, and about other real people, we'd just go and play laser tag with our stupid friends, or something, and then bitch about them on the internet later.

It's a piece that builds on some things Alexander's been discussing in the past couple of weeks and worth a read through. Her selection of the top five characters of the year is pretty interesting, and while I'm not sure I've gamed enough this year to pick out a top five, definitely got me reflecting on what I've played this year and what I'll be playing next year ... I hope.

'You' Suck [Sexy Videogameland]

He said while some people will be colonists - "the virtual frontier opens up and off they go and disappear" - others will just use virtual worlds to get together with distant family and friends.

But he stressed there will be a group of people that spends all their lives there, and that the big question is the size of this group.

"We forget how many people there are, and we have to ask ourselves, how exciting is the game of life for most people out there?" he said.

He also stresses the positive aspects of MMOs and their ilk, but I have to wonder what's so revolutionary about people using online worlds as a means of escape. There have always been people looking for a way out of the day-to-day realities of living, and the modern 'phenomenon' seems to be more an issue of people having a really convenient and readily available method for escape. I'm curious how he fleshes out his argument in the book, and I'll probably pick it up next time I have to put in a massive order for books.

'Exodus' to virtual worlds predicted [BBC News via Worlds In Motion]

In general virtual worlds seem often to replicate structures of labour and production - they even support a class hierarchies based on geography, contextual knowledge, time in the given community etc.

At the same time virtual worlds offer the promise of liberating us. Not quite in the old utopian ideal of freeing us fully from pre-existing notions of self but at least opening up new opportunities for self-exploration. What's more should you have access to a virtual world the barrier between roles of consumption and production seems to have been lowered such that both within the context of a virtual space e.g. as a crafter or builder in second life; or outside it, say as a fan fic creator, many can participate in a mixed traditional, amateur and / or gift economy.

The long (loooong) comments section is good to settle down with and read through, and not one mention of Foucault so far in 100+ comments! Bonus points for that.

Do virtual worlds liberate us? [Terra Nova]

For those unaware of the Habbo Hotel phenomenon, the virtual online community features a strong "teen" contingent with some 80-million avatars created over the course of its seven year lifespan. Users can deck out rooms with "furni" bought with real-life money, chat with others and play simple games.

I may not take part in hanging out with teens online in Habbo Hotel, but I'll be damned if I you won't find me defending by virtual space in Home with a virtual shotgun. Anyone who even looks at my virtual Herman Miller Aeron knock-off is gonna get a belly full of shot.

'Virtual theft' leads to arrest [BBC]

"The thing we most hope to gain by having a CNN presence in Second Life is to learn about virtual worlds and understand what news is most interesting and valuable to their residents," said Susan Grant, executive vice president of CNN News Services.

Book party in San Francisco, Wed., Nov. 7 [The Blog of the Book]

One of the big problems with second life when they talk about preserving it is this interactive experience. Linden doesn't do things like keep careful track of what users are saying, they're not filling their disks with years and years of transaction logs - I'm sure the users are very happy about that - but it means that if I took everything on SL's servers at the moment, what I've got is the neutron bomb version of second life - a bunch of very beautiful buildings with nobody in them.

For one, is it a library's place to preserve real experience, even if it's part of a virtual world? Are they overstepping their bounds of preserving cultural artifacts and instead preserving culture directly? Or, is such a step not intrusive, but part of a natural evolution for a digital library, preserving first hand experiential accounts wherever possible?

These questions aren't rhetorical—I'm really interested how the gaming community will react. Even if you don't play Second Life, such a model could also apply to WoW, PSHome or any future MMO experience. I think the simple solution is a disclaimer. And tracking the actions of only those who volunteer could work fairly well. But the picture would only be a snippet of something we could potentially capture with 100% authenticity. So would we be doing those to come a great disservice?

But today we have a different story for you with a very different ending. The fact of the matter is, according to The Library of Congress, video games are just as important to our historical past as literature, movies and music. And at the moment, the LoC is teaming up with major universities across the country to begin a 2-year initiative with the sole intent of figuring out just how institutions can preserve video games for years to come, while making the content accessible for use and study.

So our story today doesn't present some artificial controversy ending in a sad, bleak future of debate and wasted efforts. Our story today is about the very real victory for game developers, enthusiasts and scholars, in which the top library in the nation has said they're part of this video game fad for the count.

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"We're taking baby steps here," confessed Beth Dulabahn. She's the Director for Integration Management at the LoC. "No sense on making it harder on yourself that you have to."

In truth, the Library of Congress has been collecting games since the 1980s. Due to their advantageous position—the Copyright Office is part of their organization— they've come across various collections just by receiving copies of published materials as mandated by copyright law.

"Many people would probably be surprised at the kinds of things we have here," Dulabahn explained. "For example, we have probably the US's largest comic book collection, over 100,000 comic book issues that have come in through copyright."

While their collection is currently small, only encompassing around 2,000 titles that are 100% the result of copyright deposits (as opposed to formal acquisitions or donations), they aren't yet ready to collect more. What? But we just said that the Library was crazy about video games! This brings us to the initiative and what's going on now.

The Initiative

At the moment, there are a few forces affiliated with the Library to answer a fundamental question before they can begin serious acquisition: How does one build a video game archive in the digital age?

Within the Library itself, you have the Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division. One can decipher their responsibility from their apt title. Now relocated to a new facility in Culpeper, VA, the division has pulled those 2,000 games out of temporary warehouse storage, and specialists are using their new lab space to examine hardware preservation while doing R&D for future solutions of game archiving.

"One of the facets we want to document with videogames [as we did with film] is not only having the actual games themselves, but many of the associated material to have the real sense of the full gamut of what videogames and the industry meant in cultural terms," said Senior Cataloger Brian Taves. Yes, he means the sweatshirts, the posters and the shoes. They want all the cultural materials they can find.

These specialists aren't just film and audio buffs who were roped into video game preservation for grant and funding purposes. On the contrary, the two members of the division I spoke with were extremely enthusiastic about the prospects of a video game archive, likening the challenges to those already faced in film and broadcast, and the cultural importance to that of any other artistic medium they archive.

"It is one way, a bit like the fabled discovery of the library's paper print collection back in the 1940s. When they found, in a closet, films that had been deposited for copyright of otherwise lost films in the very early days of filmmaking that proved to be a real treasure," said Taves. "And for us, that's what this has turned out to be and we're really excited to see this collection growing.... The Library's been collecting films for almost 70 years now on an active basis, so we see videogames now as part of that whole body of acquisitions."

So that's one aspect of Library game preservation, but at the moment, it's the smaller part of what the Library is working on. The larger initiative is called the "Preserving Virtual Worlds" project.

The National Digital Information Infrastruction Preservation Program is a huge initiative interested in digital preservation. This encompasses basically everything imaginable on Earth. Under that, there is the Preserving Creative America initiative. Here is where you see the Library's interest in preserving all sorts of creative works, like film or books, into digital formats. Then, one of the eight grants under this Creative America umbrella is the Preserving Virtual Worlds Project.

Preserving Virtual Worlds

Spearheaded by the University of Illinois, the Preserving Virtual Worlds project is a 2-year program starting in 2008 that will hopefully build a model of game and interactive fiction archiving. In a partnership with Stanford University, University of Maryland, Rochester Institute of Technology, and one commercial institution—Second Life makers Linden Lab— University of Illinois hopes to create metadata standards to make content manageable before moving forward to create case studies (ie test examples) of actual video game archiving.

I sat with the University of Illinois faculty/Project Coordinator Janet Eke and Principal Investigator Jerry McDonough recently and talked more about Preserving Virtual Worlds over lattes.

"This project is really about how do we begin to preserve this type of content, answering some fundamental questions of how will we even begin to do this," explained Eke. "And what we will begin to preserve is a huge question that will certainly come along...but we're really starting with how."

It may all seem like a load of bureaucracy - all these committees, initiatives, grants, 2-year chunks of time, etc. And then on top of it all, those running the study claim that they are nowhere near being ready to archive video games. But there really are a multitude of problems that need to be sorted out before archives can move forward on a mass scale.

Take copyright, for example. While the Library worries less about copyright due to their relationship with the Copyright Office, organizations like the University of Illinois aren't granted immunity with products that show up at their door, despite partnerships with the Library.

"... if I own a physical copy of a piece of IP, I can dispose of it as I wish," McDonough explains. Aptly, he'd been (legally) streaming the BBC in HD just moments before on his Mac. "I can sell it, I can give it to somebody, but I can't copy it. Copyright is just that, you're not allowed to make a copy without the permission of an IP owner unless it's gone out of copyright."

And to archive, McDonough thinks that copying is an absolute necessity. Because while consoles should and will be preserved (somewhere in the chain of archiving), they probably won't provide the most practical way for users to experience and research content.

"Things on five and a half inch quarter...hardware is getting scarce and the medium has almost no longevity. The only way we can make sure the stuff stays alive is getting it on an active computer system with demons monitoring it that make sure were not suffering bit corruption," says McDonough.

It's a frustrating situation to be in, but the irony is not lost on us: Copyright is meant to protect an IP, but ultimately, that copyright may prevent researchers from saving a work from extinction. Microsoft once explained to me the difficulty of tracking down IP owners to reproduce their games as XBLA titles. Protip: If Microsoft can't find the source of an IP, nobody can.

The only way to solve copyright issues moving into the future is to bring commercial partners on board. Whether or not you like Linden Lab and their game (?) Second Life, there's no doubt that it makes for an excellent archival model for the project. On one hand, we get a case study of a library teaming up with a commercial venture. On the other, we get a model for MMO archiving, if such a thing is even possible.

Brenda Gunn can explain the significance of libraries partnering with commercial groups better than I, a mere blogger ever could. She's the Associate Director of Research & Collections at the UT Austin's Videogame Archive. She's not directly related to the Preserving Virtual Worlds project, but she's keeping an eye on the study because it's the hot topic right now in video game archiving.

"This is a significant point in that [LoC] is saying libraries and archives can't do this alone; the funding simply is not there...the level of ongoing support for this videogame archive will have a direct impact on the what level of access [we] can provide."

That's why at UT Austin they've teamed up with partners like NCSoft's Richard Garriot, FPS legend Warren Spector, or even "The Fat Man" himself, video game music legend George Sanger. According to Gunn, before such partners approached Austin, a game archive "wasn't on our radar at all."

Research libraries will absolutely need the support of commercial video game publishers to archive their work. Whether it's to help create metadata (companies provide information on everything from the engine they used to their plotline) or just supplying access to those precious IPs, the commercial aid is not an option, it's a necessity.

"If you're going to do any game preservation on a large scale, it has to happen with [commercial] help. If for no other reason, they control the IP. They don't give us the content, we can't preserve it," explains McDonough. "So the question is, do they have strong enough interest in preserving the content to contribute any of their own resources towards it. How much do they care about their own game alive?"

Shimmering Hope

We opened this feature with a bang. We told you that the war was won, that the governmental and academic library community was on gamers' side. And then we went into a list of reasons why archiving still wasn't ready to happen and scared you with words like "copyright" and catchy Wall Street slogans like "IP."

But trust us. If nobody cared, they wouldn't have all these headaches. The freaking Library of Congress is onboard. And this is a major, major win.

"Perfection, we don't know what that is," says Project Coordinator Eke. "You're striving to succeed, and that striving will define what it means to succeed..."

Hmm...it sounds like they get MMOs, at the very least.

[image source]

First Life Meets Second [Tuneup Talk via Game Politics]

Kunimasa Hamaoka, who oversees "meet-me" at digital marketing company Transcosmos Inc., is banking on the cultural differences between Japanese and Americans to compete against the world's top virtual community.

Japanese are so well-behaved and conformist, he says, they would prefer a more predictable and secure virtual environment over the free-spirited anything-goes of "Second Life," created by San Francisco-based Linden Lab ....

Hamaoka said he is determined to make "meet-me" a strictly Japanese hit, although foreign tourists are welcome visitors.

"This will be a place where people can enjoy themselves with a sense of safety — like Disneyland," he said. "There's total freedom to act in 'Second Life,' which requires individual responsibility. It's very American. Almost everything is OK, including evil."

Will meet-me become a media darling like Second Life? Let's hope not: one Second Life is more than enough for the whole of the world's mainstream media.

Subdued Virtual World for Japan [AP via Worlds In Motion] (AP Photo/Itsuo Inouye)

"When the user comes into the world, the items are described as well as their positions," explained Colm O'Brien, one of the team of four researchers who worked on the project.

"There is also sound attached - for example, if there's a tree nearby you will hear a rustling of leaves," said Mr O'Brien.

The work also developed tools which uses text to speech software that reads out any chat from fellow avatars in the virtual world that appears in a text box.

Characters in the virtual world can have a "sonar" attached to them so that the user gets audible cues to alert them to when they are approaching, from which direction and how near they are.

While the initial research was conducted in Ireland by students brought together for 12 weeks to work on problems posed by more senior researchers, IBM promises that the concepts "will be passed on to IBM's Human Ability and Accessibility Centre in Texas for further development."

Virtual worlds open up to blind [BBC News via Worlds In Motion]

The report says, "... a criminal enterprise could open several thousand MMOG accounts. Each could be used to trade with other players in the purchase or sale of in-game assets, the funds from which would ultimately be withdrawn from the accounts. Since thousands of accounts may engage in millions of transactions, each with small profits or losses, it would be difficult to trace the true source of the funds when they are withdrawn. These transactions can be conducted worldwide without the oversight that typically accompanies international bank remittances. In fact, in February 2007, China's central bank and finance ministries called upon companies to stop trading QQ coins and virtual currencies, presumably to curb the unregulated exchange of currency."

As if gold farming wasn't enough of a problem. I guess we can look forward to more official oversight in the grey area of virtual world transactions?

Second Life, WOW a target for money laundering [M-Net]