Week 9: 2.5 All the world's a game: virtual worlds, interactivity, convergence
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Summary from class lecture:
- movie industry & media connection
- virtual world & real world
- impossible to switch off digital world
- distinctive => senseless
- curiosity
- significant aspect of digital media & culture
- expresses both existing & newly emerging possibility
- negative & positive
- politically, economically, socially, culturally
- Why the film industry involved in the game industry
- World of Warcraft (WoW)
- 11.5 million paying subscribers
- pay US$14.95 every month
- Plus: books, music, clothing, board games, calenders, card games, etc
- computer games is not just a computer games, it is more than that
- think of the production
- Fans
- Examples: the guilds, 'do you wanna date my avatar', south park, exhibition, video, remediation
- Games stay 'alive'
- we are not in Kansas anymore
- commercial product
- consumed worldwide
- exploited worldwide
- WoW - MMOs
- large scale
- mostly made by man ( 90-95%)
- born out of Richard Bartle's MUD 1
- Life in the MMO
- MMO is obviously a construct
- rules enable the action and relations
- rules govern behavior
- open design: eg.Second Life, Project Entropia
- closed design: eg. Wow, EverQuest
- both designs enable different actions and experiences
- on economic, ownership and gameplay - different designs different ideas
- key issues: commercialisation of the game and commodification of information
- Who owns the information
- Different designs explore/ enable different ideas
- Why keep a design closed?
- maintaining the game's economy
- maintaining the player experience
- perception of fairness
- inflation and deflation
- these economics are constructs
- and their black markets can be big money
- scarcity in game - senseless
- value too therefore is constructive
- in the digital world, time = money
- gold farming - buying time
- distinction between actual & virtual money
- The use of 'Bots'
- Impacts
- griefplay
- minor
- murder
- marriage
- addiction
- crime
- child labour
- global inequity
- discrimination
- Korea online game industry is huge
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