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Article of interest (Community)
Article of interest // CommunitybrantMay 25, 2004, 2:11pm
Some people occassionally post articles that are of interest to the
community, so I thought that the following article might be interesting to some: http://www.walrusmagazine.com/article.pl?sid=04/05/06/1929205&tid=1 Note the companies that are referenced about a quarter way through the article. -Brant builderzMay 25, 2004, 5:16pm
Nice find, Brant. Some comments:
1) The article just drives home the point I keep making -- AW is virtually (no pun intended) unknown to the online and offline media/press. I saw EQ, There, Second life and The Sims mentioned in the article, but no AW. AW needs to revamp http://www.activeworlds.com/info/press.asp and at least make a press release when 3.6 comes out and hype up the streaming support. How hard is it to hire someone on a site such as eLance to make you a press release, AWI? I want to see some PR action from Newburyport! 2) "A study by the game academic Nick Yee found that male players 'cross-dress' as female characters at least one-third of the time." Hmm... Now who does that remind you of? Someone here in the newsgroups? No, I must be imagining things... 3) "The U.S. military has already licensed a private chunk of There and created a simulation of the planet on it." I mentioned this a few days ago in another post. Builderz http://www.3dhost.net alaskanshadowMay 25, 2004, 7:27pm
I think this is the part Brant wanted to point out:
Virtual worlds have produced some surreal rags-to-riches stories. When the on-line world Second Life launched, the players were impressed to see a female avatar industriously building a sprawling monster home. An in-game neighbour stopped by to say hello only to discover she was a homeless person in British Columbia, logging on using her single remaining possession, a laptop. Penniless in the real world, she belonged to a social elite in the fake one. Not all social inequities are absent, of course. For instance, Castronova discovered that women in the game are worth less than men, in a very measurable way: when he compared the sale of male and female avatars, he found than female characters sold for 10 percent less than male ones at precisely the same power level. Players with female avatars also say it's harder to advance in the game, at least initially - even though the female characters are often being played, in real life, by men. (A study by the game academic Nick Yee found that male players "cross-dress" as female characters at least one-third of the time.) Men play as women characters partly for the kinky thrill, but also because female characters are given random presents of free stuff by other players, a chivalric custom known as "gifting." "Personally, you receive a lot more stuff when you start out as a female," as one male cross-dresser wrote to Yee. [View Quote] rossyboyMay 25, 2004, 11:43pm
So in other words Second Life is a red light district? o_O
[View Quote] > I think this is the part Brant wanted to point out: > > Virtual worlds have produced some surreal rags-to-riches stories. When the > on-line world Second Life launched, the players were impressed to see a > female avatar industriously building a sprawling monster home. An in-game > neighbour stopped by to say hello only to discover she was a homeless person > in British Columbia, logging on using her single remaining possession, a > laptop. Penniless in the real world, she belonged to a social elite in the > fake one. > > Not all social inequities are absent, of course. For instance, Castronova > discovered that women in the game are worth less than men, in a very > measurable way: when he compared the sale of male and female avatars, he > found than female characters sold for 10 percent less than male ones at > precisely the same power level. Players with female avatars also say it's > harder to advance in the game, at least initially - even though the female > characters are often being played, in real life, by men. (A study by the > game academic Nick Yee found that male players "cross-dress" as female > characters at least one-third of the time.) Men play as women characters > partly for the kinky thrill, but also because female characters are given > random presents of free stuff by other players, a chivalric custom known as > "gifting." "Personally, you receive a lot more stuff when you start out as a > female," as one male cross-dresser wrote to Yee. > [View Quote] brantJun 3, 2004, 7:37pm
Another article of interest:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/TECH/fun.games/06/03/column.livewire.reut/index.html -Brant [View Quote] builderzJun 3, 2004, 8:24pm
Maybe AWI should start its own virtual currency...
Builderz http://www.3dhost.net |