Posts Tagged: virtual worlds

1. Will virtual worlds become even more advanced in the future? Will they incorporate social networking and will we be able to create our own avatars that look like us and have all of our information?

I think that virtual worlds will progressively become more advanced as our technology becomes more advanced. It is just a matter of time before social networking plays a big role in virtual worlds. In the future, I can see virtual worlds becoming so advanced, that it is like being in the real world. My fear is that people will take it that way. They will get so wrapped up in the virtual worlds that they forget to live their real lives. Could this lead to social problems and complications?

2. Could virtual worlds be a new way of advertising for companies with product placement? (i.e. Second Life)

I think that in the future advertising will take new ventures to promote their products. For example, social networking (i.e. Facebook) is already allowing companies to advertise in the side bars of the webpage. It is only a matter of time before the virtual worlds included advertising as well. For example, Coca-Cola could place coke cans throughout the virtual world as product placement. Of course the users are going to see the Coke can and that is further advertising for them.

3. Could there be privacy concerns, along with ethical concerns, with virtual worlds?

I am fearful that privacy is going to be a major issue in the future of Internet usage and gaming. I am already afraid to put any information about myself of social networking sites or the Internet in general. Virtual worlds will just be another place for the chance of identity theft, etc. I am also fearful that bullying could be a major concern with virtual worlds. Many issues could arise; however, I hope there are moderators that can help keep these incidences to a minimum.

These were the questions that I had for the articles this week:

1. In the virtual worlds journal article, the study focuses on the different shopping experiences tried by various companies in Second Life. A lot of the articles we have read over this semester have focused on various strategies businesses have tried to make a profit from these new realities. My question is, what other experiences are being replicated in the virtual realm and what effects will this have on the experience of humanity over time?

2. Over the course of human history, humans have been over coming barriers of all sorts; geographical, intellectual, economical, etc. Regarding our desire as humans to interact with one another, it seems like all we are missing is a way to instantly transport our physical bodies to anywhere in the world. From the articles and the videos we have watched, it is clear that in substitute of teleporters people are using virtual worlds as a common ground that everyone has instant access to (depending on their connection speed). Should this meeting in a virtual forum be replicated in the “real” world, would we see similar interactions?

3. One thing made clear in the article on virtual world ethics is that when dealing in cyberspace as in real-space there will be vandals to deal with; in this case hackers. More and more, various aspects of our lives are appearing online. Therefore, are we going to need to add some of the counter aspects to the cyber world and could those possibly be the jobs of the future? For example, creating a cyber police force to “arrest” hackers?

Like many weeks, I feel that my questions were not greatly touched on, but that could be because the types of questions I ask seem to be on topics that we do not have a chance to cover in class.  I can try to answer my first and third questions though. In class, we spoke of Chinese online “gold farmers” who essentially are paid to grind through games and obtain high demand items to sell to other players. While this example does not take place solely inside the virtual worlds, it is a replication of hiring people to do the grunt work so that others can benefit. Ethics aside, the gold digger job reflects the transformations taking place regarding possible jobs for the future. If we as a society are going to center more and more of our lives around technology, then we will need unskilled jobs as well as skilled jobs for people to do. Perhaps instead of trying to directly translate jobs to cyberspace we should be stripping jobs down to a basic category such as skilled, unskilled, or grunt work and see what facets of society will require such jobs.

A slightly random thought: during class we watched a video of someone creating an object for Second Life. Just about anyone can do it or could figure out how to do it similar to how people of various skills create websites. One only needs so many people in order to maintain a site and arguably this theory could translate to those who create Second Life objects or just virtual world objects in general. The only flaw with utilizing these virtual worlds as a method of obtaining an income though is it is only feasible if the site continues. I do wonder if it is not the time to start figuring out how to add some regulation type institutions into some of these worlds. I could easily see a panic if too many people stake their livelihood on a virtual world only to lose everything in one day and not receive anything for it…very similar to the Great Depression.  It will be interesting to see where this will end up in 5 or 10 years.

You know, if this were more of a philosophy class, I could write on about how we all live “virtual worlds,” so to speak. But rather than get bogged down in discussing existentialism in an interactive media class, I think I’d like to speak about how virtual worlds aren’t as weird as we might initially speak. The key is in how we define “virtual worlds.” While Warcraft and Second Life are obvious answers, I think there are non-digital virtual worlds that get overlooked. To me, anyone who’s ever spent time reading a great book, or lost themselves in film, could be said to have spent some time in a virtual world. In my opinion, any deviation from direct human-to-human interaction could be considered a virtual world. Any flight of imagination, or narrative indulgence, brings a person to a different plane of existence that separates them from our traditional world. Whoops, I guess I couldn’t stop the Kierkegaard in me from getting out.

With this broader definition, I think we can analyze a lot of benefits to spending times in virtual worlds. While the documentary we watched seemed to focus exclusively on the negative aspects, such as addiction, associated with digital virtual worlds, they seemed to ignore any possible positive effect. Like almost anything on Earth, there are those who become addicted to virtual worlds. While I will not argue that this is not an issue, it is far from outweighing benefits of virtual worlds. Addiction is a personal problem, not a social one. Blame the player, not the game.

The primary value of virtual worlds, as I use them, is through entertainment. Whether through narratology or ludology, these worlds offer the user to escape from frustrations of every day life. You can battle a dragon, interact with users around the world, or simply observe the story of anyone imaginable. This escape, however, is what primarily feeds the aforementioned addiction. Its easy to get lost in a world that can gives players unparalleled power with (relatively) no real-world consequences. Like everything in life, moderation is the answer. And while entertainment may be considered trivial by many, virtual worlds offer a cathartic effect to relieve the tensions of everyday life.

But that isn’t always the case.  As almost any gamer would tell you, games are about challenge almost as much as entertainment. Many virtual worlds challenge players to solve problems. In presenting these challenges in a consequence-free environment, games in virtual worlds are an excellent way of pushing a player’s thought process and problem solving skills.

While virtual worlds do present many issues in regards to addiction and social isolation, there are almost many benefits, entertainment and puzzles among them. And in regards to more open-ended worlds like Second Life, these worlds allow users to experience social interaction in an entirely new and thought-provoking way. Just because they’re different from traditional communication modalities, doesn’t mean they’re invalid. The more diversity we can bring to life, whether through in a real or virtual world, the better.

I enjoyed our discussion this week about the continually evolving area of online virtual worlds. I think that it is amazing that we have come from the simple text-based virtual world games where the user types in commands like “k rover” to the sprawling fantasy worlds of World of Warcraft and Lineage. I think that these virual environments are currently only used by a particular albeit large demographic of users. I think that we still have a way to go before we have a Second Life-like virtual world that is as widely used as a social network like Facebook. In response to the questions I posted earlier this week, I came up with the following.

1. The free virtual world program, Second Life, was supposed to be the next big thing for advertisers desperate to break out of the mold. However, the buzz has died down as it has become apparent that the Second Life user base was not growing the way it was first projected too. What is the future of advertising in virtual worlds? Have advertisers found more success in non-MMORPG games such as Madden or Nascar console games?

Second Life was not exactly the behemoth that many advertisers thought it was going to be. However, it would be foolish to rule out virtual world advertising this early in the game. We have seen the massive numbers of users on games like World of Warcraft and additionally there are many other gamers utilizing other console games online. I feel that many advertisers have found effective ways to place ads in games such as promoting new music in Madden or putting a Coke ad on the side of a Nascar race track. There are also businesses who take it a step further and create virtual stores in games like Second Life where users can buy both virtual and real products. I commend the businesses who take the risk and try these new techniques. I think that this area will only continue to grow as more and more people get into gaming. We now see people of more diverse backgrounds (more female and older gamers) and this creates more opportunities for advertising in-game. I also believe that Second Life may evolve into something new or perhaps there will be a rival upstart that takes it place and becomes the Facebook of virtual worlds. If this happens, the advertising potential is limitless.

2. Will we ever see a virtual world game (like Second Life) that appeals to a much wider and diverse audience than these programs have in the past? What changes will have to be made and what benefits will have to be added to a virtual world program to make more people want to utilize it?

I do think that there will eventually be a virtual world program that appeals to a much wider audience. Although it hosts millions of users, World of Warcraft has a very specific audience of hardcore gamers. Second Life seems to appeal to a wider audience but it still has a long way to go in terms of users. I think that to gain more users, Second Life (or an upstart rival) would have to create a very easy to use interface and a much more social network-like experience. They need to make it simple for users to whip out a virtual photo album and show off Facebook photos in game. Or perhaps they can make it easy to swap contact information with digital business cards and create more virtual networking events. The creators need to think about what makes social networks so appealing and take those things to the next level in a virtual environment.

After the discussion on the emergence of particular types of games and in general the emergence of the virtual world, it can be said the virtual world takes the place of a “real” world for many people, or does it? By the 1980’s, some social MUD’s focused on a social aspect and for a text based game, that could be difficult to convey but when the shift from MUD’s to Massively Multi-player games, it was evident that the growth of the virtual world would expand to many walks of life. The introduction of graphical games has contributed to physically seeing what they could not before and as human beings, seeing is believing. The popularity of World of Warcraft is an example of this visualization emergence because in our society, war is a prominent issue that is discussed in the news. Nonetheless, I do not believe World of Warcraft correlates to the war our country is currently fighting, it provides a path and opportunity to know and understand war. I have never played this game so I am not going to speak on its behalf when it comes to the emotion it conveys but just the title provides some what of an interesting visual stimulus.

In our reading for Monday, the authors state it is “shared interests that provide a reason for people to come together on the internet, while networks of practice provide the technological means to share and create practices,” could this be a definition of media convergence and how the virtual world has contributed in many ways to the perceptions of reality? I think the virtual world has undoubtedly contributed to the “idea” or concept of media convergence. I think what the author said is a great way to describe the design process of certain video game types. The shared interests of the users is imperative but who is designing the technology is imperative as well. The games are carefully analyzed, studied, played, scored, rated, etc before they even hit the market. Why this false reality people?

My second question was: are the visual mediums that provide a sense of place, space and physiological embodiment only hindering users from experiencing actual reality because users find comfort in their own home from the “real life” virtual world they see on a computer screen or television?

I think there are some cases where many people find comfort in a game and facing everyday life becomes a chore and a task. These extreme cases hinder the individual from interacting through interpersonal , face-face communication which many psychologists say contribute to a healthier professional atmosphere. I am not saying it is necessarily unhealthy to play these games but it walks a fine line when it comes to actually helping with communication growth but yet again, or does it? I also think this is a tough area to study and study effectively because there are some things that games contribute positively but does the bad outweigh the good here? Addiction to technology is becoming the fastest growing illness in todays era and although technology is a broad term, the virtual world is a large chunk of that term.

3. Due to the virtual world, is there a separation from imagination and reality anymore? Are these games “just games” anymore? I do not think these games are “just” games nowadays. There has been an increase in crimes of passion relating to virtual worlds and there is little separation between reality and imagination. These games are consuming the lives of people of all ages and it’s not letting up. The popularity of these crime games has seen an all time high during the past few years and when will it stop or when will there be another route established in relation to this issue? There are many things involved with the virtual world that makes it hard to fix the problem. It is a worldwide phenomenon and I do not see any deviance in the future.

Prior to discussing the many issues tied to virtual worlds, I posed some questions about the relevance of these virtual worlds to the professional world of the future. While it’s interesting to speculate the potential pros that virtual worlds have to offer the workplaces of tomorrow, I think an even more pressing issue is the impact of virtual worlds on our present society. Programs such as SecondLife failed to revolutionize the interactive entertainment industry to the degree that many predicted. Still, these virtual worlds have had an undeniable impact on a significant number of lives.

I keep returning to the video clip we watched in class, in which a mother and her teenage son were featured in a “virtual world addiction” spotlight. The teenage son admitted to playing World of Warcraft up to 16 hours a day (16 hours?!) Virtual gaming addiction is a harsh reality among virtual world participants. This isolated anecdote certainly reflects an issue that affects a larger population, and highlights many underlying issues surrounding the realm of virtual worlds. Initially, you want to write off this addicted teen as an isolated member of society, as he spends the entirety of his day sitting in front of the computer screen. He is even so engulfed in his alternative world that he fails to raise his eyes from the screen throughout the entirety of the interview. Every sign points to an isolated member of society. Yet, when asked about this point, he says he doesn’t feel like he is missing out on life because his virtual world allows him to “explore new places” and “meet new people.” Touché. Along with the prevalence of “exploration” and “friending” within social networks, is our society slowly moving towards a preference of online, virtual interaction? To play devil’s advocate, maybe those who choose to spend the majority of their lives within their virtual worlds are really no different than those who have never touched a video game or computer in their lives.

It’s issues such as this that bring me back to a point Derek made in class: we have to look at these issues beyond what we see on the surface, in order to recognize that they are much more complex than we may think. On the surface, video game addicts are easily labeled as “lazy” or “anti-social” or “geeks.” But perhaps the constant interaction with other players around the world, and the exploration of new (virtual) places makes these participants even less isolated than the truly isolated members of society who practice no form of social interaction whatsoever. Regardless, the level of engagement of virtual worlds, though still difficult for me to relate to, could point to a very real form of human interaction.

1. There is often criticism and backlash toward people who spend a great deal of time on sites like WoW or Second Life. But what positive things have emerged out of such virtual worlds? Are there social benefits to experimenting in the online world?

2. The Papagiannidis and Bourlakis article discusses the ways in which virtual world members can customize their retail transactions to meet their specific needs. Is it possible that there will come a time when we expect this in the “real world” as a result of what is available in the online world?

3. Should we be concerned with the people that participate in illegal activities like pedophilia and violence in online realms? Does that mean they are more likely to do those things in real life?

1. The authors state it is “shared interests that provide a reason for people to come together on the internet, while networks of practice provide the technological means to share and create practices,” could this be a definition of media convergence and how the virtual world has contributed in many ways to the perceptions of reality?

2. Are the visual mediums that provide a sense of place, space and physiological embodiment only hindering users from experiencing actual reality because users find comfort in their own home from the “real life” virtual world they see on a computer screen or television?

3. Due to the virtual world, is there a separation from imagination and reality anymore? Are these games “just games” anymore?

I am really interested in the topic of virtual worlds. In recent years, with the rise of World of Warcraft and Second Life, we have seen a greater advancement in the environments themselves that have allowed for greater immersion of the user. Some of the questions that I have for this week are:

1. The free virtual world program, Second Life, was supposed to be the next big thing for advertisers desperate to break out of the mold. However, the buzz has died down as it has become apparent that the Second Life user base was not growing the way it was first projected too. What is the future of advertising in virtual worlds? Have advertisers found more success in non-MMORPG games such as Madden or Nascar console games?

2. Will we ever see a virtual world game (like Second Life) that appeals to a much wider and diverse audience than these programs have in the past? What changes will have to be made and what benefits will have to be added to a virtual world program to make more people want to utilize it?

These are the questions I would like to frame this week’s readings around:

1. What exactly are virtual reality worlds? And what makes them different from digital environments and even video games?
2. What are the ethical dilemmas and pros/cons of virtual reality worlds?
3. How are virtual worlds affecting and changing interactive media? Have the effects of virtual worlds been a positive change for interactive media?