Players’ Realm anthology launched

Players' Realm coverPlayers’ Realm: Studies on the Culture of Videogames and Gaming which I’ve edited along with Patrick Williams has now been published. There’s info on the book’s own page and it is available at Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk and at other self-respecting book dealers.
I have a chapter in the book entitled Who Governs the Gamers? Political Power in Large Game Worlds which examines how classical debates of political theory relate to game worlds.

I’d like to thank everybody involved for their dedicated and professional attitude towards the project.

Playing racing games correlates with having accidents, from which we can conclude that…

Various media (e.g. The Herald) report how a German study has shown racing game players to be prone to reckless real-world driving.
Crucially, the researchers seem to have found a correlation between self-reported racing game use and self-reported accident frequency.

That is not a causal link.

There might exist such a causal link but the importance of the study is being overestimated.

Never ask the author

Birds who love cranesOK, I can understand why journalists like to interview famous people about their work. It looks nice on the CV.
But I’ve always thought that the least interesting articles or program segments tend to be those in which actors/directors/authors share their thoughts on their work. For instance, the BBC film review podcast that I listen to regularly looses all momentum whenever some director is invited into the studio to give synopses or even thoughts on film-making itself.

But why, you ask, have I not previously shared this important observation with you? Because I haven’t had a really good example. Till I heard this exceptional piece of cutting-edge film journalism in the Danish Broadcast Cooperation’s “Filmland”.

The journalist has sought out David Lynch who’s visiting Denmark. Lynch reveals how inside us there are deep oceans of creativity, and inspired by the rural surrounding, the reporter inquires:

Journalist: But are only humans able to access the great ocean within, or do birds go there as well?

To which, Lynch responds ponderously:

Lynch: I believe they do. I believe all the creatures flow with that to a certain degree. But it’s the human being, it’s the human being that’s built to dive within and experience that deepest level of life and unfold it and that’s the difference between the birds and a human being…

There’s some more stuff and then Lynch further reveals that:

Lynch: Now the birds they flow with nature and their songs probably have some fantastic vibration, but they go, I think, in a group. So a group of them will all go to sleep at the same time and they’re kind of ruled by a kind of a group soul I guess […] when you grow more consciousness you grow more bliss […]

But the reporter counters with a sharp

Journalist: Can’t the birds do that?

Lynch, however, remains unshakable:

Lynch: No, birds can’t get a technique. They may flow, they may be very very happy. But no…

Seriously, and laying all sarcasm aside, this is inane beyond all comparison. I won’t be able to watch a Lynch movie for years without hearing the twitter of birds flowing with nature.

Trouble in the off-world colonies

Rise of the clones
In the LA Times article Virtual loses its virtues, Alana Semuels makes interesting observations on social tension in Second Life. In particular she notes how old-timers feel a loss of control in the face of the massive influx of commercial interest. Early residents who have expressed their discomfort via virtual weaponry say that they

…don’t necessarily mind the new residents, but they want more influence in deciding the future of the virtual world. Most important, they want Linden Lab to allow voting on issues affecting their in-world experience.

Now, the tension between “original” inhabitants and new-comers is a common virtual world issue (and a first life one as well). It often results in an exodus of groups of discontents. But the tension is also interesting in terms of how future virtual world rivals will approach the issue of commercial use. Will SL competitors choose far less economically focused models or will they simply copy the SL format with improved features and graphics?

BTW, I reflected on social development in virtual worlds in my master thesis on The Architectures of Trust (chapter 2). Slightly dated in terms of virtual worlds, but perhaps not in terms of human nature :-)

Via Secondlife.dk