<div>Would be curious to any pointers confirming that the U.S. is responsible for almost 100% of computer games and online worlds ...</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Recently, someone mentioned something like 'most Africans are now connected with mobile phones'. I checked, it is only 10%.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Michel Bauwens<br><br> </div>
<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/28/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Ana Valdés</b> <<a href="mailto:agora158@gmail.com">agora158@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">That's exact my point when I refered to my short experience in SL. I<br>think the US (where almost 100 procent of computer games and online
<br>worlds are created) has a problem with the reproduction of the nuclear<br>family and the wishing of a kind of Barbie/Ken archetype where the<br>same house, the same furniture and the same tables and chairs are<br>copied or cloned.
<br>In SL you can find hundreds of reproductions of Le Corbusier or of<br>Frank Lloyd Right, it's as the Sims (the popular computer game who is<br>the most clear "parent" of Second Life, has discovered architecture
<br>and city planning.<br>When you have characters who fly what's the point making stairs or<br>walls? Or to design roads or motorways?<br>For me SL is a kind of perverse reproduction of life but without<br>death, sweat, smells or poverty.
<br>In Everquest, the online game I usually played for several years, I<br>was playing a female avatar and another player, a man playing another<br>female avatar, asked me to marry "him".<br>The marriage thing was a cool thing in EQ, where the weddings in the
<br>game were attended by guests from the whole virtual world. I have<br>attended marriages between vampyres and elfs, centaurs and frogs.<br>We asked the "game masters" to come and marry us, it was Sony's<br>
employees who acted as priests or civil servants and who performed the<br>ceremonies.<br>We got a letter, very polite, but they refused us the right to be<br>married, "two women avatars can't be married. It could upset a lot of
<br>other players who could experience that as offensive".<br>We, Charles, my friend, and me, could not believe what we read. We<br>played as wizards and shamans, we fought demons and zombies, we lived<br>in a fantasy world where magic and phantasy played an enormous roll.
<br>Did they mean that two female avatars were "not natural", but all the<br>other stuff was it???<br>We argued with them for months and we dropped the idea, but it<br>strenghtened my these about online worlds as very conservative and
<br>oldfashioned.<br>Ana<br><br>ps. the description of the marriage it's a bit of my research about<br>Gender in the Online Games, I am writing a book which it's going to be<br>released in this Spring, sadly, only in Swedish and Spanish for the
<br>moment.<br><br>On 2/27/07, Brooke Knight <<a href="mailto:brooke_knight@emerson.edu">brooke_knight@emerson.edu</a>> wrote:<br>> Hi all:<br>><br>> I'm an inveterate lurker on the list, but I have to pick up on Steven's
<br>> comment a few days ago about how he gave a lecture about SL, both in the<br>> "real" world and the "virtual" world of Second Life. We here at Emerson<br>> College are currently engaged in the same thing -- as it is opening up as an
<br>> educational space. We have students cranking away at building what are<br>> essentially avatars of our buildings. In fact, we have an event tomorrow,<br>> where both Trebor and Ulises will be speaking at Emerson and on Second Life,
<br>> on the Emerson College Island, Emerson Island (145, 109, 23). Come by at 7<br>> eastern and see if it works.<br>><br>> In this case, it will be inside the Bordy Theater on the island. In the<br>> "real" world (I've never been comfortable with the distinction), the Bordy
<br>> Theater is inside of a building alongside other buildings of the same height<br>> and size. On Emerson Island, It stands out as one of the only objects<br>> there.<br>><br>> So, I ask -- why is it that there seems to be a need to reproduce items that
<br>> already exist? Is a replica of a real-world place the best way to convey a<br>> message, even if it doesn't work in SL? How is that message different in<br>> SL?<br>><br>> I'm just worried that we continue to experience the tyranny of the metaphor,
<br>> as we have so many times in digital media.<br>><br>> Best,<br>><br>> Brooke<br>><br>><br>><br>> Brooke A. Knight<br>><br>> Assistant Professor of New Media<br>><br>> Department of Visual and Media Arts
<br>><br>> Emerson College<br>><br>> 617-824-8760<br>><br>> <a href="mailto:brooke_knight@emerson.edu">brooke_knight@emerson.edu</a><br>><br>> <a href="http://www.brookeknight.com">www.brookeknight.com
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