[iDC] RE: An Inconvenient Youth and Second Life

Thu Mar 1 03:49:15 EST 2007

I have been reviewing computer games for the largest Swedish newspaper
(400.000 copies every day) since 1984, when the computers were Atari,
Commodore Amiga, Sinclair, Amstrad.
At that time there were some small European companies trying to make
themselves a spot, Infogrames, Cocktail Soft, Mindgames, Tati, it was
France, Spain, Germany and Sweden who created some small companies. (I
am explicitely taking out Japan because Japan is making games for
console, Nintendo, etc, but was never a big player in the PC games
market.)
Today the market is almost 100 procent owned by American companies who
have bought the European companies. It's one Arabic company in Syria,
Akkad media, who makes Under Ashes and Under Siege, the two only
Arabic made and Arabic produced computer games.
In Sweden we have only one company, Mindark, producing the online
world Project Enthropia, where the players can earn wages in real
money, a big changing in the online worlds economy. And the company
who makes Battlefield 1942 is Swedish but it produces it's games for
the American market and makes games for Warner Brothers and others.
The computer games has evolved in the same way than the film movies,
started with some young enthusiastic people making games in the
cellars and garages (Myst was produced in a garage, Tetris by a lonely
Russian mathematician who didn't earn revenue at all from Tetris, etc)
to the big productions of today, where huge studios and hundreds of
artists and programmers make the widespread games.
We don't have "indy games" yet, we should.
Ana

ps: online worlds, War of Worldcraft, Ultima Online, Everquest, Second
Life, are all produced and developed in the US. In Corea Lineage, the
highly popular online world, is produced and developed by Corean and
American engineers.

On 3/1/07, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Would be curious to any pointers confirming that the U.S. is responsible for
> almost 100% of computer games and online worlds ...
>
> Recently, someone mentioned something like 'most Africans are now connected
> with mobile phones'. I checked, it is only 10%.
>
> Michel Bauwens
>
>
>
> On 2/28/07, Ana Valdés <agora158 at gmail.com> wrote:
> > That's exact my point when I refered to my short experience in SL. I
> > think the US (where almost 100 procent of computer games and online
> > worlds are created) has a problem with the reproduction of the nuclear
> > family and the wishing of a kind of Barbie/Ken archetype where the
> > same house, the same furniture and the same tables and chairs are
> > copied or cloned.
> > In SL you can find hundreds of reproductions of Le Corbusier or of
> > Frank Lloyd Right, it's as the Sims (the popular computer game who is
> > the most clear "parent" of Second Life, has discovered architecture
> > and city planning.
> > When you have characters who fly what's the point making stairs or
> > walls? Or to design roads or motorways?
> > For me SL is a kind of perverse reproduction of life but without
> > death, sweat, smells or poverty.
> > In Everquest, the online game I usually played for several years, I
> > was playing a female avatar and  another player, a man playing another
> > female avatar, asked me to marry "him".
> > The marriage thing was a cool thing in EQ, where the weddings in the
> > game were attended by guests from the whole virtual world. I have
> > attended marriages between vampyres and elfs, centaurs and frogs.
> > We asked the "game masters" to come and marry us, it was Sony's
> > employees who acted as priests or civil servants and who performed the
> > ceremonies.
> > We got a letter, very polite, but they refused us the right to be
> > married, "two women avatars can't be married. It could upset a lot of
> > other players who could experience that as offensive".
> > We, Charles, my friend, and me, could not believe what we read. We
> > played as wizards and shamans, we fought demons and zombies, we lived
> > in a fantasy world where magic and phantasy played an enormous roll.
> > Did they mean that two female avatars were "not natural", but all the
> > other stuff was it???
> > We argued with them for months and we dropped the idea, but it
> > strenghtened my these about online worlds as very conservative and
> > oldfashioned.
> > Ana
> >
> > ps. the description of the marriage it's a bit of my research about
> > Gender in the Online Games, I am writing a book which it's going to be
> > released in this Spring, sadly, only in Swedish and Spanish for the
> > moment.
> >
> > On 2/27/07, Brooke Knight <brooke_knight at emerson.edu> wrote:
> > > Hi all:
> > >
> > > I'm an inveterate lurker on the list, but I have to pick up on Steven's
> > > comment a few days ago about how he gave a lecture about SL, both in the
> > > "real" world and the "virtual" world of Second Life.  We here at Emerson
> > > College are currently engaged in the same thing -- as it is opening up
> as an
> > > educational space.  We have students cranking away at building what are
> > > essentially avatars of our buildings.  In fact, we have an event
> tomorrow,
> > > where both Trebor and Ulises will be speaking at Emerson and on Second
> Life,
> > > on the Emerson College Island, Emerson Island (145, 109, 23).  Come by
> at 7
> > > eastern and see if it works.
> > >
> > > In this case, it will be inside the Bordy Theater on the island.  In the
> > > "real" world (I've never been comfortable with the distinction), the
> Bordy
> > > Theater is inside of a building alongside other buildings of the same
> height
> > > and size.  On Emerson Island, It stands out as one of the only objects
> > > there.
> > >
> > > So, I ask -- why is it that there seems to be a need to reproduce items
> that
> > > already exist? Is a replica of a real-world place the best way to convey
> a
> > > message, even if it doesn't work in SL?  How is that message different
> in
> > > SL?
> > >
> > > I'm just worried that we continue to experience the tyranny of the
> metaphor,
> > > as we have so many times in digital media.
> > >
> > > Best,
> > >
> > > Brooke
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > Brooke A. Knight
> > >
> > > Assistant Professor of New Media
> > >
> > > Department of Visual and Media Arts
> > >
> > > Emerson College
> > >
> > > 617-824-8760
> > >
> > > brooke_knight at emerson.edu
> > >
> > > www.brookeknight.com
> > >
> > >
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> >
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> >
> >
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> >
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>
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-- 
Skarpnäcks Allé 45 ll tr
12833 Skarpnäck
Sweden
tel +468-943288
mobil 4670-3213370

"When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth
with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you
will always long to return.
— Leonardo da Vinci