MBI Holodeck

Go back to part 2 here | for references - see here
This section wants to summarize some typical issues concerning ethic problems during an ethnographic research in general. As discussed previously, the main tool set of ethnography are participative observation and ethnographic interviews, supplemented by various other methods, which reveal very personal information of our informants [...]

Go back to part 1 here | for references - see here
As shown in the first section, synthetic worlds offer a very actual and interesting research arena for socio-cultural sciences. In this sense, ethnography is one possibility to gather qualitative research data, as described by Geertz (1973): a socio-cultural fact must be embedded in a [...]

Go back to the paper abstract here | for references - see here
In this first section, this article will outline the current research that is conducted in synthetic worlds. As it shows, many of them are situated in the frame of socio-cultural sciences. The presented works does not include all works in this field, but [...]

by Marek Buzinkay and Dr. David Moore, Leeds Metropolitan University
Abstract
This paper discusses ethical considerations regarding ethnographic research in synthetic worlds. The main question is what kind of ethical approaches do researchers apply when they investigate social artifacts and behavior of players and/or their avatars in so-called virtual or synthetic worlds.
This paper shows that, besides some [...]

Gameular is an amazing platform of video-based game reviews, from community members for community members. The videos varies of course in quality and type, but almost all seem to include real game play. And this gives you a good idea what the game is about and how good it probably is.

[Technorati Tags: game review]

That is an interesting conclusion of a study released by the PEW institute. There is a difference among the age, but still individuals over 65 years do gaming. Computers are the most preferred devices among mobile phones, game consoles and others. Less than 5% have created an avatar yet, so MMORPGs and virtual worlds users [...]

A notice on Techcrunch said: “Google Kills Lively” Well, that’s says almost all about the state of 3D virtual worlds. This is not a bad sign at all, but a misjudgment from Google’s side - Second Life & Co would be easily put under pressure through Lively. But this was - obviously - not the [...]

A succesful example how payment methods can change a complete MMORPG is Kingsisle and its game Wizard101. The spell-casting role playing game became drastically more popular, after some parts of the game went free for use. If users wanted to unlock certain functions, small amounts like 1 US$ were transfered via micro-payment functionality. The amount [...]

LiveGamer is a trading place for virtual goods - that means you can buy and sell your virtual goods for hard cash or virtual currency. Gamers have the possibility to trade goods either on black markets (most of the at places like eBay, and very often against the EULAs of the specific game) or to [...]

During this year’ conference in Maastricht, “ePortfolio & Digital Identity” I had the opportunity to present my concept of an avatar ePortfolio (see here). It’s a work in progress so far, nevertheless I thought that it could help to communicate my ideas of an ePortfolio to the community of ePortfolio experts. Indeed, the presentation triggered [...]