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Game week at Orange Island
Orange Island (home of French global telecommunications franchise, Orange) is hosting a week of gaming and game-related events and discussions in Second Life this coming week, including (of course) some games. Starting Monday, 26 May on Orange Island, there's a packed schedule of events. Some particularly not-to-be-missed sessions include An Overview of Games in Second Life by the redoubtable Onder Skall at 11AM Monday, 26 May; Second Life as a Gaming Platform : challenges & opportunities, moderated by our very own Akela Talamasca at Noon Tuesday, 27 May; Midgar & World of Hogwarts with Luthien Biziou at 1:30PM Tuesday, 27 May; Roleplaying in SL moderated by Fab Outlander. All times are in SLT (US Pacific time). There's plenty for gaming aficionados of all stripes from video game music covers and jousting to an arcade gaming and an art display.
Ted Castronova needs a female dwarf, stat!
The inestimable Caleb Booker brings to our attention that economist Ted Castronova, author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games, will be speaking at the Monday, November 19th Metanomics session in Second Life. What's more, Mr. Castronova has requested "make me a dwarf female, high fantasy style."While we're sure he means 'create for me a high fantasy-style dwarf female', rather than making a dwarf female utilizing a high fantasy method, we know you guys are up to the challenge. If you can do this quickly, go ahead and send your creation to Onder Skall in SL, and if yours is chosen, you'll get special thanks during the event and on the Metaversed.com site. And we'll put up a photo of your dwarf right here on Massively! Get crackin', troops, time's a-wastin'![Thanks, Caleb!]
The Linden dollar - every bit as fake as the US dollar
Caleb Booker (better known as Onder Skall) reports on this week's Metanomics session in Second Life. For those of you who came in late, Metanomics (sponsored by our friends over at Metaversed.com) seeks to study how economies work (or sometimes don't work) in virtual worlds and MMOs, how they develop and how people interact with them. A virtual world economy is a capsule microcosm full of lessons about real economies.
Stretching the metaphor - the world and the economy
A metaphor is an analogy which is intended to assist in our understanding of something by indicating points of similarity between them. Our virtual worlds are all metaphors to one degree or another. Many artificial constructs are. The problem with metaphors is that they're generally not readily reversible, and it's far too easy to get caught up in them and stretch them far too far.
