Comments on: Liveblogging From State of Play, NYC, Session 2 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2009/06/19/liveblogging-from-state-of-play-nyc-session-2/ Culture, Politics, Academia and Other Shiny Objects Mon, 23 Nov 2009 04:45:07 -0500 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.5 hourly 1 By: Senor_Feesherplein http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/2009/06/19/liveblogging-from-state-of-play-nyc-session-2/comment-page-1/#comment-6712 Senor_Feesherplein Fri, 19 Jun 2009 17:12:59 +0000 http://weblogs.swarthmore.edu/burke/?p=880#comment-6712 When we talk about second life we are really talking about our collective imaginations of the Metaverse as described in Snow Crash which is why Second Life consistently receives bashing and criticism. It is the ultimate example of the movie sucking vs the book. The medium and I refer to Second Life as a medium because I think each MMO represents a medium on its own is the failure. Second Life is like a cardboard cut out of Tahiti that you whiz by when passing a travel office on your way to work. Sure I would love to go there someday but I really need a reason to go because I don't have a lot of time. I hear from people who have gone and they swear by it and I'm sure ill get there some day. Now WoW which is a very successful medium is more like your local delicious pastry shop. Very easy to get to and even though going too often is hazardous, well I just cant help it. If anything governments, business, teachers should have been clamoring for Blizzard to create a large free area where people could experiment with the game environment based on their engine. The problem I see consistently on the user side is this desire to just be there in case its an effective marketing tool to advance a cause. Why are we continually obsessed with taking these wonderful worlds that are free from physics and thrusting existing product (like democracy, or law) into them and expecting something magical to happen. We should be using these worlds to unlearn what we have learned and allow entirely new social paradigms to emerge and treat them like experimental drugs in mice. Inject, maim, kill, succeed, implement. When we talk about second life we are really talking about our collective imaginations of the Metaverse as described in Snow Crash which is why Second Life consistently receives bashing and criticism. It is the ultimate example of the movie sucking vs the book.

The medium and I refer to Second Life as a medium because I think each MMO represents a medium on its own is the failure. Second Life is like a cardboard cut out of Tahiti that you whiz by when passing a travel office on your way to work. Sure I would love to go there someday but I really need a reason to go because I don’t have a lot of time. I hear from people who have gone and they swear by it and I’m sure ill get there some day. Now WoW which is a very successful medium is more like your local delicious pastry shop. Very easy to get to and even though going too often is hazardous, well I just cant help it.

If anything governments, business, teachers should have been clamoring for Blizzard to create a large free area where people could
experiment with the game environment based on their engine.

The problem I see consistently on the user side is this desire to just be there in case its an effective marketing tool to advance a cause. Why are we continually obsessed with taking these wonderful worlds that are free from physics and thrusting existing product (like democracy, or law) into them and expecting something magical to happen.

We should be using these worlds to unlearn what we have learned and allow entirely new social paradigms to emerge and treat them like experimental drugs in mice. Inject, maim, kill, succeed, implement.

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