1. News.com.au (Australia) – Michael Jackson inspiration for new MMO game. “THE estate of late superstar Michael Jackson has entered a licensing deal to crate a massively-multiplayer online game (MMO) where dancing will be the main weapon.
Unlike many MMOs, which place an emphasis on combat, “Planet Michael” will stay true to Jackson’s claim that he was a lover, not a fighter. “Because Michael Jackson was very much a pacifist and into healing and creativity, our focus isn’t on violence,” said Josh Gordon of game publisher SEE Virtual Worlds. “There won’t be guns in this world or things like that. It’ll tend to use music and dance and more creative ways to navigate through the world.” In the game, dance moves will act like spells as shuffles and jigs are strung together to take the enemy down — and it most certainly won’t be wolves and orcs at the receiving end of a fleet-footed pummeling.”

2. The Press Association (UK) – ‘Virtual worlds’ work up for award. “University of Ulster researchers using “virtual worlds” to train the next generation of students have been nominated for a top UK teaching award, it has been revealed. The team at the university’s Magee campus in Londonderry has been shortlisted for a prestigious Times Higher Education Award for their contribution to information and communications technologies. Formed three years ago, the Serious Games and Virtual Worlds team (SGVW) is quickly gaining an international reputation for cutting-edge innovation in a new and constantly evolving field. Video game technology is maturing and becoming a serious educational tool, with Ulster and many universities using “Second Life” and other virtual world platforms as teaching and learning aids.”

3. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Crisp Thinking Signs Eight New Partner. “Crisp Thinking has signed eight new deals to bring NetModerator software into top youth-oriented MMOs and virtual worlds. Crisp Thinking’s new clients are Ubisoft, Electronic Arts, the LEGO Group, Kidzbop, Sweety High, Vizwoz, Bin Weevils, and WeeWorld. Crisp Thinking attributes the new deals to a rise in the popularity of social and online gaming. “As online social gaming and interacting have become part of our daily lives, Crisp has emerged as an essential tool for online businesses in the social space. More than 84 million young people around the world upload and download content every day. Socialising via web and mobile technology is part of our daily routine – it’s how we communicate,” said Adam Hildreth, CEO of Crisp Thinking, in a press statement.”

4. The Guardian (UK) – Coins of the online realm. “It used to be that a gold star earned in your favourite video game wouldn’t be worth much in your local supermarket. But that’s changing. There is a thriving economy in valuables like virtual swords and spaceships in online gaming. And Facebook recently released a currency system with which you can purchase services in online games and applications. The growth of these social networks is edging us closer to a structure that bridges the real and virtual worlds. The more these social networks connect with viable online financial systems, the more anyone on the planet can provide knowledge labour based on his or her ability. The resulting meritocratic economy erodes the geographical inequality between the first world and the third world – and simultaneously enables copious criminal enterprise. So far, the most nefarious use of this development has been money laundering. A criminal in one country anonymously buys a game card worth an hour of play and uses it to pick up a load of virtual goods from another character in an online game such as World of Warcraft.”

5. Forbes (USA) – 3-D Avatars Get Their Own Farmvilles In IMVU. “Talk about a game within a game. IMVU, an online community where members interact with each other through 3-D avatars, on Tuesday said that it has launched the first slew of social games in its world. Members can now play more than 75 social and casual games, like fashion game Top Modelz, provided by partnering game developers Viximo, Heyzap and Omgpop. IMVU chief executive Cary Rosenzweig sees this not as a mere feature add, but an entire re-branding and re-positioning of the company. “We no longer call ourselves a virtual world,” Rosenzweig says. “We are a social entertainment company.”

6. BusinessWeek (USA) – Sony’s Wii Avatar. “The living room workout has come a long way since the days of Jane Fonda in spandex. In 2006 the interactive Nintendo Wii system successfully bridged the gap between hardcore gamers and those looking for a cheap sweat. Four years and 30 million units sold later, other companies are looking to get in on the action. Sony’s (SNE) entry in the category, the PlayStation Move, isn’t technically a new console. The Move, released on Sept. 17, can be purchased as a set of hardware add-ons for the existing PS3 system. The $100 starter pack includes a controller, a mounted camera, and a copy of the Sports Champions Blu-ray game package, which includes six games, from bocce to beach volleyball. Those without a PS3 can pay $400 for the console plus the Move accoutrements.”

7. Armed with Science (USA) – How Air Force is Designing Classroom Instruction for the Future. “It will come as no surprise that the Air Force has a systematic approach for just about everything, including how our instruction is developed! Our formal process is called Instructional System Development, or ISD, and it applies to all personnel who plan, design, develop, implement, approve, administer, conduct, evaluate, or manage Air Force instruction. The goal of Air Force ISD is to ensure our personnel are trained to do their job in the most cost efficient and effective way possible. In many ways, our education and training have remained unchanged for quite some time. The ISD process has served us well and will continue to be a solid basis for our course development efforts. The one area in which we will need to make some updates or to at least think differently is in our design, and that design will rely heavily on good analysis.”

8. The Daily Mail (UK) – Can online games be as addictive as heroin? “Despite the restricted view through the letter box, it was clear that something was terribly wrong on the other side of the front door. The hallway of the three-bedroom semi was filled with what looked like a year’s worth of dirty clutter. Deeply worried by the scene in her neighbour’s house, the concerned resident immediately alerted the authorities. Entering the £250,000 property in the Kent commuter belt, police officers, who have seen some squalid scenes in their time, were stunned by what greeted them. Every surface was strewn with rubbish and rotting food. The homeowner, a 33-year-old woman, admitted that things were ‘in a bit of a mess’. But it also quickly became evident that her children had been as neglected as the house. Aged nine, ten and 13, the children told officers that they had been left to fend for themselves, at times being reduced to eating cold baked beans straight from the tin.”

9. Hypergrid Business (Hong Kong) – There’s something about InWorldz. “Last week, InWorldz became the second-largest grid running on the OpenSim platform, after shooting up the charts over the course of just the past three months. Between April and September 15, the grid grew from 130 regions to 531 regions. In addition, the grid now has over 15,000 registered users — up from just over 10,000 a month ago. Their secret? A strong focus on community-building. In this area, InWorldz seems to be picking up where Second Life left off. For example, the latter shut down its mentor program at the end of last year, but the InWorldz mentor program is up and running.”

10. The First Post (UK) – Gamers save shekels as The Bible Online launches. “Even the most esoteric backwaters of Second Life – the online universe in which users interact through avatars – can’t compete with this. A new MMO (Massively-Multiplayer Online game) to be released next week lets gamers live out the Old Testament. They can’t actually play God – but they can play Abraham, Jacob or Isaac. Chapter one of The Bible Online, produced by games publisher FIAA, moves from testing to the real thing next week. The game is set in the time of the Patriarchs – about 50 years after the Flood – and is based on the book of Genesis. Like a cross between the strategy game Civilisation and the role-playing ‘virtual world’ World of Warcraft, the game lets users construct villages, manage resources and protect a tribe. They can even horde a virtual currency – shekels. Users can play either as a Patriarch, or alongside Abraham and his sons and are given quests to complete based on bible stories.”

1. VentureBeat (USA) – Watch out, Disney, Fantage doubles its growth for kids virtual world. “Virtual worlds for kids have been volatile during the recession. Some have come and gone. Some have declined. So it’s worth noting that Fantage, a virtual world for kids who like playing games and staging fashion shows, has doubled its audience in the past year. The Fort Lee, N.J.-based company now has 3.3 million unique visitors a month, compared to 1.5 million nearly a year ago. To date, it has had 7.7 million registered users, compared to 3 million a year ago. That’s pretty good growth at a time when the competition for the attention of kids is growing.”

2. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Will games take over our lives? “In the film Mary Poppins, a scene in the nursery has the children distraught at the drudgery of tidying up. Naturally their nanny uses the moment to impart a life lesson. “In every job that must be done there is an element of fun,” she tells them. “You find the fun, and snap-the job’s a game.” It’s a trick most every parent has used: pureed vegetables arrive at an infant’s mouth via a spoon airplane, long car trips include “the quiet game,” and yard work Olympics determine who can gather the most weeds. In coming years, the idea of using games to increase good behaviour and happiness is going to explode into adult life, as insights and technology associated with videogames make their way into the larger culture.”

3. Wall Street Journal (USA) – On the Web, Children Face Intensive Tracking. “A Wall Street Journal investigation into online privacy has found that popular children’s websites install more tracking technologies on personal computers than do the top websites aimed at adults. The Journal examined 50 sites popular with U.S. teens and children to see what tracking tools they installed on a test computer. As a group, the sites placed 4,123 “cookies,” “beacons” and other pieces of tracking technology. That is 30% more than were found in an analysis of the 50 most popular U.S. sites overall, which are generally aimed at adults. The most prolific site: Snazzyspace.com, which helps teens customize their social-networking pages, installed 248 tracking tools. Its operator described the site as a “hobby” and said the tracking tools come from advertisers.”

4. Virtual Worlds News (USA) – Smith & Tinker Reinvent Nanovor. “Developer Smith & Tinker is launching a revamped version of its Nanovor offering from last year. The new version, called Nanovor Evolution, will be a full-featured browser-based virtual world. The toy arm of the franchise will be discontinued in favor of a Nanovor app for iOS that leverages the collection of Nanovor virtual insect robots that a player accumulates while dueling other players in the virtual world. Players’ Nanovor collections will be stored in the cloud. Where the original version of Nanovor emphasized the collecting and battling aspects of the franchise, Nanovor Evolution introduces customizable avatars, hub lobbies where users can interact in a virtual environment, and action mini-games that users can play to earn a new time-based virtual currency called Jolt Points. In Nanovor Evolution, users will be able to purchase new Nanovors and avatar customization pieces using both cash-based Nanocash and Jolt Points.”

5. Inside Facebook (USA) – Announcing Inside Virtual Goods: Tracking the US Virtual Goods Market 2010 – 2011. “With an up-to-$750 million acquisition of Playdom by Disney, an up-to-$400 million acquisition of Playfish by Electronic Arts, the acquisition of Tapulous by Disney, and hundreds of millions of dollars in venture investments, virtual goods are impacting businesses across the media landscape. Virtual goods, and the companies that create them, may be bringing the largest disruption entertainment, communication, and e-commerce infrastructure businesses have seen in years.”

6. CBC News (Canada) – Battle to preserve online anonymity rages in video game community. “Micah Whipple may not be a familiar name to the online masses, but in the World of Warcraft sphere, there’s no greater symbol of the need for privacy. The young man became a scapegoat for gamer outrage earlier this year when the owner of the massive multiplayer game announced it would require users to post their real names in official forums. The stated reason for the dramatic change: to oust “trolls” who were disrupting the chatrooms. A community manager who interacts with players, Whipple decided to show support for the new company policy and wrote a short post under his forum moniker, Bashiok, that revealed his true name. “Micah Whipple, at your service,” it said.”

7. The Guardian (UK) – PlayStation Move. “When Sony’s Move motion-sensing input system was unveiled, it attracted a certain amount of derision – it was accused of being a pale rip-off of the Wii remote, and of being clunky in comparison with Microsoft’s high-tech Kinect. Which just goes to show how first impressions can be misleading. It’s true that technologically speaking, Move is about as sexy as Norah Batty’s wrinkly stockings, but astoundingly, it makes much more sense as a purchase than Kinect. The main reason is that it actually works, whereas Microsoft’s attempts to keep Kinect’s price down means that it suffers terribly from terminal lag between your gestures and its response.”

8. Wall Street Journal (USA) – Microsoft Bullish on Kinect. “Microsoft Corp. is targeting global sales of more than three million units of its new Kinect motion-sensor gaming accessory for its Xbox 360 console in the first two months after the Nov. 4 launch in the U.S., providing a much needed holiday sales boost to the slumping overall market for videogames. In an interview ahead of this week’s Tokyo Game Show, Microsoft’s top videogame executive, Don Mattrick, said he expects Kinect will propel the company to have its “biggest holidays ever.” Mr. Mattrick said he expects Kinect, a camera and sensor technology which allows users to play videogames on the Xbox 360 through gestures and verbal commands, to eclipse the industry’s three million unit threshold by the end of the year.”

9. The Age (Australia) – Such a Tragic Waste of Life. “I have always been a little suspicious of social networking. When Facebook was introduced, I at first enjoyed the novelty of keeping up with friends and looking at happy snaps. Then Facebook got nicknames like Stalkbook and Creepbook. For lazy communicators, it’s a sinister kind of genius. Then Twitter came along. Letting others know your thoughts in 140 characters or fewer is perfect for short attention spans. I embraced it. Now I sometimes think I should write even less. With these two sites well and truly entrenched, I’d like to remind you of another world that had everyone talking back in 2005 called Second Life. In this virtual world, users could create a new persona for themselves and interact with others doing the same. For Brian in accounts who, on his night off, loved the idea of being half-Twilight-wolf, half-Arnold-Schwarzenegger in chaps, Second Life was a revelation. To me, it all felt (and I don’t want to offend anyone who still regularly plonks their ugg boots in there), well, a little unnecessary.”

(Note: click here for a great rebuttal of Warhurst’s article)

10. Sydney Morning Herald (Australia) – Eviction game hits a nerve in China. “It may lack the sophistication and addictive power of Farmville or World of Warcraft. But an online game in which a family fights off a demolition crew with slippers and bullets has hooked Chinese internet users. The Big Battle: Nail House Versus Demolition Team has triumphed not through playability, but by tapping into anger about forced relocations. ”Nail houses” are the last homes left standing in areas slated for clearance, so called because they stick out when all around them have been demolished. Owners resist because they do not want to move or think that compensation is unfairly low, but wrecking crews often retaliate with tactics from cutting off power and water to violence.”