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The Watch – virtual worlds in the news

October 5, 2009 by Leave a Comment

1. Reuters (USA) – Virtual economies in videogames used as case studies. “Virtual economies set up in videogames as players trade items are being used as case studies to track and model real-world economies. As more people join massively multiplayer online (MMO) videogame worlds like Activision Blizzard’s “World of Warcraft,” NCsoft’s “Aion” and Atari’s “Champions Online,” real money is being used to purchase virtual items through micro-transactions. As a result, game worlds are creating virtual economies. With the global recession impacting consumer spending — and the sales of videogames — a research group is using Sony Online Entertainment’s “EverQuest II” as a case study to explore how virtual economies mirror real-world economies.”

2. Jerusalem Post (Israel) – New Worlds: ‘Virtual white cane’ helps familiarize the blind with new environments. “Software developed at Tel Aviv University can help the blind and visually impaired maneuver through unfamiliar three-dimensional environments. Dr. Orly Lahav of TAU’s School of Education and Porter School for Environmental Studies invented the new tool, which is connected to a joystick that interfaces with users through the sense of touch. Today the visually impaired are very limited in their movements, which necessarily influences their quality of life, says Lahav, but this solution could help them find new options, like shorter routes from train or bus stations to their homes.”

3. Mediaweek (USA) – Virtual Worlds See Shakeout. “A couple of years ago, MTV seemed to be onto the next wave in digital media, as it introduced to much hype several virtual worlds tied to its hit series Laguna Beach and The Hills. Last week, even as the new season of The Hills premiered, the Laguna and Hills worlds were nowhere to be found. The site virtual.mtv was still live—but it featured a nearly empty theater designed for fans to gather and watch the MTV Movie Awards—which took place last June. It appears the conventional wisdom that Generation Y was about to become the avatar generation may not have been so wise. For example, The CW quietly shut down its two-year-old Gossip Girl-themed virtual world a few months ago. Earlier this summer, the teen-targeted vSide.com shut down. And in August the once-promising young adult hangout There.com drew just 265,000 unique users, per comScore.”

4. PCWorld (USA) – Twitter vs. Second Life: A N00b Takes Another Look. “Overhyped technology poster child of 2009, meet your counterpart from 2006. We’re talking about Twitter — which, by our reckoning, entered the mainstream at the beginning of this year — and Second Life, the virtual world which went through its own hype phase in 2006 (BusinessWeek: “Virtual worlds abound in useful business applications!”) before being brought roughly back to earth. But not all hype is created equal. In a June 2009 blog entry for AdAge, PR executive Chris Abraham compared the two services, and concluded that Twitter’s hype cycle is more sustainable than that of Second Life. Why?”

5. Advertising Age (USA) – Has Second Life Cut Its Mullet? “At the end of June I wrote a simple blog post for DigitalNext addressing why I believe the hype currently associated with Twitter will be more sustainable than Second Life’s. Long-story short, “Twitter is light, cheap, open and permanent, whereas Second Life is heavy, expensive, closed and ephemeral.” Twenty-one comments and a series of responses later, I was invited by Second Life to return to the virtual world that I stopped visiting back in 2007. My complaint, and why I never returned, is that the client, called the viewer in SL parlance, was too resource intensive, incompatible with my executive laptop (which favored lightweight and slimness over horsepower and graphics cards) and required too much bandwidth, preferably a LAN connection instead of Wi-Fi.”

6. Kotaku (Australia) – Australian Film School Offers Games Course For 2010. “The Australian Film Radio and Television School is now taking applications for a 2010 course in Games & Virtual Worlds. AFTRS is Australia’s national screen arts and broadcast school. Loads of successful filmmakers are graduates: Alex Proyas, Jane Campion, Andrew Lesnie, to name but three.”

7. VentureBeat (USA) – IMVU, the 3-D avatar chat room company, hits $25M in revenue. “IMVU has been fairly quiet about its success in virtual chat rooms, where people can create their own dressed-up 3-D characters and socialize in graphically beautiful settings. But today it’s starting to trumpet loudly that it has established a strong business with a $25 million annual revenue run rate.
Cary Rosenzweig, chief executive and president of the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company, said in an interview the company has doubled its revenue in the past year in spite of the recession and the cooling off of the virtual world hype. IMVU now has more than 40 million registered users and six million unique visitors a month, according to comScore. For the past three months, the company has been profitable, Rosenzweig said.”

8. Kotaku (Australia) – Littlest Pet Shop Online Has Cutest Hourglass Ever. “Why spend your evening waiting in an queue to play Aion when you can watch an hourglass spin around in EA’s new MMO, Littlest Pet Shop Online? The Hasbro / EA partnership is fully realised today with the launch of Littlest Pet Shop Online, an immersive online world filled with animals desperately struggling to keep from being crushed under the weight of their own massive skulls. The game is all about decorating, customisation, and of course, mini-games, offering fun for “girls” whether they opt to play for free or buy a subscription for $US6.95 a month.”

9. Crispy Gamer (USA) – F-Secure details World of Warcraft scams, trojans. “Players of Blizzard’s ultra popular MMO World of Warcraft are under attack by a phishing scheme that lets the attacker steal players’ gold and rare items by luring players with an offer of “free in-game mounts,” anti-virus and security researchers at F-Secure point out. This is common knowledge to many WOW players (read the official forums for proof), but not to those few of us that don’t play World of Warcraft, or security experts who don’t pay too much attention to virtual worlds.”

10. Media Asia (Hong Kong) – Sector Insight… Taiwan gaming firms look to offline advertising. “The growth of the online gaming industry in Taiwan has created a new group of big-money advertisers. Taiwan’s publishers of insanely popular, massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are relying more and more on good old offline mass media to recruit players to their virtual worlds. TV is the medium of choice, and commercial breaks feature video grabs of evil demons in deadly action, or cloyingly sexy animated pop idols inviting all to dance and sing. This year’s advertising onslaught began last spring as university students prepared for final exams. Heavy promotion pushed PC/online game adspend to NT$510.9 million (US$15.6 million) for the first half of the year, up a whopping 283 per cent year on year, according to Nielsen Taiwan. Ninety per cent went on TV (77 per cent cable; 13 per cent terrestrial), with six per cent spent on OOH, and a mere four per cent shared among newspapers, magazines and radio.”

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds, Virtual worlds in the media Tagged With:

A detailed map of Darnassus vendors and trainers

October 3, 2009 by 2 Comments

This map has been updated and moved to here

Filed Under: Gaming Worlds, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: ,

Trademarking and educators: Linden Lab responds

October 3, 2009 by 11 Comments

As reported yesterday, there’s been some activity around the use of the ‘SL’ trademark, with Australian educator Jokay Wollongong receiving a takedown notice. I shot through a few questions to Linden Lab on the issue, and Pathfinder Linder has formally responded. So as promised, here’s Linden Lab’s full right of reply:

Lowell: What was the impetus for LL tackling Jokay’s Wiki specifically?

Pathfinder: Jokay’s Wiki is a wonderful educational resource for the Second Life community, and Jokay organizes incredibly thoughtful and informative conferences about education in Second Life.

Some Lindens were recently invited to participate in a conference that Jokay was organizing, and we wanted very much to accept and show our support for Jokay and all the amazing work she’s done for the community. We were concerned, though, that the name of her blog is “Second Life in Education” and that her uses of our trademarks do not comply with our policies and create confusion about her blog’s relationship with Linden Lab.

We realize now that we poorly expressed our concerns by sending her an email from our trademark team, and that we should have reached out more personally to such an important contributor to the educational community. I (Pathfinder Linden) did speak to Jokay inworld after we sent her the email to explain to her why it’s so important for Residents to respect our trademark policies. However, in hindsight, this should have been the first step in our process.

Lowell: Does LL see it’s in its interest to issue takedown notices to educators showcasing one of SL’s strengths (i.e. it’s power as en educational platform)?

Pathfinder: We have great respect for the work of Jokay and other educators in Second Life. We’re also committed to increasing awareness of intellectual property, as we said in our recent Content Management Roadmap, through improved policies and outreach to the community. When we get in touch with Residents about improper uses of intellectual property – whether it be the intellectual property of other Residents, companies outside of Second Life, or Linden Lab itself – it’s nothing personal. It’s simply what we must do to help protect intellectual property.

Lowell: How much confidence should educators have that further trademarks won’t be registered, leading to a further change of landscape that can’t be forseen?

Pathfinder: When choosing a brand name or name for your website or domain name, it’s good practice to check that you are not using another person’s trademark or brand name. Trademarks do not need to be registered – so it’s best to search the web as well as trademark office records, and to consult a trademark attorney if you’re uncertain. This good practice is called “trademark clearance,” and it protects against your having to make a name change down the road.

Pathfinder: In this case, both Second Life and SL have been Linden Lab trademarks since we first started using them for our virtual world many years ago. To help promote awareness about proper use of our trademarks, especially for Residents unfamiliar with trademark clearance, we updated our trademark policies in early 2008, providing additional information and examples. We have also been reaching out to Residents about our trademark policies.

Lowell: How would you respond to claims that actions like this provide further motivation for people to move to other grids or platforms outside of SL?

Pathfinder: Intellectual property rights are part of what makes Second Life unique and compelling, and we’re committed to supporting a community that respects each other’s intellectual property. Although making changes in response to intellectual property complaints can be frustrating, it ultimately makes our community stronger, more aware and respectful of each other’s intellectual property, and a more desirable place for content creators and content consumers alike.

==

Over to you – is Linden Lab’s position a reasonable part of protecting intellectual property rights or an example of brand protection at the expense of community?

Update: Tateru Nino at Massively has a follow-up piece with some views of educators on Linden Lab’s response to the issue.

Filed Under: Australian News, Education, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

Weekend Whimsy

October 3, 2009 by Leave a Comment

1. Roger’s First Day in Blue Mars

2. SURF, RACING in SECOND LIFE 2009 ANGEYLAURA HOUSTON SINGING LIVE: I WANNA DO IT ALL

3. Second Life Groningen 2 jarig bestaan NuScore Kidd

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With:

Trademark protection gone mad: Linden Lab takes aim at educators

October 2, 2009 by 7 Comments

sl-wikispacesI’ve had the pleasure of having a chat to Jokay Wollongong in RL on one occasion, and hope to again in the future. I was more than aware of her work in Second Life prior to that catch-up, but only then did I realise her passion for the work she does. Sure, it’s part of making a living but it’s also a lot more than that – she is fundamentally driven by seeing the outcomes virtual environments can provide in education. In that, she’s no different to hundreds of other educators in Second Life.

That’s primarily why I’m gobsmacked and somewhat angry at a move Linden Lab has made, as reported by Tateru Nino over at Massively. Essentially, Jokay’s use of the URL sleducation.wikispaces.com has come under attack by Linden Lab, who’ve asked Jokay to take it down because of the use of ‘sl’ in the URL. As Tateru Nino outlines:

Under the Lanham Act, which controls the registration, usage and control of trademarks in the United States of America, Wollongong’s usage appears to fall squarely under nominative fair use, and thus legally unable to be counted as dilution of Linden Lab’s trademark which finally saw registration on 22 September this year.

Aside from the questionable legalities, I just can’t get past the apparent futility of issuing a takedown notice for a wiki site devoted to showcasing some of Second Life’s main strengths.  Sure, I can understand protecting a trademark makes exceptions difficult, but this has the whiff of a scorched earth policy. To that end, I’ve contacted the ever-helpful Pete at Linden Lab to get his thoughts on four specific questions:

1. What was the impetus for Linden Lab tackling Jokay’s Wiki specifically?

2. Does Linden Lab see it’s in its interest to issue takedown notices to educators showcasing one of SL’s strengths (i.e. it’s power as en educational platform)?

3. How much confidence should educators have that further trademarks won’t be registered, leading to a further change of landscape that can’t be forseen?

4. How would Linden Lab respond to claims that actions like this provide further motivation for people to move to other grids or platforms outside of SL?

Linden Lab deserve full right of reply and they’ll certainly get it (Update 2: you can read their response here).  My guess is that the takedown was instigated by Linden Lab legal people without a lot of consultation with others. Time will tell. I also had a brief chat to Jokay in-world late this evening, and although insistent on keeping positive about things, she made one key point that sums up the senselessness of this decision:

I’ll also be working to consolidate and publish my research on other platforms and will seek to diversify the wiki.  In the end all of this only strengthens my desire to establish presence in a broader range of virtual worlds, and we’ll be working on that over the coming months.

Then again, expanding the outcomes derived from Second Life into other platforms can only be a good thing. Perhaps it’s been Linden Lab’s intention the whole time 😉

Update: Jokay has posted her thoughts in more detail on her blog

Filed Under: Australian News, Education, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

Dark Siren: Part 5

October 1, 2009 by Leave a Comment

Dark Siren CoverIt’s time for the final part of the Dark Siren serialisation. This takes the story up to the Chapter 10. Don’t forget you can see Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, Part 4 here.  If you like what you read, please do support an up and coming author and buy the full book as a PDF here for only US $7.95. Payments are accepted via PayPal or credit card.

A big thanks to Clifford Wycliffe for letting us run this serialisation. It’s a novel deserving of success and I have no doubt that’s just what it’ll achieve.

Chapter 9

Nez took of his jacket and hung it around the back of his chair. Learning to play Avataria like an old hand felt like a daunting task, and it was. One redeeming factor was that thousands of new residents were joining Avataria every week, so provided he could master the basics he shouldn’t stand out too much from the crowd. On the other hand, his aim of joining the AvPost as a freelancer wouldn’t succeed if he failed to persuade the Editor that he had a good working knowledge of the place and some new angles on stories about the citizens. He was also acutely aware that if he posed as a journalist he would have to write and converse lucidly. Then again, he could always say he’d worked for Hello! magazine.

Lauren’s first outing seemed to be going well. Once Nez had mastered the use of the page up and down keys to propel her around, he began to relax and enjoy himself. The first thing he noticed was that there didn’t seem to be too many other avatars around, although what few there were certainly reacted positively to Lauren’s seductive sashay. On Nathan’s advice he visited a few clubs, although these too appeared to be mostly empty as it was too early in the day for serious business both in the U.S. and Europe. Hardcore clubbers rarely surfaced before 11pm.

After several hours had elapsed and Nathan hadn’t returned, he ambled down the corridor in search of something to eat. Just off the Nursery he found what he was looking for, although it resembled a small boutique café rather than the institutional canteens he was used to.  The young man behind the counter was just shutting up for the day, and cheerfully offered Nez what food was left: sushi, zucchini, tofu, brown rice and a black bean salad, all washed down with organic orange juice or herbal tea. Nez grimaced, but took the free food over to a corner table where he’d spied a copy of the San Francisco Chronicle.

Lunch over, on his way back to the room where he and Nathan had been working he was met by Bremer.

“Frank, there you are. I came down to see how you were getting on. I’ve got everything that you asked for.”

The two men carried on to Bremer’s office, where some more coffee was ordered and the door securely closed. Bremer settled back in his chair.

“This is one aspect of my job that I really hate. No disrespect to you Frank, but the thought of all this information on our own citizens being mined by the agencies gives me the creeps. Sure, our country must be protected, but do we have to totally undermine our civil liberties in the process? Your case has merit, but some of the requests I get here are glorified fishing trips. Anyway, lecture over. Here it is.”

Bremer passed over a CD to Nez and continued, referring again to his notebook.

“You realise that we don’t ask for street addresses, so the only real way you can get an accurate fix on those names is by tracing their credit cards. IP Addresses are useful, but aren’t really enough by themselves, and in any case some of the griefing fraternity use anonymisers.”

Nez interrupted: “I understand how anonymisers hide the IP addresses, but what in God’s name is a griefer?”

Bremer laughed. “I can tell you don’t play computer games on the net. A griefer is usually a player who doesn’t stick to the rules and gets pleasure from messing up things for everyone else. Don’t you remember the Avataria property developer and the flying penis affair? That was in all the papers.”

Nez shook his head. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.”

Bremer continued: “OK… as I was saying… on the CD you’ll find detailed chat logs, but don’t get too excited – we only keep these for two weeks so they may be of limited use. You’ll also find printouts of their public profiles which you may have already, plus the date when they first logged on.”

“First of all – Ariana McDowell, the Avataria alias of your villain Kyrylo. A big let-down. As you thought, he disabled the chat logs so there’s no information there, and the email address amcdowell@hotmail.com is, well, just a Hotmail address. He gave his real name as Ann Doe, and the only thing we can say with certainty is that she befriended Carmen Verne on November 7th last year and Menuti a few days later. She did seem to be into BDSM though. There’s a bondage group called Hellfire Inc. to which she, Menuti, and interestingly, the AvPost Features Editor Roxy Ryder belong. But all the activity on Ariana’s account stopped on the day of the Sydney raid you mentioned.”

“Second – the boys Ginger Stallion and Blow Dailey. As you correctly inferred from their profiles they’re in-world male escorts, and judging from their email addresses are students at UCLA in real life. The groups they’ve listed in their profiles give an indication of where they usually hang out: gay bars and BDSM parlours. On the positive side their credit card numbers are on file.”

“Now. Our friend Mr. Menuti has an email address at Yahoo, which is a little odd when you consider he’s supposed to be an executive. Joined in 2005, no credit card information at all, and when he logs in he rarely strays beyond the AvPost offices and a skybox in a residential sim called The Garden of Lust. He’s an advertising manager, but he never seems to visit potential clients. I have to say this is unusual behaviour, especially with rusted on business types.”

“The fourth name – Carmen Verne, the Editor of the AvPost – has been doing the job for two years, and she’s been a resident for as long as Menuti. No mystery about her real life name – Melissa Thurmann – she’s got credit card info on file and there’s even a real picture of her in her profile. I’d say she’s kosher.”

“What about her colleague, Roxy Ryder?”

Bremer glanced down at his notebook. “She’s been in Avataria for over two years, and spends all she earns at the Post on clothes. According to the info on file, she’s Roberta Harding with an email address at a community college in Houston, Texas.”

“Now we get to the interesting bit. I’ve been doing a little detective work here.”

Nez leaned forward in his chair in anticipation.

“There is another name – Joss Guest – which appears in the friends lists of both Ginger Stallion and Blow Daley. Nothing unusual, you might say. Could just be a regular client/friend/relative – whatever. Well, it could, but not with a real owner called Jack Gallagher.” He paused for effect.

“Senator Jack Gallagher, you mean?” said Nez, trying to sound unconcerned and neutral.

“Yeah. And how do I know it’s Gallagher the Democratic Senator and not any old itinerant Irishman?”

“Tell me.”

“Because three months ago, Senator Jack Gallagher became the first major league politician to set up his campaign office in Avataria. You must have read about it in the press.”

“Yes, I did.”

“Now he was given dispensation to use his own name to log into Avataria with – a $1000 privilege he paid for with a credit card. He certainly didn’t use the name Joss Guest, and he filled out the application form online like anyone else. So when I saw that name I went back through the records and checked. Not only are the credit card numbers the same, but so are the email addresses: jackgallagher@globelink.com.”

Nez digested this information silently, instantly aware of the implications and repercussions that could ensue if it became public knowledge. Bremer however was ahead of him.

“I know, I know. You don’t have to say anything. My lips are sealed. You and I are the only people who know about this so far. Of course I can’t vouch for our criminal friends.”

Nez let out a long low whistle. “Boy oh boy,” he said finally, “if this is going the way I think it is, the whole lid could be blown off the race for the Democratic nomination.”

“Absolutely. Not to mention the whole electoral process. Unless there’s an innocent explanation. I suppose that’s always possible.”

“Possible, but not very probable. If Gallagher happens to be some kindly old relative of Blow Daley’s mom, why wouldn’t he pick up the phone rather than communicate in that convoluted way? It wouldn’t make sense.”

“No. Perhaps not.” Bremer had placed the tips of his hands together and was staring out of the window, lips pursed.

“So is that it?” Nez suddenly became businesslike.

“Uh… Yes, I think so. I’ve recorded all the IP addresses of the computers used by those names, also a list of credit card numbers – they’re on the CD – and backdated the entry into Avataria that shows up on your profile. That will help when you talk to Carmen and make sure you’re taken seriously. Newbies have no status at all.”

“Martin… I really appreciate your help on this. May I call you if I have any more questions?”

“Of course. And I wish you the best of luck. Here, let me show you out.

Chapter 10

San Jose, CA.  26 January 2008 : 6.05am PST

It was still dark when the phone rang the next morning. Nez had just fallen into a deep sleep, having spent most of the night tossing and turning, unable to stop thinking about Gallagher and Kyrylo and the avatar they apparently shared. His hand groped blindly for where the phone should be. It was Everett on the line, and judging from the number in the LED window on the handset he was still at home.

“Frank?” the tone of voice was sharp.

“Cameron? What the fuck do you want? It’s six o’clock on a Saturday morning for Chrissake!”

Everett ignored the outburst.

“Things have moved on since we last spoke. There is now a joint operation in force between the FBI and the AHTCC – that new hi-tech crime agency downunder. So I want you to pack your bags, get down to the office as soon as you can and file a report on everything that Bremer told you yesterday. You’re booked on a flight to Canberra tonight.”

“Canberra? Canberra Australia, you mean? Why me? Why Australia? From what Bremer told me the action’s all at home,” said Nez bad-temperedly, now completely wide-awake.

“Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but the Feds want Kyrylo ASAP and the Aussies have already screwed up. They want you there on the ground to help catch him.”

“Have you cleared this with Rod Finlay?

“Frank… it was Finlay who wanted you to go. We both agree your skills will come in useful.”

“Kyrylo’s Avataria communications weren’t coded.”

“Don’t argue with me Frank…”

“I’m sure the Aussies have analysts and internet specialists too, you know.”

“That’s not the point. Do I have to spell it out for you? With your background and inside access to Avataria management… “

“All right Cameron. Keep your shirt on. I’ll discuss this with you later.”

Nez replaced the phone and mouthed a silent ‘Goddamn’ at the wall. He swung his legs out of bed and headed for the bathroom and the shower. What game was Everett playing now? From the sound of them, Simon Austin and his team were more than capable of bringing Kyrylo in on their own. Maybe Finlay knew more than he was telling Everett. His thoughts turned to Gallagher. Should he mention Bremer’s detective work in his report? On balance, no – let Everett sweat a little longer. If he didn’t know about Gallagher already, another few days wouldn’t hurt.

He quickly dried himself and shaved, then went back into the bedroom to dress. What was the climate like in Canberra this time of year? Hell, he didn’t even know what season it was – the southern hemisphere summer? Jeez – why did every conversation he had with Everett put him in such a bad mood? He wrenched a case from a shelf in the closet and irritably packed it with his passport, clean summer clothes, shaving gear and a few toiletries from the bathroom. He was just about to go down to the kitchen when he had second thoughts.  Dropping the case at the top of the stairs, he instead went across to the spare bedroom that he kept as an office to carry out his ritual morning prayer to the White Dawn.

Ten minutes later he retrieved the case and carried on downstairs to the kitchen, feeling in a much more positive mood. The American way of solving problems through argument and analytical process had its advantages, he knew, but somehow he’d always fared better with k’é, the Navajo spirit of peace and harmony, gone for the most part these days. The calming effect of those ancient rites his father had passed on to him never failed to surprise, even though in all other respects he had completely given up any semblance of living the traditional lifestyle. He stirred a teaspoon of instant coffee into a cup of boiling water and cursed when the fridge failed to yield any drinkable milk. He lit up his first cigarette of the day and thought about what he had to do and whom he had to notify before leaving for Australia. Too early to phone Alex and Julia, he’d do that later from the office. So apart from them, the depressing answers were 1) nothing much, and 2) nobody.

Filed Under: Art, Australian News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With:

Archi-Me: CAD to virtual world

September 30, 2009 by 1 Comment

airport2 There’s no denying the demand by business for virtual environments that allow for replication of real world products and processes. Forterra’s OLIVE platform, TeamingStream’s NoviCraft, Second Life and OpenSim grids are just four environments used extensively by business for prototyping products or business.

Archi-ME is a new entrant in that space. Created by UK-based company MOOFU, its stated purpose is “a new solution that enables designers to create fully interactive avatar-based virtual environments from 3D CAD models”. If you spent a couple of minutes watching the video below, you’ll see Archi-Me in action. Those who’ve used Second Life in particular will see some big similarities around appearance and the ability to manipulate objects and change textures on the fly. In fact, there’s very little from the demo that can’t be replicated in Second Life. Which isn’t the point really: this seems an application designed for building and architecture firms who want an easy way to bring their CAD-based designs into an avatar-driven 3D environment.

To get some more details, I shot some questions through to Nick Palfrey, Managing Director at MOOFU:

Lowell: Can you give a ball-park estimate on typical cost of something like a basic house walk-through?

Nick: For applications where the client is using toolkit functionality and requires very little tailoring, which would be the case for many Architects we would be looking at under £5k. We also design custom interfaces and environments for larger organisations such as property developers, with budgets of up to £25k as new avatars, functions, networking and design options are all re-visited.

Lowell: Is there any intention to allow people to own their own copy of Archi-Me i.e. pay a license fee to create their own content rather than rely on it arriving on a DVD.

Nick: We plan to offer an import system at some point so that users can generate their own environments through their CAD models, we should stress that we are not replicating Second Life and the system will not have tools for building spaces in it. Archi-Me is all about showcasing designs and for that reason, we rely on the client or user having a thorough understanding of either 3DS Max or ArchiCad. It is also important to note that only we can package the system up for web application and hosting.

Lowell: What is the fundamental architecture that Archi-Me is based on – is it a ground-up proprietary virtual environment or does it leverage say Forterra’s OLIVE platform or something similar?

Nick: We use Unity 3D to compile our code and for all of MOOFU’s game work, we stick with this. All code, assets and scripts are customised as well as a number of SDKs being used. We use Unity because it compiles the data instantly on-screen and for visualising large buildings with multiple cameras, this functionality is very helpful!

Nick: Are you able to disclose who the client or clients in Australasia have been?

Lowell: Yes… Dr Kenn Fisher Associate Professor Melbourne University and Director of Learning Futures Woods Bagot Architects, Melbourne. This has been a project organised by him with a number of international stakeholders. More information on Kenn is available at Rubida.net!

Filed Under: Alternatives, General News, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

The Virtual Worlds Story Project: HIV/AIDS

September 30, 2009 by Leave a Comment

The Virtual World’s Story Project (TVWSP) is a partnership between Jena Ball (SL: Jenaia Morane) and Marty Keltz (SL: Marty Snowpaw). We’ve previously covered one of their other story quests and they’ve certainly been prolific in the health and education field.

Their latest project is focused on HIV/AIDS and is titled The Life and Times of Uncle D, which you can get a taste of in this four-minute summation:

This week sees the in-world launch of The Life and Times of Uncle D. It’s occurring on the 1st October at Noon SL time, which is 5am on Friday the 2nd October AEST – you can find out more info here on the TVSWP site.

It’s another example of the power of machinima, and the virtual environments they’re created in, to assist in providing meaning to real world issues.

(For those interested in the use of virtual worlds in sexual health education or in health more broadly, don’t forget to keep an eye on sister-site Metaverse Health.)

Filed Under: General News, Health, Virtual Worlds Tagged With: , ,

The Watch – virtual worlds in the news

September 27, 2009 by Leave a Comment

1. Marketingweb (South Africa) – Corporate gaming and virtual worlds. “Throughout 2009, the corporate world was exposed to the reality of virtual worlds which has seen a growing influence on how companies train, market, advertise and communicate. This trend was largely driven by the rising influence and profile of virtual online worlds, which allow users to create ultimate realities such as that offered by Second Life, and in a similar vein the computer game SIMS. This is a trend that is expected to continue as organisations begin to recognise the merits of incorporating gaming into their basket of communication tools. As a social dynamic, computer gaming is an influential reality. People under 35 grew up in a world influenced and informed by computer gaming rather than traditional board games. If we consider that society has always used games to teach children the skills they need to be successful adults, the role and influence of computer games is going to increase within the corporate world – driven by the fact that an increasing segment of our marketable demographic have had their values and worldview affected by computer gaming. This growing social effect is one of the drivers behind the probable increase in virtual world activity by the corporate world.”

2. Washington Post (USA) – A Virtual Theme Park for Kids Explores Life’s Wonders. “”I think this is educational,” observes my 8-year-old stepson, about half an hour after logging on to Wonder Rotunda, a Web site aimed at kids that was recently launched by a Washington area dad. I wonder briefly if the jig is up, but he continues to explore the virtual theme park, intrigued by the prospect of winning and spending the game’s “wonder dollars” to buy virtual food and loot with which to decorate his virtual treehouse. I’m not sure whether he’ll be playing next week — who ever knows these things? — but for now he’s intrigued enough to sit still through discussions about how the human digestive system works and which presidents appear on U.S. currency.”

3. CNET (USA) – Audi creates virtual Audi Space within PlayStation Home. “Automakers are like forum trolls. Every time you turn around another one of them is yelling, “First!” This time it’s Audi claiming to be the first carmaker to develop its own virtual area in Sony’s PlayStation Home. Audi Space, as it will be known, will come on line in late 2009. Audi Space will at first feature an Audi TV channel delivering video content relating to the German automaker. In December of ’09, Audi Space will be expanded to include Vertical Run, a futuristic racing game featuring Audi’s e-tron concept. Players will collect electrical energy that will presumably be untamed by the e-tron as they race for the highest possible speed. Be the fastest and you could earn a place for your Home avatar in the virtual Audi apartments, located in a large tower in the center of Audi Space.”

4. Manolith (USA) – Second Life Economy Healthier Than First Life. “Some of you may not be aware of what Second Life is. Some of you might have tried it, gotten frustrated, and then quit. Some of you might still be SL citizens. Whatever your experience with it, you have to be amazed that it’s still around and apparently doing some thriving business. Linden Labs, the company that created this virtual space, has recently reported that SL citizens have transacted over one billion dollars’ worth of services and goods with each other, estimating fifty million dollars being exchanged per month. Furthermore, 1,250 text messages are sent every second of the day, and the virtual geography of Second Life has grown to roughly the size of Rhode Island.”

5. The Guardian (UK) – Maths is the bedrock of the digital age. “It is a situation eerily familiar to most gamers: I am lost deep inside a pyramid, being pursued by a monster about to devour me in a spectacular way if I don’t make a decision pronto. The only difference to most other games is that the problem involves geometry. An arrow appears beneath my avatar’s feet with a length on it, say 5 metres. Above are four boxes consisting of triangles, rectangles and other shapes with sizes marked on the side. Unless I drag the box with the right answer down in front of me, I will be devoured. If I succeed, a fresh section of a stone path opens and the game moves on. Called Pyramid Panic, it is aimed at key stage 3 – and is one of a family of “serious” or educational titles launched today by mangahigh.com. Others range from doing simple arithmetic to make flowers grow to solving quadratic equations to guide a spaceship to its destination.”

6. Virtual Edge (USA) – Two Recent Surveys of Marketing Professionals Shed Light on Trends in Virtual Events. “ON24 and Unisfair recently conducted studies seeking to understand how marketing professionals were planning to use various marketing and collaboration technologies. While the Unisfair survey found that 48% of the respondents planned to increase their use of virtual event solutions. The ON24 study identified some of the drivers for that kind of growth, with cost savings leading the way and time savings close behind. This was a multiple choice question so some of the options we’d like to see weren’t offered but the Unisfair research shed additional light on marketer’s priorities. Not surprisingly, new customer acquisition followed by customer retention lead the marketers’ initiative list. These are two functions that virtual events are very well suited for.”

7. Silicon.com (UK) – Are dinosaur managers and poor teaching holding back Digital Britain? “More must be done to convince grey-haired business leaders to embrace web 2.0 developments, a panel of experts has warned. A panel assembled by the British Computer Society (BCS) were asked to consider whether IT could lead the UK out of recession. But it warned the UK’s potential around technology – and thus the potential of IT to drive economic recovery – is being held back by the current crop of business leaders who are failing to ‘get IT’, and also by the failure of the education system to inspire young people to acquire the skills needed by the industry.”

8. New University Online (USA) – UC Irvine Gets Grant to Study World Of Warcraft. “UC Irvine received a $100,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for an ethnographic study earlier this month on “World of Warcraft,” (WoW) a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) with over 10 million subscribers. UCI Professor of Information and Computer Sciences Bonnie Nardi and doctoral student Yong Ming Kow will analyze how players engage in creative collaboration in this virtual 3-D universe.”

9. Minneapolis Star Tribune (USA) – Dangerous adventures in Barbie-land. “Wouldn’t it be great if you could go about your daily life as a better-looking, thinner, more perfect version of yourself? That semi-you could go to work, shop for groceries and go out on the town and the real you could schlub around your house all day long, living vicariously through your surrogate. That’d be great, right? Well, not so fast, says “Surrogates,” a subpar sci-fi thriller set in an Atwoodian alterna-future where regular folks stay at home glued to a complex computer screen while their surrogates venture into the world.”

10. The Times Online (UK) – Angelic pretender Aion threatens to knock king of fantasy games off its throne. “Once upon a time, in the world of online gaming, there was but one king: World of Warcraft — the role-playing extravaganza that has snared millions of fans to become one of the most valuable entertainment properties. Now there is a challenger for its crown: Aion, created by the South Korean company NCSoft. The game had already been ordered by more than 400,000 players across Europe and North America before its launch in Britain yesterday.”

Filed Under: General News, Virtual Worlds, Virtual worlds in the media Tagged With:

Weekend Whimsy

September 26, 2009 by Leave a Comment

1. Second Life – Clocks

2. Second Life Tribute 2 Salt N Pepper, C-Dep Dancers

3. Live at the USO of Second Life machinima trailer

Filed Under: General News, User-generated, Virtual Worlds Tagged With:

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