Telecommunications Seminar 2007
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Cyber-Synchronicity: the Concurrence of the Virtual
Cyber-Synchronicity: The Concurrence of the Virtual and the Material via Text-Based Virtual Reality A dissertation presented to the faculty of the Scripps College of Communication of Ohio University In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy Jeffrey S. Smith March 2010 © 2010 Jeffrey S. Smith. All Rights Reserved. This dissertation titled Cyber-Synchronicity: The Concurrence of the Virtual and the Material Via Text-Based Virtual Reality by JEFFREY S. SMITH has been approved for the School of Media Arts and Studies and the Scripps College of Communication by Joseph W. Slade III Professor of Media Arts and Studies Gregory J. Shepherd Dean, Scripps College of Communication ii ABSTRACT SMITH, JEFFREY S., Ph.D., March 2010, Mass Communication Cyber-Synchronicity: The Concurrence of the Virtual and the Material Via Text-Based Virtual Reality (384 pp.) Director of Dissertation: Joseph W. Slade III This dissertation investigates the experiences of participants in a text-based virtual reality known as a Multi-User Domain, or MUD. Through in-depth electronic interviews, staff members and players of Aurealan Realms MUD were queried regarding the impact of their participation in the MUD on their perceived sense of self, community, and culture. Second, the interviews were subjected to a qualitative thematic analysis through which the nature of the participant’s phenomenological lived experience is explored with a specific eye toward any significant over or interconnection between each participant’s virtual and material experiences. An extended analysis of the experiences of respondents, combined with supporting material from other academic investigators, provides a map with which to chart the synchronous and synonymous relationship between a participant’s perceived sense of material identity, community, and culture, and her perceived sense of virtual identity, community, and culture. -
The Decline of Mmos
The Decline of MMOs Prof. Richard A. Bartle University of Essex United Kingdom May 2013 Abstract Ten years ago, massively-multiplayer online role-playing games (MMOs) had a bright and exciting future. Today, their prospects do not look so glorious. In an effort to attract ever-more players, their gameplay has gradually been diluted and their core audience has deserted them. Now that even their sources of new casual players are drying up, MMOs face a slow and steady decline. Their problems are easy to enumerate: they cost too much to make; too many of them play the exact same way; new revenue models put off key groups of players; they lack immersion; they lack wit and personality; players have been trained to want experiences that they don’t actually want; designers are forbidden from experimenting. The solutions to these problems are less easy to state. Can anything be done to prevent MMOs from fading away? Well, yes it can. The question is, will the patient take the medicine? Introduction From their lofty position as representing the future of videogames, MMOs have fallen hard. Whereas once they were innovative and compelling, now they are repetitive and take-it-or-leave-it. Although they remain profitable at the moment, we know (from the way that the casual games market fragmented when it matured) that this is not sustainable in the long term: players will either leave for other types of game or focus on particular mechanics that have limited appeal or that can be abstracted out as stand-alone games (or even apps). -
381 Karlsen 17X24.Pdf (9.567Mb)
Emergent Perspectives on Multiplayer Online Games: A Study of Discworld and World of Warcraft Faltin Karlsen Doctoral thesis submitted for the degree of Ph.D. Faculty of Humanities, University of Oslo, June 2008. © Faltin Karlsen, 2009 Series of dissertations submitted to the Faculty of Humanities,University of Oslo No. 381 ISSN 0806-3222 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission. Cover: Inger Sandved Anfinsen. Printed in Norway: AiT e-dit AS, Oslo, 2009. Produced in co-operation with Unipub AS. The thesis is produced by Unipub AS merely in connection with the thesis defence. Kindly direct all inquiries regarding the thesis to the copyright holder or the unit which grants the doctorate. Unipub AS is owned by The University Foundation for Student Life (SiO) Acknowledgements Thanks to my supervisor Gunnar Liestøl for constructive and enthusiastic support of my work, from our first discussions about computer games long before this project was initiated, to the final reassuring comments by phone from someplace between Las Vegas and Death Valley. Thanks to my second supervisor Jonas Linderoth for generously accepting my request and for thorough, precise and not least expeditious comments on various drafts during the last phase of my work. I would also like to thank Espen Ytreberg, Ragnhild Tronstad and Terje Rasmussen for reading and commenting on different parts of my thesis. A special thanks to Astrid Lied for introducing me to Discworld back in 1998, and for commenting on and proofreading parts of this thesis. -
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work for Music Applications
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work for Music Applications Author: Álvaro Mendes Barbosa April 2006 Dipòsit legal: B.48971-2006 ISBN: 978-84-690-3933-5 Dissertation submitted to the Department of Technology of the Pompeu Fabra University for the Program in Computer Science and Digital Communication, in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree: Doctor per la Universitat Pompeu Fabra with Mention of European Doctor Dissertation directed by Dr. Xavier Serra and co-directed by Dr. Sergi Jordà Universitat Pompeu Fabra Departamento de Tecnologia Estació de França Passeig de Circumvallació, 8 08003 Barcelona, España Research leading to this Dissertation was conducted by the author at: This Doctorate Research Work was supported through the award of a Doctorate Scholarship by: (SFRH/BD/5192/2001) The Author is affiliated with: To Sofia Abstract This dissertation derives from research on musical practices mediated by computer networks conducted from 2001 to 2005 in the Music Technology Group of the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, Spain. It departs from work carried out over the last decades in the field of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), which provides us with collaborative communication mechanisms that can be regarded from a music perspective in diverse scenarios: Composition, Performance, Improvisation or Education. The first contribution originated from this research work is an extensive survey and systematic classification of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work for Music Applications. This survey led to the identification of innovative approaches, models and applications, with special emphasis on the shared nature of geographically displaced communication over the Internet. The notion of a Shared Sonic Environments was introduced and implemented in a proof-of- concept application entitled Public Sound Objects (PSOs). -
Austin Games Conference 2005
Why are we here? 28 th october 2005 Austin games conference profesSor Richard A. Bartle University of esSEx introduction • It is a truth universally acknowledged… • that I’ve called this talk “why are we here?” – I include as “we” those who would have been here if they hadn’t been out ”Networking” until 2:30am this morning • I do mean the question quite literally: why are any of us in this location right now ? • This is actually a meaningful question… 1 Deep and meaningful Put another way • Point of fact: you are All goinG to DIE • Given this information, why are you here ? In this converted balLroOm ? • Why aren’t you in – paris? – China? – Darfur? – Bed? – World of warcraft ? • Hmm, I guess some of you are in there… 2 Short answer • Well, you’re here because you’re mMorpg developers and this is a mmorpg developers’ conference – officially, “networked game development” conference… • [aside: I’m gonna call them virtual worlds , not mMorpgs ] – I’m not giving up on my book’s title yet , dammit! • But this leads to another question: Another question • Why are you [mmorpg] virtual world developers? • Why aren’t you – regular game developers? – Novelists? – Truck drivers? – Nuclear power station software engineers? – Lawyers? – level 80 on runescape with 2 blue masks, 2 green masks, 2 santa hats and a red party hat ? • “Because it would cost me $5,100 on ebay” (44 bids, 13 hours to go, and simbatamer realLy wants it) 3 hackers • Notice the subtitle answers • Some posSible answers: – You’re a vw developer Purely by acCident – You wanted a -
Network Software Architectures for Real-Time Massively-Multiplayer
Network Software Architectures for Real-Time Massively-Multiplayer Online Games Roger Delano Paul McFarlane Degree of Master of Science School of Computer Science McGill University Montreal, Quebec, Canada Feb. 02, 2005 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science. Copyright © 2005 Roger Delano Paul McFarlane. All rights reserved. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank my wife, Abaynesta, for her support and encouragement. Undertaking a full-time graduate degree while maintaining full-time employment and trying to be a full-time husband would have been an impossible challenge without your love, patience, and understanding. I love you. To my supervisor, Dr. Jörg Kienzle, I would like to express my thanks for taking on a student with a research area only somewhat related to your own, Software Fault Tolerance, and granting me the latitude to freely explore massively multiplayer game infrastructure. In the course of pursuing my graduate degree and writing this thesis, I was employed by two supportive organizations. To the management of Zero- Knowledge Systems Inc., most notably co-founders Austin Hill and Hammie Hill, I express my profound gratitude for your support and encouragement to pursue my academic goals. Thank you for allowing me the flexibility of schedule to take on a full-time course load and for your understanding and encouragement when the time came for me to move on to other opportunities. I would also like to thank the management of the Ubi.com group at Ubisoft Entertainment Inc. for recognizing the potential of this graduate student with no direct gaming experience and giving me the opportunity to learn from and contribute to your game projects while completing my thesis. -
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Why? are all that play games. Immature is the people, someone is going to commit same as youth. Young! Our young boys suicide.” Because it’s out there. We should talk are being exposed to age-inappropriate Hello fellow Escapists, I have some about it. If we don’t talk about it, it’s material! Indeed, The Escapist picks out this exciting news. Our clan just grew one more likely to go places that’s not observation as worthy of highlighting in larger. Russ Pitts, previously of Gamers healthy. If we try to sweep it under the Can you blame them? I sure can’t. What a larger font alongside the article. But with Jobs, has joined our editorial team bed, it will be hidden in the darkest, needs to happen, before games can did he really mean this? as Associate Editor for Acquisitions. dirtiest crevices of the internet that are comfortably be seen as accepted We’re all pretty excited to have him, and not always safe. So, let’s bring it out in entertainment for people over the age of It seems rather more likely that this is look forward to incorporating his ideas the open – we’re all adults here. 18, is not just that developers need to two observations combined. 20% is one into The Escapist. Everyone please make games appealing to adults (which “out of five people” in the country. And: welcome Russ! What? Adults play games? They’re not many are), but the media needs to with a sample that large “someone is just child’s toys? Yes, that is correct. -
The New Third Place: Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming in American Youth Culture
Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning Nr 3/2005 Årgång 12 FAKULTETSNÄMNDEN FÖR LÄRARUTBILDNING THE FACULTY BOARD FOR TEACHER EDUCATION Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning nr 3 2005 årgång 12 Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning (fd Lärarutbildning och forskning i Umeå) ges ut av Fakultetsnämnden för lärarutbildning vid Umeå universitet. Syftet med tidskriften är att skapa ett forum för lärarutbildare och andra didaktiskt intresserade, att ge information och bidra till debatt om frågor som gäller lärarutbildning och forskning. I detta avseende är tidskriften att betrakta som en direkt fortsättning på tidskriften Lärarutbildning och forskning i Umeå. Tidskriften välkomnar även manuskript från personer utanför Umeå universitet. Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning beräknas utkomma med fyra nummer per år. Ansvarig utgivare: Dekanus Björn Åstrand Redaktör: Fil.dr Gun-Marie Frånberg, 090/786 62 05, e-post: [email protected] Bildredaktör: Doktorand Eva Skåreus e-post: [email protected] Redaktionskommitté: Docent Håkan Andersson, Pedagogiska institutionen Professor Åsa Bergenheim, Pedagogiskt arbete Docent Per-Olof Erixon, Institutionen för estetiska ämnen Professor Johan Lithner, Matematiska institutionen Doktorand Eva Skåreus, Institutionen för estetiska ämnen Universitetsadjunkt Ingela Valfridsson, Institutionen för moderna språk Professor Gaby Weiner, Pedagogiskt arbete Redaktionens adress: Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning, Gun-Marie Frånberg, Värdegrundscentrum, Umeå universitet, 901 87 UMEÅ. Grafisk formgivning: Eva Skåreus och Tomas Sigurdsson, Institutionen för estetiska ämnen Illustratör: Eva Skåreus Original: Print & Media, Umeå universitet Tryckeri: Danagårds grafiska, 2005:2001107 Tekniska upplysningar till författarna: Tidskrift för lärarutbildning och forskning framställs och redigeras ur allmänt förekommande Mac- och PC-program. Sänd in manuskript på diskett eller som e-postbilaga. -
Universidade Federal De Santa Catarina Departamento De Informática E De Estatística Curso De Pós-Graduação Em Ciência Da Computação
UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA DEPARTAMENTO DE INFORMÁTICA E DE ESTATÍSTICA CURSO DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM CIÊNCIA DA COMPUTAÇÃO SISTEMA DE AUTORIA PARA CONSTRUÇÃO DE “ADVENTURES” EDUCACIONAIS EM REALIDADE VIRTUAL Patrícia Cristiane de Souza Florianópolis, fevereiro de 1997 UNIVERSIDADE FEDERAL DE SANTA CATARINA DEPARTAMENTO DE INFORMÁTICA E DE ESTATÍSTICA CURSO DE PÓS-GRADUAÇÃO EM CIÊNCIA DA COMPUTAÇÃO ÁREA DE CONCENTRAÇÃO: SISTEMAS DE CONHECIMENTO SISTEMA DE AUTORIA PARA CONSTRUÇÃO DE “ADVENTURES” EDUCACIONAIS EM REALIDADE VIRTUAL por Patrícia Cristiane de Souza Orientador: Prof. Raul Sidnei Wazlawick, Dr. Dissertação apresentada ao Curso de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Computação da Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, como parte dos requisitos exigidos para obtenção do grau de Mestre em Ciência da Computação. Florianópolis, fevereiro de 1997 Sistema de Autoria para Construção de “Adventures” Educacionais em Realidade Virtual Patrícia Cristiane de Souza Esta dissertação foi julgada adequada para a obtenção do título de MESTRE EM CIÊNCIA DA COMPUTAÇÃO na área de concentração Sistemas de Conhecimento e aprovada em sua for final pelo Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ciência da Computação da UFSC. Raul^Smnei Wazlawick Murilo Silva de Camargo - Coordenador do CPGCC/UFSC Banca Examinadora ,ul Sidnei Wazlawick Aguinaldo Robson de Souza iv Não há nada mais difícil de se realizar, nem cujo êxito seja mais duvidoso nem cuja execução seja mais perigosa, do que iniciar uma nova ordem das coisas. Pois o reformista tem como inimigos todos aqueles que lucram com a antiga ordem e tem como defensores não muito entusiastas apenas aqueles que lucram com a nova ordem, sendo essa falta de entusiasmo proveniente em parte do temor aos adversários, que têm as leis a seu favor, e em parte da incredulidade da Humanidade, que não acredita realmente em nada que ainda não tenha experimentado. -
Whose Game Is This Anyway?”: Negotiating Corporate Ownership in a Virtual World
“Whose Game Is This Anyway?”: Negotiating Corporate Ownership in a Virtual World T.L. Taylor Department of Communication North Carolina State University POB 8104, 201 Winston Raleigh, NC 27605 USA +1 919 515 9738 [email protected] Abstract This paper explores the ways the commercialization of multiuser environments is posing particular challenges to user autonomy and authorship. With ever broadening defi nitions of intellectual property rights the status of cultural and symbolic artifacts as products of collaborative efforts becomes increasingly problematized. In the case of virtual environments – such as massive multiplayer online role-play games – where users develop identities, bodies (avatars) and communities the stakes are quite high. This analysis draws on several case studies to raise questions about the status of culture and authorship in these games. Keywords Avatars, Internet, virtual environments, games INTRODUCTION While the history of virtual environments has so far been primarily written with an eye toward either the text-based worlds of MUDs or social graphical spaces like Active Worlds and VZones/WorldsAway, massive multiplayer online 227 Proceedings of Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference,ed. Frans Mäyrä. Tampere: Tampere University Press, 2002. Copyright: authors and Tampere University Press. role playing games (MMORPG) have dramatically popularized virtual worlds [1]. The MMORPG genre now boasts hundreds of thousands of users and accounts for millions of dollars in revenue each year [2]. While multiplayer games are at their most basic level simply that, a game, they should be more richly seen as spaces in which users come together online and invest enormous amounts of time inhabiting a virtual space, creating characters, cultures, and communities, gaming together, making dynamic economies, and exploring elaborate geographical terrain. -
UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations
UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Transcoded Identities: Identification in Games and Play Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0394m0xb Author Juliano, Linzi Publication Date 2015 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Transcoded Identities: Identification in Games and Play A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theater and Performance Studies By Linzi Michel Juliano 2015 © Copyright by Linzi Michel Juliano 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Transcoded Identities: Identification in Games and Play By Linzi Michel Juliano Doctor of Philosophy in Theater and Performance Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor Sue-Ellen Case, Chair This work foregrounds how technologies create and emerge from sociocultural, economic and political discourses. My use of transcode, a term introduced by the semiotician A.J. Greimas and carried into the digital realm by Lev Manovich, refers to how cultural elements such as assumptions, biases, priorities emerge within programming code and software. It demonstrates how cultural norms persist across different mediums and posits that, in many ways, the capacity to be flexible defines cultural ideologies. At the software level, programming languages work like performative speech: grammar which produces effects. When cast as speech, coming from a body (or bodies) instead of hardware, information structures can be perceived as acting within regimes of corporeality; when cast as software, information structures demonstrate and advertise the capabilities of hardware. Although often aligned with veracity and stability in its proximity to (computer) science, software is not culturally neutral. -
GENDER SWAPPING on the INTERNET Amy S. Bruckman Presented at the Internet Society, San Fransisco, CA, August 1993
GENDER SWAPPING ON THE INTERNET Amy S. Bruckman Presented at The Internet Society, San Fransisco, CA, August 1993. ABSTRACT In text-based virtual reality environments on the Internet called MUDs, it is possible to pretend to be the opposite gender. In these virtual worlds, the way gender structures basic human interaction is often noticed and reflected upon. This paper introduces MUDs, and then presents a community discussion about gender issues that MUDs inspired. Gender swapping is one example of ways in which network technology can impact not just work practice but also culture and values. I. GENDER SWAPPING ON THE INTERNET On the television show Saturday Night Live, a series of skits concerned a character named Pat, who has no apparent gender. The audience is tempted with the promise of clues. In one episode, Pat gets his or her hair cut. A sign in the salon says that men's haircuts are $7, and women's haircuts are $9. The audience waits in suspense: when Pat goes to pay, his or her true gender will be revealed. The humor of the series lies in the fact that those hopes are constantly foiled; in this instance, Pat leaves $10 and says to keep the change. Gender is so fundamental to human interactions, that the idea of a person without gender is absurd. The audience thinks that surely some clue must reveal Pat's gender, but none ever does. Many who have never seen Saturday Night Live know about Pat.(2) The character has become a kind of cultural icon. Pat's popularity is revealing.