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The Play's the Thing: a Theory of Taxing Virtual Worlds, 59 Hastings L.J
Hastings Law Journal Volume 59 | Issue 1 Article 1 1-2007 The lP ay's the Thing: A Theory of Taxing Virtual Worlds Bryan T. Camp Follow this and additional works at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Bryan T. Camp, The Play's the Thing: A Theory of Taxing Virtual Worlds, 59 Hastings L.J. 1 (2007). Available at: https://repository.uchastings.edu/hastings_law_journal/vol59/iss1/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Law Journals at UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Hastings Law Journal by an authorized editor of UC Hastings Scholarship Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Articles The Play's the Thing: A Theory of Taxing Virtual Worlds BRYAN T. CAMP* INTRODU CTION .............................................................................................. 2 I. THE VIRTUAL WORLDS OF MASSIVELY MULTIPLAYER ONLINE ROLE- PLAYING GAMES (MMORPGs) ...................................................... 3 A. STRUCTURED AND UNSTRUCTURED MMORPGs .......................... 4 i. Structured Gam es ....................................................................... 4 2. UnstructuredGam es .................................................................. 7 B. INCOME-GENERATING ACTIVITIES ................................................... 8 i. In- World Transactions (IWT)................................................... 9 2. Real Money Trades (RMT)..................................................... -
A Third Age of Avatars Bruce Damer, [email protected] Damer.Com | Digitalspace.Com | Ccon.Org | Biota.Org | Digibarn.Com
A Third Age of Avatars Bruce Damer, [email protected] damer.com | digitalspace.com | ccon.org | biota.org | digibarn.com Ò Started life on a PDP-11 fresh out of high school (1980), programmed graphics, videotext systems, dreamed of self replicating robots on the moon, designed board games, built model space stations. Ò Worked at IBM Research in 1984 (Toronto, New York), introduced to Internet, optical computing. Ò At Elixir Technologies 1987-94, wrote some of first GUI/Windows-Icons Publishing software on the IBM PC platform used 100 countries. Ò Established Contact Consortium in 1995, held first conferences on avatars (Earth to Avatars, Oct 1996) Ò Wrote “Avatars!”in 1997. Hosted and supported 9 conferences until 2003 on various aspects of virtual worlds (AVATARS Conferences, VLearn3D, Digital Biota) Ò Founded DigitalSpace in 1995, produced 3D worlds for government, corporate, university, and industry. Evangelism for Adobe (Atmosphere), NASA (Digital Spaces, open source 3D worlds for design simulation of space exploration) and NIH (learning games for Autism) Ò Established DigibarnComputer Museum (2002) Ò Virtual Worlds Timeline project (2006-2008) to capture and represent the history of the medium Ò The Virtual World, its Origins in Deep Time Ò Text Worlds Ò Graphical Worlds Ò Internet-Connected Worlds Ò The Avatars Cyberconferences Ò Massive Multiplayer Online RPGs Ò Virtual World Platforms Ò Virtual Worlds Timeline Project and Other Research History of Virtual Worlds The Virtual World, its Origins in Deep Time So what is a Virtual World? A place described by words or projected through pictures which creates a space in the imagination real enough that you can feel you are inside of it. -
Protecting Children in Virtual Worlds Without Undermining Their Economic, Educational, and Social Benefits
Protecting Children in Virtual Worlds Without Undermining Their Economic, Educational, and Social Benefits Robert Bloomfield* Benjamin Duranske** Abstract Advances in virtual world technology pose risks for the safety and welfare of children. Those advances also alter the interpretations of key terms in applicable laws. For example, in the Miller test for obscenity, virtual worlds constitute places, rather than "works," and may even constitute local communities from which standards are drawn. Additionally, technological advances promise to make virtual worlds places of such significant social benefit that regulators must take care to protect them, even as they protect children who engage with them. Table of Contents I. Introduction ................................................................................ 1177 II. Developing Features of Virtual Worlds ...................................... 1178 A. Realism in Physical and Visual Modeling. .......................... 1179 B. User-Generated Content ...................................................... 1180 C. Social Interaction ................................................................. 1180 D. Environmental Integration ................................................... 1181 E. Physical Integration ............................................................. 1182 F. Economic Integration ........................................................... 1183 * Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. This Article had its roots in Robert Bloomfield’s presentation at -
Making Real Money in Virtual Worlds: Mmorpgs and Emerging Business Opportunities, Challenges and Ethical Implications in Metaverses
CORE Metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk Provided by City Research Online Papagiannidis, S., Bourlakis, M. & Li, F. (2008). Making real money in virtual worlds. MMORPGs and emerging business opportunities, challenges and ethical implications in metaverses. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 75(5), pp. 610-622. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2007.04.007 City Research Online Original citation: Papagiannidis, S., Bourlakis, M. & Li, F. (2008). Making real money in virtual worlds. MMORPGs and emerging business opportunities, challenges and ethical implications in metaverses. Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 75(5), pp. 610-622. doi: 10.1016/j.techfore.2007.04.007 Permanent City Research Online URL: http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/15279/ Copyright & reuse City University London has developed City Research Online so that its users may access the research outputs of City University London's staff. Copyright © and Moral Rights for this paper are retained by the individual author(s) and/ or other copyright holders. All material in City Research Online is checked for eligibility for copyright before being made available in the live archive. URLs from City Research Online may be freely distributed and linked to from other web pages. Versions of research The version in City Research Online may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check the Permanent City Research Online URL above for the status of the paper. Enquiries If you have any enquiries about any aspect of City Research Online, or if you wish to make contact with the author(s) of this paper, please email the team at [email protected]. -
Exploring Security Risks in Virtual Economies
SOTICS 2011 : The First International Conference on Social Eco-Informatics Exploring Security Risks in Virtual Economies Caroline Kiondo, Stewart Kowalsk, Louise Yngström DSV SecLab, Stockholm University/Royal Institute of Technology SE-16440 Kista, Sweden [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstract —A most recent, phenomenon within new socio-eco- 2008, the Real Money Trade (RMT) for virtual items was systems is the so called Virtual Economies. This paper estimated at about $2 billion [3]. A variety of security risks, presents an exploratory study of information security risks threats and attacks have emerged in Virtual Economies that are inherent with the Virtural Economies. A Dynamic because of this. Since virtual items and currencies are only Network Analysis Tools (DNAT) was used to perform a risk representation of code within a virtual system, there is a real analysis in the Second life virtual world. The analysis indicates world motivation to manipulate the system in order to obtain that the currency and user account are the most important real profit. assets. User accounts provide access to virtual trading and are Virtual Economies are rapidly gaining popularity not critical to the flow of currency within the virtual economy. only in virtual games such as MMORPGS but also in Social The removal of both of these from the system will affect the Networking communities. More and more people chose to dynamics of the system and defeat the whole purpose of the spend their free time in Virtual Worlds as compared to other system. The analysis further identified selling and creation of forms of entertainment. -
Using Google Trends Data to Gauge Interest in Virtual Worlds 1
Volume 10, Number 1 Assembled 2017 May 2017 Editor In Chief Yesha Sivan Tel Aviv University The Coller Institute of Venture Issue Editor Victoria McArthur University of Toronto, Canada Coordinating Editor Tzafnat Shpak The JVWR is an academic journal. As such, it is dedicated to the open exchange of information. For this reason, JVWR is freely available to individuals and institutions. Copies of this journal or articles in this journal may be distributed for research or educational purposes only free of charge and without permission. However, the JVWR does not grant permission for use of any content in advertisements or advertising supplements or in any manner that would imply an endorsement of any product or service. All uses beyond research or educational purposes require the written permission of the JVWR. Authors who publish in the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research will release their articles under the Creative Commons Attribution No Derivative Works 3.0 United States (cc-by-nd) license. The Journal of Virtual Worlds Research is funded by its sponsors and contributions from readers. http://jvwresearch.org Using Google Trends Data to Gauge Interest in Virtual Worlds 1 Volume 10, Number 1 Assembled 2017 May, 2017 Using Google Trends Data to Gauge Interest in Virtual Worlds Anthony Crider Elon University Jessica Torrez-Riley Elon University Abstract Virtual worlds rose and fell in popularity a decade ago, and today's nascent commercially- available virtual reality could repeat this pattern. With sparse data available for gauging interest in technology products, such as virtual worlds or virtual reality, Google Trends search popularity has been used in prior studies as a proxy for global interest. -
The Embodiment of Sexualized Virtual Selves: the Proteus Effect and Experiences of Self-Objectification Via Avatars ⇑ Jesse Fox , Jeremy N
Author's personal copy Computers in Human Behavior 29 (2013) 930–938 Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Computers in Human Behavior journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh The embodiment of sexualized virtual selves: The Proteus effect and experiences of self-objectification via avatars ⇑ Jesse Fox , Jeremy N. Bailenson 1, Liz Tricase 2 Department of Communication, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94040, USA article info abstract Article history: Research has indicated that many video games and virtual worlds are populated by unrealistic, hypersex- ualized representations of women, but the effects of embodying these representations remains under- studied. The Proteus effect proposed by Yee and Bailenson (2007) suggests that embodiment may lead Keywords: to shifts in self-perception both online and offline based on the avatar’s features or behaviors. A 2 Â 2 Avatars experiment, the first of its kind, examined how self-perception and attitudes changed after women Video games (N = 86) entered a fully immersive virtual environment and embodied sexualized or nonsexualized ava- Virtual environments tars which featured either the participant’s face or the face of an unknown other. Findings supported the Proteus effect Proteus effect. Participants who wore sexualized avatars internalized the avatar’s appearance and self- Sex role stereotypes Objectification objectified, reporting more body-related thoughts than those wearing nonsexualized avatars. Participants who saw their own faces, particularly on sexualized avatars, expressed more rape myth acceptance than those in other conditions. Implications for both online and offline consequences of using sexualized ava- tars are discussed. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Agents and avatars in these spaces often take the form of virtual humans with realistic features that mimic the human form. -
The Legal Status of Virtual Goods
10 • MAY 31, 2013 THE LAWYERS WEEKLY Focus INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY M O C . O T O H P K C O T S I / 4 2 6 R E G A Y O V The legal status of virtual goods Digital items like bitcoins are now worth billions, but where is the law? card. In some online games, items actions can be very real: a space terms of use agreement, which can be manufactured by the char- station in an online universe probably lays out far less protec- acters and sold, and the virtual called Entropia sold for more tion than the users would like to money that is generated converted than $330,000 in 2009. believe they have. to real dollars. While these items The lack of legal direction raises However, as the commodifica- can be bought, sold and traded serious questions. For example, tion and value of virtual property Jonathan online, their real world legal status are in-game transfers taxable? grows, it is increasingly likely is in limbo. Most countries don’t The Canada Revenue Agency that users will push for broad Mesiano-Crookston have any laws to specifically gov- clarified recently that “bitcoins,” a property interests over virtual ern them. virtual currency, are taxable but goods and their online accounts. ould a global, multibil- These virtual goods aren’t small no comment was made about The courts may be receptive. At lion-dollar economy exist change, either. According to Tech earnings in virtual worlds. In the least one U.S. case showed that C without a single law to Crunch, a technology news site, United States, the government virtual property claims could eas- govern it? While it sounds incred- the virtual goods industry was has struck committees to investi- ily lead to a “real-world” court ible, such a situation is currently worth $2.9 billion (U.S.) last year, gate taxing income generated in claim. -
Platf Orm Game First Person Shooter Strategy Game Alternatereality Game
First person shooter Platform game Alternate reality game Strategy game Platform game Strategy game The platform game (or platformer) is a video game genre Strategy video games is a video game genre that emphasizes characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from sus- skillful thinking and planning to achieve victory. They empha- pended platforms or over obstacles (jumping puzzles). It must size strategic, tactical, and sometimes logistical challenges. be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms Many games also offer economic challenges and exploration. or miss jumps. The most common unifying element to these These games sometimes incorporate physical challenges, but games is a jump button; other jump mechanics include swing- such challenges can annoy strategically minded players. They ing from extendable arms, as in Ristar or Bionic Commando, are generally categorized into four sub-types, depending on or bouncing from springboards or trampolines, as in Alpha whether the game is turn-based or real-time, and whether Waves. These mechanics, even in the context of other genres, the game focuses on strategy or tactics. are commonly called platforming, a verbification of platform. Games where jumping is automated completely, such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, fall outside of the genre. The platform game (or platformer) is a video game genre characterized by requiring the player to jump to and from sus- pended platforms or over obstacles (jumping puzzles). It must be possible to control these jumps and to fall from platforms or miss jumps. The most common unifying element to these games is a jump button; other jump mechanics include swing- ing from extendable arms, as in Ristar or Bionic Commando, or bouncing from springboards or trampolines, as in Alpha Waves. -
The Daedalus Project
The Daedalus Project Vol. 2-4 (10/12/2004) by Nicholas Yee (http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus) The Prince and The Pauper: The Transaction of Virtual Capital for Real-Life Currency Very interesting arguments arose from player responses as to their views on the sale and purchase of virtual items, currency and accounts for RL currency. One common argument for the acceptability of these transactions rests on the inherent nature of capitalism. More importantly, some argue that the real underlying transaction is a transaction of time rather than a transaction of virtual items. I have had friends purchase items from EBay and they have been very happy with the result. I have never been involved myself. I find it much more fun to earn the item rather than purchase it. Though, I do think the idea of making a business by selling virtual goods is intriguing and should not be the 'big deal' many game companies have made of it. These goods have value to many and many simply don't have the time to invest to get the items they want. Just like in life, if you have money, why shouldn’t you be able to buy it? [CoH, F, 44] There are some people that are vehemently against the sale of virtual goods for real life money. However, these 'virtual goods' are things that you could get in any case. Merely paying real life money for them indicates to you that your relaxing time after work is worth real life money to you. I have a friend who makes $50,000 annually. -
Children on Virtual Worlds September 08
Children on virtual worlds September 08 What parents should know 2 Children on virtual worlds: What parents should know About ENISA The European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) is an EU agency created to advance the functioning of the internal market. ENISA is a centre of excellence for the European Member States and European institutions in network and information security, giving advice and recommendations and acting as a switchboard of information for good practices. Moreover, the agency facilitates contacts between the European institutions, the Member States and private business and industry actors. Contact details: For contacting ENISA or for general enquiries on information security awareness matters, please use the following details: e-mail: Isabella Santa, Senior Expert Awareness Raising — [email protected] Internet: http://www.enisa.europa.eu/ Legal notice Notice must be taken that this publication represents the views and interpretations of the authors and editors, unless stated otherwise. This publication should not be construed to be an action of ENISA or the ENISA bodies unless adopted pursuant to the ENISA Regulation (EC) No 460/2004. This publication does not necessarily represent state-of the-art and it might be updated from time to time. Third-party sources are quoted as appropriate. ENISA is not responsible for the content of the external sources including external websites referenced in this publication. This publication is intended for educational and information purposes only. Neither ENISA nor any person acting on its behalf is responsible for the use that might be made of the information contained in this publication. Reproduction is authorised provided the source is acknowledged. -
Massive Multi-Player Online Games and the Developing Political Economy of Cyberspace
Fast Capitalism ISSN 1930-014X Volume 4 • Issue 1 • 2008 doi:10.32855/fcapital.200801.010 Massive Multi-player Online Games and the Developing Political Economy of Cyberspace Mike Kent This article explores economics, production and wealth in massive multi-player online games. It examines how the unique text of each of these virtual worlds is the product of collaboration between the designers of the worlds and the players who participate in them. It then turns its focus to how this collaborative construction creates tension when the ownership of virtual property is contested, as these seemingly contained virtual economies interface with the global economy. While these debates occur at the core of this virtual economy, at the periphery cheap labor from less-developed economies in the analogue world are being employed to ‘play’ these games in order to ‘mine’ virtual goods for resale to players from more wealthy countries. The efforts of the owners of these games, to curtail this extra-world trading, may have inadvertently driven the further development of this industry towards larger organizations rather than small traders, further cementing this new division of labor. Background In the late 1980s, multi-user dungeons (MUDs) such as LambdaMOO were text-based environments. These computer-mediated online spaces drew considerable academic interest.[1] The more recent online interactive worlds are considerably more complex, thanks to advances in computing power and bandwidth. Encompassing larger and more detailed worlds, they also enclose a much larger population of players. The first game in the new category of Massively Multi-player Online Role-playing Games (known initially by the acronym MMORPG and more recently as MMOG) was Ultima Online http://www.uo.com, which was launched over a decade ago in September 1997.