Well that’s the summary. You will find bits of this and things very like it in the work of many other writers: Greg (esp Planes of Power!) & Dan, S Crawford (esp Who's in Charge of Who I am), Ludlow, Balkin, Castronova etc etc (in fact when I do the book keeping there must be 50 or so papers, books and cases I need to reference to give this argument a philosophical basis and a legal foothold), and I’m not saying that what they have said is wrong or that I have not stolen bits from them wholesale. Rather, that I’m not sure that we have been using the right kind of distinctions thus far and I think we conflate arguments when try to apply generalities to spaces that have very different purposes and provide very different goods to people. When it comes to virtual worlds, yes, culture matters, so too socialization, fun, aye. Even RMT for some.

Civil-worlds may or may not exist at present. Civil-worlds are those who’s value and integration with the geographical world is to such a scale and degree that they are merely another way in which we transact our civil life.

That is there is a social one might say moral duty not to switch identities, this will reduce group cohesion, reduce general social capital and result in lower these forms of good for all (if it were allowed the world would become a ludic-world).

Social-worlds are ones where the primary good of the world is its social value to those within the world community. Specifically, the primary value that is accrued is that of Social Currency, while there may be other goods (even and in-world economy), this social capital is what is precious most of all to the community. In gaining these rights of play individuals may give up much. Developers rule these spaces. In-world: rights of free speech may not exits, rights of privacy may not exist, we may go further and suggest that for the good of a given game all kinds of rights that exist in the physical worlds must be waved and that acts that would normally contravene such rights are fine in this context (take hitting people in a boxing ring as a physical analogue). The best way to put the assertion (and this is all it is at this point; and again, please keep in mind that there are a number of familiar exceptions) is that the practice of game software development generates a way of seeing and defining problems (as essentially precise, logical, and algorithmic), and creating solutions (through linear, text-defined code) that makes other ways of accounting for what happens in VWs seem at worst nonsensical and at best irrelevant or quixotic.

In a ludic-world we give certain things up to the fiction of the world, the rules of the game and the enforcement of these rules. We do this in order to gain goods from that world including all kinds of pleasures, psychological goods etc. And so it is the case with virtual worlds. In some we give up much in order to gain certain goods. In others it would not be rational or justifiable to give up certain rights but this also confers duties upon us and others. The best way to put the assertion (and this is all it is at this point; and again, please keep in mind that there are a number of familiar exceptions) is that the practice of game software development generates a way of seeing and defining problems (as essentially precise, logical, and algorithmic), and creating solutions (through linear, text-defined code) that makes other ways of accounting for what happens in VWs seem at worst nonsensical and at best irrelevant or quixotic.

ludic-worlds (aka game-worlds) The best way to put the assertion (and this is all it is at this point; and again, please keep in mind that there are a number of familiar exceptions) is that the practice of game software development generates a way of seeing and defining problems (as essentially precise, logical, and algorithmic), and creating solutions (through linear, text-defined code) that makes other ways of accounting for what happens in VWs seem at worst nonsensical and at best irrelevant or quixotic.

...If it is true, as Andrew Stern suggested, that games AI has a long slog ahead of it (see comments, here): The danger is that this needy revisionism places the cart-before-the-horse: shouldn't game design be the dog that shakes the AI tail, and not the other way around. Yes, but can this flip on occasion? Are there scenarios where the AI is so engaging that it can reach out and grab you - thus carrying a mediocre game world and its cast of denizens? Rome burns while you are having a great time wrestling the Labrador... The best way to put the assertion (and this is all it is at this point; and again, please keep in mind that there are a number of familiar exceptions) is that the practice of game software development generates a way of seeing and defining problems (as essentially precise, logical, and algorithmic), and creating solutions (through linear, text-defined code) that makes other ways of accounting for what happens in VWs seem at worst nonsensical and at best irrelevant or quixotic.

After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers. And there are huge gaps in what we don't know. Where is the research about sports games, to take just one example?

In November, we asked whether World of Warcraft would be the first North American million-subscriber world. Today, it is. Now I know what your reaction is right now. It's Wait a minute, wait a minute, let's not have any more of this crazy effects nonsense and let's not hear about why games are bad anymore. Only I think that's wrong on both points. The study is pretty solid. Control group, strong statistics, the works. No other possible explanations for the findings. The best way to put the assertion (and this is all it is at this point; and again, please keep in mind that there are a number of familiar exceptions) is that the practice of game software development generates a way of seeing and defining problems (as essentially precise, logical, and algorithmic), and creating solutions (through linear, text-defined code) that makes other ways of accounting for what happens in VWs seem at worst nonsensical and at best irrelevant or quixotic.

Press release here. [Edit: link to donation site is here: American Red Cross.] In addition, Sony Online Entertainment has identified some 13,000 account-holders as being residents of the areas affected by Katrina and will secure their accounts against any time-based decay effects, until they log in again. That's not going to have a major effect on their well-being, but it certainly is a decent thing to do.