PUBLIC MARKS from bcpbcp with tags social & games

A lot of the emerging social technologies on the Web--from social bookmarking to photo sharing--could easily translate into a game world, and as a commenter on Alice's post points out, Second Life already achieves some of the same goals as the MySpace network.

Recent research has begun to elucidate the key principles of learning that well-designed games can and do embody. At the same time, the broader social significance of gaming culture has become a topic for scholarship across a diversity of fields. Games and simulations do not only reveal new worlds in the virtual realm, they also inspire new world views in the physical one. A vast range of videogames and game-related literature has found its way into curriculum, business, entertainment, and government across the country. Millions of people play, both for work and for recreation – and they participate in ongoing economic and social change as a result. As interest in videogames intensifies and the number of events dedicated to their discussion increases, it is crucial that issues of learning and the social role of games do not get lost in the equally worthy cause of industry-building.

In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps--as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces.

"Academics and other students of the Internet have known for decades that even typed communication can reveal such non-verbal aspects of an online user, but it still comes as a surprise when discrimination emerges in an online game."

The conference dedicated to Social Change through Digital Games will explore best practices and theory from distribution to funding.

"Non-profit innovators, game designers and foundations will come together this week to advance the use of videogames for social good."

Four approaches to playing MUDs are identified and described. These approaches may arise from the inter-relationship of two dimensions of playing style: action versus interaction, and world-oriented versus player-oriented. An account of the dynamics of player populations is given in terms of these dimensions, with particular attention to how to promote balance or equilibrium. This analysis also offers an explanation for the labelling of MUDs as being either "social" or "gamelike".

Millions of Games is the community games site where your MOGS make a difference. You may want to read about the site before you start. MOG is in BETA at present so please be generous with your feedback.