Tag Archives: Virtual Worlds

On Virtual Travel

Why would a denizen of a virtual world want to cross over into another virtual world, especially if she couldn’t bring her special powers, skills, or goods into that other world?  This was the question asked in a comment the … Continue reading

Posted in Information Technology, Video Games, Virtual Worlds | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Laws for the Virtual Universe

What if virtual worlds, no matter their purposes, narratives, unique details, and other variations, could be linked? What if they had borders between them, keeping the right stuff in its place, but in other ways being permeable? Continue reading

Posted in Information Technology, Legal Explorations, Video Games, Virtual Worlds | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The Value of Liberal Arts in a Recession

The New York Times recently published an article, “In Tough Times, the Humanities Must Justify Their Worth.” The division between science and the humanities is a recent contrivance, and its maintenance has no good historical precedent. The humanist training, the whetting of mental faculties that not only separate us from the animals but allow us to weigh and manage the fruit and potential fruit of our technical wizardry, is as essential to a growing society as the freedom that makes it possible. Continue reading

Posted in Civil Liberties, Humanities | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Fair Play and Griefing in Second Life

Terra Nova has an interesting piece on the issue of fair play in virtual worlds. I think the question is whether “griefing” could be considered infringement to fair play, which implies that fair play exists as a principle, and infers … Continue reading

Posted in Intellectual Property, Video Games, Virtual Worlds | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

EULAs aren’t all bad

End-User License Agreements aren’t all bad. They are necessary for interration – that incorporation-like thing for virtual worlds that Castronova talks about – in order to set out and delimit the game space. It is when they violate Castronova’s closed/open … Continue reading

Posted in Information Technology, Intellectual Property, Virtual Worlds | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment