Recently in Virtual Worlds Category
The guys over at Pure West Media released their trailer for the upcoming documentary Second Skin today. This film documents the story of seven gamers and their experiences in a less than real world environment. 75 gamers were interviewed during the 2 year production. Topics such as addiction, online relationships, guild mechanics and virtual currencies are covered.
Pure West is hoping to hold the premiere viewing movie at SXSW.
I'm curious to see the results of their research in a couple of areas. Addiction to MMORPGs is a real problem, one that I feel is being ignored. In the trailer we are introduced to a gamer named Dan. Dan was a successful businessman who threw it all away for virtual world. In the trailer he states his whole life just fell apart and wanted to kill himself. Dan's not alone, there are many others in his situation or well on their way. While I am not aware of any US efforts to combat this problem, in 2007 China imposed mandatory controls on gaming providers to encourage time limits for teenage players. Chinese internet policies of blocking or restricting access to certain sites or services has received bad press here but this is one example of a policy I could live with.
For those gamers that take the "job" seriously and can balance the real and the virtual world I do think there is abright future. Business is slowly moving toward the virtual office where coworkers may never meet face to face. One of the largest challenges for success in this venture will be to find managers that can lead a team solely through pixels. In MMORPGs, guild memberships can reach into the hundreds with multiple layers of leadership. Games like World of Warcraft provide dungeons that 25 to 40 players can enter as a raid. The guild or raid leader has the challenge of coordinating the efforts of his raid to reach a goal, usually the killing of a boss monster. In the latest patches of WoW, the encounters in these dungeons require all raiders to do their job flawlessly, one mistake can mean a complete wipe of the raid and a waste 30 minutes to an hour before their next attempt. The raid leader not only has to perform his individual part but also monitor everyone else's performance. While this may sound like child's play it is setting the foundation of skills required to lead a group of professionals toward a common goal without the classic human interface we find in our offices and cubicles today.
What do you think?
Pure West is hoping to hold the premiere viewing movie at SXSW.
I'm curious to see the results of their research in a couple of areas. Addiction to MMORPGs is a real problem, one that I feel is being ignored. In the trailer we are introduced to a gamer named Dan. Dan was a successful businessman who threw it all away for virtual world. In the trailer he states his whole life just fell apart and wanted to kill himself. Dan's not alone, there are many others in his situation or well on their way. While I am not aware of any US efforts to combat this problem, in 2007 China imposed mandatory controls on gaming providers to encourage time limits for teenage players. Chinese internet policies of blocking or restricting access to certain sites or services has received bad press here but this is one example of a policy I could live with.
For those gamers that take the "job" seriously and can balance the real and the virtual world I do think there is abright future. Business is slowly moving toward the virtual office where coworkers may never meet face to face. One of the largest challenges for success in this venture will be to find managers that can lead a team solely through pixels. In MMORPGs, guild memberships can reach into the hundreds with multiple layers of leadership. Games like World of Warcraft provide dungeons that 25 to 40 players can enter as a raid. The guild or raid leader has the challenge of coordinating the efforts of his raid to reach a goal, usually the killing of a boss monster. In the latest patches of WoW, the encounters in these dungeons require all raiders to do their job flawlessly, one mistake can mean a complete wipe of the raid and a waste 30 minutes to an hour before their next attempt. The raid leader not only has to perform his individual part but also monitor everyone else's performance. While this may sound like child's play it is setting the foundation of skills required to lead a group of professionals toward a common goal without the classic human interface we find in our offices and cubicles today.
What do you think?
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