Conversations On Organisations - COO

Virtual Worlds 101

Wikipedia defines a Virtual World as follows :

A virtual world is a computer-simulated environment intended for its users to inhabit and interact via avatars. This habitation usually is represented in the form of two or three-dimensional graphical representations of humanoids (or other graphical or text-based avatars). Some, but not all, virtual worlds allow for multiple users.

Virtual Worlds constitute 20-30m people at the end of 2006. As Virtual World is such an all encompassing term we shall point out one of the more referenced genres MMO. Wikipedia defines a Massively Multiplayer Online game as follows :

A Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG or MMO) is a computer game which is capable of supporting hundreds or thousands of players simultaneously, and is played on the Internet. Typically, this type of game is played in a giant persistent world.

MMOs enable players to compete with and against each other on a grand scale, and sometimes to interact meaningfully with people around the world. Most MMOs require players to invest large amounts of their time into the game (drawing one away from the real world), and are most suitable for a gamer that is not occupied daily with matters in the “outside” world. Still, almost anyone who enjoys video games or human interaction can enjoy an MMOG.

Virtual World Reference Material

Google Tech Talk by Second Life founders Philip Rosendale and Cory Ondrejka

Do avatars dream of electric racoons? by Paul Mason

My Virtual Life by Rob Hoff

You play WOW? Your hired by John Seely Brown and Douglas Thomas

Second Life dreams of Electric Sheep by Daniel Terdiman

World of warcrack by Joi Ito

Are virtual worlds the future of the classroom by Stefanie Olsen

Video podcast of Joi Ito and Loic Le Meur chatting about the sharing economy

Mitch Kapor on the Power of Second Life by Mark Wallace

Is it possible to surpass World of Warcraft? by DFC Intelligence

The Blurring Boundaries of Play by Nick Yee