According to this article, Atari may be contemplating a user-generated content world. This is an interesting step for a publisher of IP; after all, part of why Sony’s Home is limited to user content mostly in private spaces is basically to prevent IP from being rampantly abused. Be interesting to see what comes of this.
Onder Skall has a nice post up entitled Alternatives To Second Life – Uber Edition which runs down lots of “metaversey’ style worlds. There are a few historical ones he missed that are still running, I think, and he missed a few upcoming ones that I think are of interest as well: Whirled and Ogoglio.
More interesting is that list of three core requirements that he sees an SL-like world as needing to have:
Massive, alas, appears to be dead alongside Computer Games, according to news reports. But if you happen to subscribe, I have an article in there about MMO economies that might interest you. I’ll see if I can post it here eventually, if the mag is indeed going under.
It wasn’t that long ago that we saw some Second Life players identifying the core characteristics that define, to their minds, what a metaverse title actually is. The list I saw once, but cannot find, included “users retaining ownership of IP” and “ability to cash out.”
But today, JoongAng Daily points out that not only is online gambling banned in Korea, but that all sorts of online businesses are:
In Korea, however, making money for commercial purposes through games is illegal. Revised laws that go into effect on April 20 have stronger restrictions on offline trade of cyber items.
Individual players can sell unwanted items offline, since that can be seen as a part of game-playing, but if they start making money for money’s sake, it becomes illegal,” said Kim Gyu-yeong, an official at the Culture Ministry.
No doubt the case will be made that Second Life and similar metaverses are not games, and that therefore the regulations should not apply, but I don’t know that this will make the Korean government any softer on the issue, given the Sea Story scandal.
This article has an awful lot to say about why games are the way they are — especially the go-go-go level-up-madly sorts of virtual worlds.
Specifically, I’d call back to these two posts of mine:
Is it even possible to design a game where people stop to admire the beauty? And if so, how?
(via Kim)
