You may divide up the workload in anyway the group sees fit. Here is a list of tasks. Make sure to have a “Credits” slide at the end of the PowerPoint Presentation so that I know who did what. And none of these numbers tell us anything about the relative market presence of U.S.-made games. If you look at the market-share chart for subscription-based MMOs, you see World of Warcraft (a Franco-U.S. production) with a crushing 52.9%. But even with WoW pulling that much weight, U.S.-made games get only 61.3% of the market. Games developed in Korea, the U.K., Japan, Iceland, and France get 34.3% (with the remaining 3.3% swept into an unalyzable "All others" category). And remember that this is only subscription-based games.

Anyone out there in TN-Land got any more "found words" to suggest? Should I update the glossary as a continued community resource? One more guest column post to come (a bit late but I promise)! It will be a narrative version of part of the talk I am giving this year as part of "Digi's World Tour". For those of you who can't stand to wait, you can see the whole slide show right now here (warning, 73MB but worth it!). My sense is that this is a facet of a larger structural transformation of the online virtual world marketplace.

What do "Big Mamie", Wooden Ships and Iron Men (the board game), and Eve Online fleet combat reify? Lag, but not in the way you might think. A few weeks ago I had the excellent fortune of staying overnight on the USS Massachusetts (BB-59, at her museum berth at Battleship Cove). Her keel was laid in 1939, launched on September 1941, commissioned on May 1942, decomissioned on March 1947. She served with distinction in WWII. Yet, she reflected a design that was limited by the London Naval Treaty of 1936 - the South Dakota class of battleship was quickly eclipsed by the Iowa class battleship later in the war. Ultimately, of course, all BBs were then eclipsed by the aircraft carrier. A striking point involves the considerable distance of time spanning concept to design (to the original strictures of the Second London Naval Treaty), design modification (treaty politicking), commissioning, and subsequent modifications made during the war in response to changing naval warfare environment (radar, more anti-aircraft).

With due respect to Cory, it's well known that there's a fair amount of PR-hype around Second life. (See Reuters and Ren on the hype cycle.) I think I've been as skeptical of Second Life news stories as anyone (except perhaps Clay Shirky). Yet while I have not drunk the Kool-aid they're handing out at Linden, sometimes one of the many self-promoting Second Life-related press releases I chance upon is really striking. Case in point is this one: As reported by Fortune, Coldwell Banker is now selling land in Second Life. Well, okay, I'll drink just a little of the Kool-Aid, because this is so weirdly metaversal -- if it were not marketing, it would surely qualify as performance art. Three years ago, I don't think I would have dared to imagine that a real realty company would be, at this time, entering into the business of buying and selling virtual real estate.

PARSIPPANY, N.J. (March 23, 2007) – With the 3-D virtual world of Second Life® having become an online phenomenon, Coldwell Banker Real Estate Corporation today announced that it is the first national real estate company to sell homes within the community. Offering houses in a variety of architectural styles and the ability to tour neighborhoods with a real estate professional, Coldwell Banker® is reinforcing its mission to ensure that everyone can achieve the dream of homeownership, whether on Main Street or in the metaverse...One of the more popular activities within Second Life is the purchase and rental of virtual land, so players can build their own stores, homes and event sites. Coldwell Banker has an inventory of more than 500 homes on 550,000 square meters in the Ranchero section of the Second Life mainland, one of the largest home developments in this virtual world. These virtual homes will vary in price based on size and style, including southwestern, colonial and contemporary, among others.

We're really fortunate to have Bonnie Ruberg join our happy band of ne'er-do-wells. Ordinarily when an author joins us I try to write some witty commentary about the subject matter that she is going to cover. But since Bonnie is perhaps the leading (and definitely the most interesting) writer on sex and virtual worlds...well, let me just say that all the earlier drafts of this announcement were likely to get me divorced, fired, or jailed. So let me use her own bio to announce her, and just say "welcome" from all of us here at Terra Nova central command: "Bonnie Ruberg is a video games writer who specializes in sex and gender issues in both virtual worlds and real-life gaming communities. She's a regular commentator for The Escapist, a contributing journalist for Wired.com, and a reviewer for The Onion A. V. Club.

In the past week or so there has been much discussion (e.g. Slashdot) regarding Second Life's use of a corn field as a novel means of punishing misdemeanors. Even real-life BDSM, though often steeped in physical response, has its basis in the language of control. Sub/dom, bottom/top, slave/master – pain may be involved in these relationships, but what makes it enjoyable is its place within a hierarchy of power. Pain is the manifestation, not the determiner, of control. The person in charge wields control; pain simply follows. Besides, control might not be as simple as control over another person. Many gamers get involved in online BDSM because they “couldn’t, wouldn’t, shouldn’t” do it in real life. They’re actively exploring their sexuality in ways their nine-to-five would never allow. In that case, what does virtual sadomasochism offer but control over us?

The Boing Boing discussion references VZones and their use of "the void" as a similar virtual world example. Also, Boing Boing coined the phrase "prison simulator"... Yet this tale seems like it should say less about a prison than of the relationship between a punishment and a prisoner. Just as child time-out (a disciplinary method) is all about technique and little about location or decorum. With child time-out often the professional discussion emphasizes the need for punishments to be exercised within a larger context of rewarding good behavior. One is said to reinforce the other. Would virtual time-outs be more effective were they applied within a framework that also rewarded good behavior? Or is membership and participation in that world reward enough?

Beyond the novelty of a corn field and black-and-white TV, a prisoner in a corn field means judges, and rewarding those who do well means managers. That developers must occasionally punish harshly for rules infractions is sadly necessary and justified. But does that easily extend to the subtle. Might easy time-outs and modest nudges connote a social engineering that at the margins can invite greater alienations (or at least headaches) as yet another level of winners and losers are chosen? Where am I? In The Village. Who are you? The new Number 2. Who is Number 1? You are Number 6. I am not a number — I am a free man!

A while back, Peter Edelmann wrote to us about the early days of Real Money Trades (“RMT”). He said:“I came across this in one Mark Wallace's Escapist pieces: "Out-of-world sales of gold and other virtual items have been going on since the early days of text-based "multi-user dungeons" and other online spaces, in the late 1970s." Which got me to thinking about the earliest documented cases of RMT. The late 70's seems a little early - and it would seem widespread external markets didn't emerge until Ultima Online (post 1997/98). I wouldn't be surprised if there was some informal RMT taking place much earlier - possibly even the mid-1980s (like in Habitat or the GEnie worlds) - but I haven't seen any documented cases. Any thoughts about this?”