Month: June 2006

Henry Jenkins, the prolific writer (academic behind the MIT Convergence Consortium and Convergence Culture book among a hundred million other things) who has been blogging at Technology Review, Computer Games and recently I’ve seen him at Media Center’s ‘We Imagine’ section of Morph. Well, just this month Henry has started his own blog: Confessons of a Aca/Fan (part academic, part fan). Arck! too cool.

The latest issue of The Escapist Magazine (which can be read in Second Life as well) has an article by Shannon Drake on the ARG Perplex City: Breaking the Fourth Wall. Ignore the first page with unhelpful comments such as ARGs “are growing up, moving away from experiments and marketing gimmicks” (referring to The Beast, Majestic and I Love Bees), and you’ll find some interesting chat about Perplex City from Andrea Philips.

Terra Nova reports that 15 papers on virtual worlds are online for free and easy consumption. The papers were written by students of the “Games for the Web: Ethnography of Massively Multiplayer On-line Games.” or “Games for the Web” course at Trinity University. There is a great collection of areas of investigation. I’ve had a quick read of some and they look really interesting. They cover MMOs as therapy, as pedagogy, as sexual gratification, as bonding and so on. I have alot to say about these topics but I have to get back to finishing a paper I’m writing. Doh! Anyway, enjoy the papers.