Map mashups to locate console games

I really like Google map mashups -- they're smart, useful, surprising, and almost always originate at the grassroots level. The latest to cross my desk are two services for locating PlayStation 3 or Nintendo Wii game consoles:

• PS2seeker and
• Bidnearby

Both free services scour inventory listings from eBay, Craigslist and nearby stores and plot the results on a color-coded Google map. When I typed out the url, the services immediately took me to my home town and a 50-mile radius or so. (Bidnearby said: "We've approximated your location to ..." It guessed right.) Very slick.

Second Life founder's appearance in SF

I couldn't make the appearance by Second Life founder Philip Rosedale at Ft. Mason in San Francisco on Thursday night. (Above is a shot I took of Philip last year.) But Stewart Brand, who organizes the Seminar About Long-term Thinking  sessions, provided this account by email:

What is real life coming to owe digital life? After a couple years in the flat part of exponential growth, the steep part is now arriving for the massive multi-player online world construction kit called "Second Life."   With 1.7 million accounts, membership in "Second Life" is growing by 20,000 per day.  The current doubling rate of "residents" is 7 months, still shortening, which means the growth is (for now) hyperexponential.

For this talk the founder and CEO of "Second Life," Philip Rosedale, tried something new for him--- a simultaneous demo and talk.  His online avatar, "Philip Linden," was on the screen showing things while the in-theater Philip Rosedale was conjecturing about what it all means.  "This is a game of 'Can I interest you more in what I'm saying than what's going on on the screen?'"

He showed how new arrivals go through the "gateway" experience of creating their own onscreen avatar, explaining that because intense creativity is so cheap, easy, and experimental, the online personas become strongly held.  "You can have multiple avatars in 'Second Life,' but the overall average is 1.25 avatars per person."  The median age of users is 31, and the oldest users spend the most time in the world (over 80 hours per week for 10 percent of the residents).  Women are 43 percent of the customers.

The on-screen Philip Linden was carrying Rosedale's talk notes (handwritten, scanned, and draped onto a board in the digital world). Rosedale talked about the world while his avatar flew ("Everyone flies--- why not?") to a music club in which a live song performance was going on (the real singer crooning into her computer in real time from somewhere.)  The singer recognized Philip Linden in the on-screen audience and greeted him from the on-screen stage.

"More is different," Rosedale explained.  People think they want total and solitary control of their world, but the result of that is uninteresting.  To get the emergent properties that make "Second Life" so enthralling, it has to be one contiguous world with everyone in it.  At present it comprises about 100 square miles, mostly mainland, with some 5,000 islands (all adding up to 35 terrabytes running in 5,000 servers).  Defying early predictions, the creativity in "Second Life" has not plateaued but just keeps escalating.  Everybody is inspired to keep topping each other with ever cooler things.  There are tens of thousands of clothing designers.  Unlike the aesthetic uniformity of imagined digital worlds like in the movie "The Matrix," "Second Life" is suffused with variety. It is "the sum of our dreams."

The burgeoning token economy in "Second Life" is directly connected to the real-world economy with an exchange rate of around 270 Linden dollars to 1 US dollar.  There are 7,000 businesses operating in "Second Life," leading this month to its first real-world millionaire (Metaverse real estate mogul Anshe Chung).  At present "Second Life" has annual economic activity of about $70 million US dollars, growing rapidly.

As Jaron Lanier predicted in the early '90s, the only scarce resource in virtual reality is creativity, and it becomes valued above everything.  Freed of the cost of goods and the plodding quality of real-world time, Rosedale explained, people experiment fast and strange, get feedback, and experiment again.  They orgy on the things they think they want, play them out, get bored, and move on. They get "married," start businesses with strangers--- "There are 40-person businesses made of people who have never met in real life."  Real-world businesses hold meetings in "Second Life" because they're more fun and encourage a higher degree of truth telling.

Pondering the future, Rosedale said that every aspect of the quality of shared virtual life will keep improving as the technology accelerates and the number of creators online keeps multiplying. ("Second Life" is now moving toward a deeper order of creativity by releasing most of its world-building software into open source mode.)

Real-world artifacts like New York City could become regarded like museums.  "As the fastest moving, most creative stuff in our society increasingly takes place in the virtual world, that will change how we look at the real world," Rosedale concluded.

The next SALT talk here in San Francisco will be on Friday, Jan. 26, 02007: Philip Tetlock, "Why Foxes Are Better Forecasters than Hedgehogs."

'The Dark Side of Second Life'

BusinessWeek Online has a piece on 'The Dark Side of Second Life.' Software that lets residents copy others' possessions is the latest reminder that this virtual world may need tougher law enforcement.

Population boom in Second Life

Associated Press: Population boom in a digital world. Virtual challenges, sex are big draws in the virtual world Second Life. Excerpt:

"Second Life'' now has more than 800,000 denizens, of whom more than a hundred are earning a real-world, full-time living there, selling things like virtual land, clothes, jewelry, weaponry and pets, or by offering virtual services, notably sex.

Yes, people pay real money for things they can use only in Rosedale's Web world. Hundreds of thousands of real dollars change hands in ``Second Life'' daily, and it would have an annual gross domestic product of around $150 million if it were to stop growing today. ...

Another big draw for ``Second Life'' is the prospect of witnessing or engaging in virtual sex. Players can alter their characters' appearance to be as beautiful or sexy as their imaginations -- and computer graphics -- allow them to be.

Users own the intellectual property rights to the things they design there. That has attracted tech-savvy designers who craft landscapes of stunning beauty and build objects of infinite cunning.

I wrote about Second Life in Darknet, when it was less than a tenth of its current size.

Will Wright on Spore

I saw Will Wright, creator of The Sims, give a demo of his upcoming blockbuster computer game Spore a couple of months ago in San Francisco, and it was simply amazing. Amazing.

In the Sunday NY Times, Steven Johnson, the author of “Everything Bad Is Good For You," interviews Wright about Spore and the state of modern game-playing: The Long Zoom.

World of Warcraft: only a game?

In the Sept. 18 issue of Newsweek, Steve Levy has an article that quotes two of my friends, Joi Ito, Ross Mayfield and Liz Lawley. (Who knew Joi is a Level 60 Gnome Mage, Ross a Level 60 Human Palladin and Liz a Level 60 Troll Priest?) The last time I saw Joi, he was bemoaning how totally addicted he'd become to WOW.

Because Newsweek articles aren't archived and World of Warcraft fans will be highly interested in this for months to come, I'll repost it below (if the link at MSNBC.com is live, you should head there).

Living a Virtual Life

Is World of Warcraft a game, or is it a harbinger of virtual realities that we all might inhabit? Only a Night Elf knows for sure.

By Steven Levy
Newsweek

Sept. 18, 2006 issue - Two years into the history of World of Warcraft—an online game that accommodates 7 million players around the world—no one had successfully ventured into the dungeon to slay a group of computer-generated villains known as the Four Horsemen. But four experienced "guilds" of players—one in Europe, two in America and one in China—were coming close, posting updates on separate Web sites they maintained. Finally, a 40-person contingent from a U.S. guild conquered the last beast—and its members became instant international celebrities in a massive community where dragons and Druids are as real as dirt.

In the physical world we vainly scrounge for glory. Bin Laden still taunts us, the bus doors close before we reach them and leave us standing in the rain. But in the fantasy realm of Azeroth, the virtual geography of World of Warcraft, the physical pain comes only from hitting a keyboard too hard, camaraderie is the norm and heroism is never far away. In simple terms, Warcraft is the most advanced and popular entry in a genre called Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, or MMO. "I call it the Technicolor, Americanized version of 'Lord of the Rings'," says Chris Metzen, VP of creative development for the game's maker, Blizzard Software. But for millions it is more than a game—it's an escape, an obsession and a home.

Engaging in this orgy of sword-swiping, spell-casting and monster-slaying generally involves a $50 purchase of the software and a monthly $15 fee thereafter to play online. Players in Asia—a clear majority of the WOW population, despite the fact that the game was created by digital dudes in Irvine, Calif.—buy cards that allow them WOW time for a few cents an hour. Then there's the merchandising: T shirts, jackets, hats, a nondigital (!) board game. In China, 600 million Coke cans were festooned with WOW figures. There are seven novels based on Warcraft lore. And Blizzard recently inked a movie deal with the studio that produced "Superman Returns." Games-industry analyst David Cole estimates that Blizzard (part of Vivendi) has made more than $300 million from the game so far. Blizzard COO Paul Sams says only, "We are an incredibly profitable company."

What distinguishes Warcraft from previous blockbuster games is its immersive nature and compelling social dynamics. It's a rich, persistent alternative world, a medieval Matrix with lush graphics and even a seductive soundtrack (Blizzard has two full-time in-house composers). Blizzard improved on previous MMOs like Sony's Everquest by cleverly crafting its game so that newbies could build up characters at their own pace, shielded from predators who would casually "gank" them—while experienced players continually face more and more daunting challenges. The company mantra, says lead designer Rob Pardo, is "easy to learn, difficult to master." After months of play, when you reach the ultimate level (60), you join with other players for intricately planned raids on dungeons, or engage in massive rumbles against other guilds.

"Ninety percent of what I do is never finished—parenting, teaching, doing the laundry," says Elizabeth Lawley (Level 60, Troll Priest), a Rochester, N.Y., college professor. "In WOW, I can cross things off a list—I've finished a quest, I've reached a new level."

Like many WOW players, Lawley is active in a guild. Some of the high-ranking guilds, like the one formed by noted Japanese venture capitalist Joi Ito (Level 60, Gnome Mage), are mini-societies with their own Web sites, online forums and private lore. First Ito invited people he knew professionally, like Ross Mayfield (Level 60, Human Palladin), CEO of an Internet company on whose board Ito sits. "Warcraft is the new golf," says Mayfield. "I actually closed a deal with a company I met through WOW." But as Ito met others in WOW, the roster diversified. There is a priest whose character is ... a priest. There are soldiers, bartenders, truckdrivers, lawyers and Goggle engineers. The guild's "raid leader"—who organizes the twice-weekly ventures into the feared Molten Core to slay the powerful "boss mob" monsters—is Jamie Ray (Level 60, Night Elf Druid), a night-shift nurse in Parkersburg, W.Va.

Though WOW is a fantasy world, the interaction between guilds and individuals relies on human choices and morals. The first thing one does when joining the game is to choose an avatar from one of eight "races," split between two factions: the human-looking Alliance and the more bestial Horde. Edward Castronova (Level 42, Priest), an Indiana U professor and author of "Synthetic Worlds," once roiled the WOW community by a blog posting entitled "The Horde Is Evil," in which he charged that only the antisocial at heart would pick that darker side. Castronova believes that if someone behaves badly in the game—an example would be the WOW equivalent of spree killing, where someone ganks a character of a much lower level, just for the hell of it—that person should be judged harshly in the real world as well.

Another example of questionable behavior is viewable in a video that more than 80,000 people have accessed on YouTube. When one guild member died (in real life, not Azeroth), his grieving friends decided to hold a funeral for him inside the game. The solemn affair was disrupted when a rival guild burst upon the unarmed mourners and slaughtered them mercilessly. "It's unfortunate that someone would do that to people trying to honor one of their guild members," says Mike Morhaime, Blizzard's president. Another event that bothered Blizzard's management was an in-game protest march, when hundreds of naked Gnomes gathered to call for more powers.

Generally, though, players of the game enjoy a form of com-ity rarely seen in the real world; higher-level players go out of their way to tutor newbies and accompany them on quests. Deep friendships are forged. Relationships begin that flower into marriage, with Tauren brides and Undead grooms tying the knot in some virtual tavern in Thunder Bluff.

Warcraft even has its own economy, as the gold and exotic armor and weaponry that players accumulate are much coveted in trade. Despite the opposition of Blizzard (which thinks that using real money to gain an edge in the game violates WOW's egalitarian spirit), a thriving industry makes tons of real dollars by "gold farming" (accumulating in-game currency and selling it) or "power leveling" (borrowing someone's avatar and grinding through the game to gain experience). Most of the manpower is supplied by Chinese workers like Zhang Hanbin (Level 60, Rogue), a 24-year-old dropout who works in a grim apartment-cum-sweatshop in the provincial town of Wuxue. An eight-hour day collecting game loot can yield 100 gold pieces, worth about $30 on the black market.

Are you getting the idea that "Warcrack" (as some call it) eats up a lot of time? "Of all the games that my [addictive] clients are involved with, World of Warcraft is the most popular," says clinical psychologist Kimberly Young. Mostly, trouble comes in the form of kids who fall asleep in class, and furious spouses. "My girlfriend—who actually bought me the game—was ready to kill me," says Alex Rascovar (Level 60, Gnome Mage), a New York City actor who often binged with eight-hour sessions before he went cold turkey a few months ago. There are parental controls available, but most parents haven't a clue. (Only when embarking on this story did yours truly learn that his son [Level 60, Troll Shaman] had hit the level cap in WOW.)

In China, a competitive society where real life is becoming as freaky as anything you'd find in Azeroth, players seem even more prone to go overboard. According to the Xinhua News Agency, one girl died of exhaustion after playing WOW for several days without a break.

Even those who dropped out will be tempted to return later this year when Blizzard releases its long-awaited update The Burning Crusade. The key features include two new races, a new continent to explore and an increase in the level cap from 60 to 70. Hundreds of thousands will jam the WOW servers until they once again reach the peak.

My Second Life as a muckraker

Mark Wallace in Wired magazine: My Second Life as a Muckraker. Inside the tabloid that rocked the virtual world. Walker Spaight covers crime bosses, sex scandals and corporate malfeasance for the Second Life Herald.

The debate over videogames

The Economist of London takes a look at the social impact of video games.

As video gaming spreads, the debate about its social impact is intensifying

IS IT a new medium on a par with film and music, a valuable educational tool, a form of harmless fun or a digital menace that turns children into violent zombies? Video gaming is all these things, depending on whom you ask.

Gaming has gone from a minority activity a few years ago to mass entertainment. Video games increasingly resemble films, with photorealistic images, complex plotlines and even famous actors. The next generation of games consoles—which will be launched over the next few months by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo—will intensify the debate over gaming and its impact on society, as the industry tries to reach out to new customers and its opponents become ever more vocal. ...

Poker's wild

Interesting that the New  York Times ran two major pieces on gambling today:

- Front page of Sunday Business: At PartyGaming, Everything's Wild. A look at the company behind sites like   PartyPoker.com, which will go public this week and make billionaires out of its ragtag assortment of founders and major stockholders.

- Front page of Sunday Styles: The Boy King Has Left The Table. Stu Ungar, the swashbuckling enfant terrible of poker, won, and lost, $30 million before dying at the age of 45.

Which reminds me: Jason Calacanis wants to organize a poker game at the next blogger conference. I'm there.

Is playing video games good for you?

Hey, kids! Says here that playing video games is good for you, after all.