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Microprofessions December 20, 2007

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Double Happiness is seeking Second Lifers to work in our telematic textile factory on Eyebeam Island from January 17-27 for 3-hour shifts. We offer a competitive salary of 200 Lindens per hour plus land bonuses. No experience necessary. Positions include laser cutters, dye vat operators, jaquard loom weavers, quality control and supervisors.
— from Double Happiness Manufacturing

I’m in the newspaper October 16, 2007

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So I got a scholarship from Electronic Arts for the Masters of Digital Media that I’m taking right now, and it has generated a little bit of press. I got my BA in Langley (and spent the last 5 years there) so the story has run twice, once in the Langley Advance and once in the Langley Times. Both of those are cached here, but you can see the online version on the canada.com network.

4 changes I’d make to Second Life October 14, 2007

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I’ve been out of the blogosphere for far too long, so I’m just going to jump into it and not make any apologies. I’ve been spending more and more of my time on Second Life lately, at the University Project that Sun has set up for the Masters of Digital Media.

Second Life is a great big open playground, where you can build a lot of different things and add scripts that make them do a lot of different things. Anything that citizens make in Second Life belongs to them, and they can resell their items at any price using Linden dollars which can be exchanged for real money. But you know all that already.

What I’m interested is where Second Life falls short in its claim to be heralding in a new paradigm for cyberspace. In particular, there are at least four areas that need significant work before virtual worlds like Second Life can be part of Web 3.0.
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NYTimes on Theodicy August 21, 2007

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It’s unsettling to think of the world being run by a futuristic computer geek, although we might at last dispose of that of classic theological question: How could God allow so much evil in the world? For the same reason there are plagues and earthquakes and battles in games like World of Warcraft. Peace is boring, Dude.
– NYTimes, Our Lives, Controlled From Some Guy’s Couch

Mastering digital media March 16, 2007

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My Dad told me that a recent article I wrote for the TWU school paper, Mars’ Hill, went a long way in explaining why I’m pursuing the career path that I am. For those who want to know, I’ve republished the article below.

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The kingdom of Norrath has a GDP roughly equivalent to Namibia. In 2002 the average citizen made about $3.42 an hour. This is an impressive figure, considering Norrath has been in a constant state of civil war since its genesis in 1999. What makes this figure even more impressive is the fact that Norrath is a virtual kingdom, inhabited by players of the online game EverQuest.

These days, inhabitants of online worlds can earn much more. Second Life, which is more of a virtual world than a game, encourages players to buy and sell virtual goods for real money. Some citizens rake in over $50 000 a year. Of course, some are logging 70+ hours a week, as in the case of Veronica Browne of Simone! Design, a virtual fashion company. Despite the long hours, she makes over $17 an hour, well above the retail average. Even the more fantastical games like World of Warcraft, with over seven million players, have well-established economies where it is possible to make a significant income over and above the monthly cost of play.
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My first virtual meeting January 18, 2007

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I am applying to join the inaugural class of the new Master’s of Digital Media (MDM) in Vancouver, BC this fall. I’ve already had a chance to interact with, Dr. Gerri Sinclair, who received her PhD in Shakespearean studies, worked for a number of technology companies including IBM, and is now the force behind the new MDM.



The MDM began in part due to what I believe was around a $30 million grant from the BC government. Much of this money is being used to create the new Centre for Digital Media (CDM), which will house future classes of the MDM. For now, the building exists only in Second Life, thanks to Master machinimator, Scope Cleaver, who constructed a version of the building in the virtual world. A brief clip of the construction process is embedded here: for a longer version go here.

The most interesting part of this so far is the virtual meeting that I attended this morning inside this virtual CDM, whose purpose was to discuss the possibility of maximizing creativity and collaboration inside Second Life. Here is a screenshot from the experience (to see the full picture, just click on the image):

JoannaTrail Blazer: so to recap - so far we are looking at a room with invisible walls in the sky, with a pit structure, like a round amphitheatre, in the centre a thought diagram type board we can all add to
Arteer Oliva: def need to make time to orient
JoannaTrail Blazer: and no table
Arteer Oliva: YAY!
JoannaTrail Blazer: and a Wii, laptops, and a minifridge

I came up with the Wii and the minifridge.

warcraft, death and fictive kinship groups December 12, 2006

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Assuming that what Stan says is true, there is a place for bonding in World of Warcraft (WoW). A very real place, since the average amount of time spent in the game by each of its >7 million subscribers is around 2 hours a day.
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Sprechen de Simpsons trading card game? November 27, 2006

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Check out the english version here

Out of the bubble and into the game November 18, 2006

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This site has been suffering from schizophrenia lately, divided between thoughts on TWU, vague motions towards the religious, a smattering of the political and a healthy dose of video game frenzy. To cut down on the clutter, I have decided to do the following:

  1. Everything with a particularly religious bent has been redirected to mythmeme, a site I started with some friends to play with the metaphors various religions bat about these days.
  2. All my bits and pieces on life at Trinity were to appear on the site twubits.com, but since I find myself caring less and less about the political side of my school, I don’t imagine you’ll be hearing much more from me on that topic.
  3. This site is going to be dedicated to my attempt to make it big in the electronic game industry. Specifically, I’m going to be posting clippings, theories, success stories, failures, lessons learned and more from the gaming world, crossing the spectrum from the casual game market and its players to “serious games” to the big guns like EA and Blizzard. I want to figure out why they succeed, why they fail and how I can get in the game, first on the level of corporate elearning and eventually the broader entertainment world.

To those of you who have followed my commentary on TWU, thank you for reading. Perhaps out of the new mix there will arise a truly independent student press that will not hesitate to hold the administration accountable. Maybe that will be Mars’ Hill, and maybe it will be another project in the blogosphere where it can remain safe from the pharisees. To those of you who have read this blog for gaming news and general thoughts about the future of technology, stay tuned. It’s time to extend beyond TWU, beyond Langley, and into the future of play.

More on Columbine RPG May 25, 2006

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Serious Games Source has provided more coverage on the maker of the Super Columbine Massacre RPG, Danny Ledonne.