Virtual Worlds / 2nd Life as an educational tool

Done a simple search of lectures in 2nd life and you would get plenty of links / search results. What's so great about attending a lecture in 2nd Life? Seems like everyone is giving it a try. There is some feedback that virtual citizens may need some time to get used to the user interface if they are not expert with the systems.

While I agree that Virtual Worlds can become a tool for educational purposes, I actually think that the value is greater in the arena of providing a harmless platform where students participate in group projects. No point listening to a lecture in virtual world when I can do the same via any other Internet portal?

More value of using the gaming worlds to provide team learning opportunities in a fun way. Imagine doing a raid in World of Warcraft where students can learn the value of teamwork, e.g simple respect for the raid leader's commands. Here's another person's blog with her account of teamwork in World of Warcraft.

Can VWs evolve to become better educational tools? I think so. The only obstacles is to get educationists to start participating in these virtual worlds before they identify the value of such tools for education. That would be a difficult obstacle to cross...

IPv6 and what it means for me...

Let's chat about something different from online gaming but with an equally interesting development - IPv6. IPv6 means Internet Protocol version 6. For those techies, I bet you know a lot more about IPv6 than I do. For those non-techies, IPv6 is somewhat the next version of the internet addressing standards. We're using (most of us anyways) IPv4 standards currently, but this way of addressing may not be sufficient in the future. It's like phone numbers, and when more people need phone numbers, we may need to introduce longer phone numbers, e.g. 4 digit number could serve at best 10,000 (0000 - 9999) people. To serve the 10,001th person, everyone got to convert to a 5 digit phone number.

There is also a lot of prediction about when IPv6 will come, and a lot of counter arguments about why it wouldn't be so soon, e.g. introduction of NATs. ICANN seems to have more and more statements to promote take-up of IPv6, while there are also more talks about IPv6 take-up. But let's leave that to the crystal-ball gazers... and the worrying to the different governments / corporations.

For layman like you and me, IPv6 may mean the following:

a) more devices with IP addresses, i.e. Internet addresses, and so more devices connected to the Internet anytime, anywhere in more mobile fashion?

b) potential trouble with my existing hardware - do I need to change or buy anything new?

c) potential trouble with my software - do I need to 'switch' on anything?

d) fragmented Internet such that I can't surf particular sites, or the sites may look different somehow?

Can't think of any others for now, which also mean that for normal consumers like you and me, the IPv6 issues may not be truly exciting. For the corporations and governments maybe, but for us we may just need less trouble. Guess I should switch back to chat about online gaming haa.

Value of Land in an Infinite Space

Was reading some articles about the development of virtual worlds in China and did some thinking about the various land resulted wealth in the virtual worlds. Wonder if there would be a massive devaluation of land prices in the VWs once people realised that there are increasingly more and more such VWs, i.e. infinite land? Would there be a sub-prime equivalent happening for the VWs?

What would happen to folks like Anshe, who became millionaires due to the value of property development in 2nd Life when users start migrating to other VWs like HiPiHi? Was strolling around using my avatar in 2nd Life and I don't really see many people around...


That's me taking a rest on a hammock, and below is a picture of me smoking some stuff.

State of Play V T-Shirt & Mug

Was doing some spring cleaning in my room and realised that I still have my State of Play V Shirt & Mug, unused and lying in a corner. Guess we have too many corporate mugs lying around. The conference was a good one, and it is a pity I can't attend the VW conference (not State of Play) in New York this year.

Gambling, banking & what next?

A couple of weeks back Second Life decided to place restrictions on banking activities in the Second Life. Let me quote some parts of the announcement:

As of January 22, 2008, it will be prohibited to offer interest or any direct return on an investment (whether in L$ or other currency) from any object, such as an ATM, located in Second Life, without proof of an applicable government registration statement or financial institution charter. We’re implementing this policy after reviewing Resident complaints, banking activities, and the law, and we’re doing it to protect our Residents and the integrity of our economy.

Since the collapse of Ginko Financial in August 2007, Linden Lab has received complaints about several in-world “banks” defaulting on their promises. These banks often promise unusually high rates of L$ return, reaching 20, 40, or even 60 percent annualized.

It is interesting that Second Life does allow 'real banks' to function in Second Life. Since this effectively legitimises banking in Second Life (provided you have a real world bank presence) then does it allows for real world bank transactions via Second Life? For example if I want to transfer money from a bank account, say in London, to another bank account, say in New York, am I subject to any tax by the relevant authorities? I think this opens up another can of worms for Second Life since it now really has to regulate virtual banks in its servers.

This comes right after Second Life bans gambling in the virtual world. Banning gambling is an easier way of complying with regulations since it allows Second Life to outright deny any association with such activities.

By doing the above, Second Life is essentially imposing certain form of regulations due to pressure from real life regulatory frameworks. Not sure how this would pan out for Second Life, but it is likely that Second Life would face more pressure for other 'content regulation' from now on. Guess they have to balance having more 'in-server activities' with vast freedom versus pressure from various regulatory bodies. Wonder if my Second Life avatar consumes a 'drug' which results in some visual / audio manipulation of my screen / speakers to simulate 'drug high', would my avatar be commiting any real world offences?

Online Games Economy - Part 3

Not all is rosy for the trade of virtual currency or items. Even for online games / virtual worlds where such trade is legitimate, the same pitfall of fraud /scam is around.

We've all heard about the case of Eve Intergalatic Bank where almost $170,000 worth of virtual currency is wiped off. The link also provides a download of a video confession of the scammer. This has sparked much debate on slashdot.

Here's a link to the game itself, quite an interesting one:

The scam / fraud is not limited to Eve alone; the other popular virtual world where virtual money has legitimate convertible value is 2nd Life and here's a case about the Ginko Bank. This article has a full explanation of the current developments, including how new laws are used to create trust for such virtual transactions. It is still questionable whether statutory laws or traditional contract laws should be applied, afterall, one has to accept the terms and conditions of use for virtual worlds before one can participate in one.

Of course, the question of enforceability still applies. It is not sure how many of these scams are reported since players are less likely to report on small amounts. If the cases are reported to the authority, how many are acted upon?

Guess the whole virtual world / online games economy is still developing and we will continue to see new changes as people adapts to it. Of course there are many features of online games / virtual worlds worth discussing about, so let's move on.

Online Games Economy - Part 2

Trading of in-game items, gold...etc using real life money (a.k.a Real Money Trade - RMT) is quite a debatable activity from both legal and ethics perspective.

From the legal perspective, it is not clear if the Terms and Conditions for use of the online games would prevent an individual from trading off his in-game items , golds for real life money. Some gaming companies have come out clearly to say they forbid such activities, and any persons found advertising or selling his in-game items, gold would have the account deleted. There are also cases where the company assist players to remove any in-game spams about in-game gold sales. Of course, there are other games / virtual worlds where exchange of in-games gold/ money for real money is allowed, e.g. 2nd Life with an exchange rate of about 265-270 Linden dollars to US$1 (picture below). Some would argue that 2nd Life is not an online- game. Sure, but there is also EVE Online where some form of in-game trade for real life money is allowed when there introduced the 'Eve time Code' prepaid code. Guess real money trade for in-game gold / items is just an arbitrage between those with too much real money but not enough time, and those with too much time but not enough money. Add to the equation is the fact that such trade could take place seamlessly across the globe where income disparity is higher compared to national income disparity and we get flourishing trade.



Having said that, it is not always clear that the gaming company would have absolute say over the games economy or in-game characters' possessions. There are also legal cases where gamers could have an upper hand but I side-tracked.

From an ethical perspective, there are many views about why such RMT should or should not be allowed. Gamers argued that using real life money to power level or get in-game gold / items is not fair to others who have grind their way through to the higher levels or more in-game wealth. While there are also players who said that having the option to 'trade' gold and items among players in the game as an option, means there is an implicit agreement for players to do as they wish with their in-game items. The former group may at times target 'gold farmers' in the game and disturb their 'gold farming'. This Wiki article has a fair bit of description about farming and the reasons why it is a viable business. Picture from a site selling WoW gold shown below.



One downside of such trade is the possibility of fraud, and it is difficult to catch fraud on such online games platform. Would blog about it soon.