Virtual Cultures

Virtual Worlds Market Segments

One of my students, Michael Biggs, showed me this very nifty visualization showing the various market segments of virtual worlds. Kzero: Looking across the metavers.

AMA and the virtual world, danah boyd on the red carpet

This last week saw a couple of interesting occurrances which, I think, have a couple of interesting similarities, which probably boil down to one underlying principle ... very close to the heart of online culture.  First, the AMA began official undertakings to classify video game and MMOG addiction, including this remarkable statement: "....Current theory is that these individuals achieve more control of their social relationships and more success in social relationships in the virtual reality realm than in real relationships."   Imagine my delight...

Nick Yee's Player Motivation Diagram

Interest in Nick Yee's Player Motivation taxonomy started in the comments on the OGDC presentation by Nicole Lazzaro - it's a nicely nuanced presentation of player motivations - among other things, these descriptions are not exclusive, a player can have motivational factors in several components.  The original write up is here: 

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001298.php?page=1

And I thought it might be fun to get people taking the survey, to see what we think of it.

http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/assess/mot_survey1.php