As an update to the post on the Accelerating Change Conference readers might like to listen to some audio of the roundtable conversation between Brian "Psychochild" Green, Jamie "Gaming Open Market" Hale, Daniel "Three Rings" James, and Steve "IGE" Salyer. The moderaterateror is our very own Cory "They like to call him "Linden Labs" but we call him "TerraNova"" Ondrejka.

First and most memeworthy seem to be those related to extending Google Maps to deeper functionality and greater potential for folksonomic markup (for much, much more on folksonomies, see Many-to-Many). Google Maps has added satellite images, which were marked up with personal narratives related to the spaces by the Flikr group Memory Maps, and then Craig's List apartment listings were scraped and integrated into Google Maps. Fun.

I rediscovered an old flame - an online game (Allegiance) that I played circa 2000. As I reminisced, old questions surfaced regarding team-play, role-specialization, and the degree to which the "duty" of players can be reasonably expected and incentivized in virtual spaces.

With keynotes from Vernor Vinge, Ray Kurzweil, Joi Ito, and others, it looks like it's gonna be a gas. (Now, if they can just resist having a blogging panel, my joy will be complete) This is an attitude (deeper than that, it's a disposition) which I'd suggest is rooted in developer practice generally, and computer games developer practice specifically. It is a view which recognizes that which is scripted, modeled, or otherwise generated according to the practice of software development as seemingly both the (only) site of creativity and (therefore) the ultimate locus of value. Cheap FFXI Gil are on hot sale on all servers, especially on American servers.

There are 112 million gamers age 13 or older in the US. By year end 2008 this number will grow to 148 million. There was general recognition that successful campaigns must always be contextual and sensitive to the quality of the player’s gaming experience. This is an attitude (deeper than that, it's a disposition) which I'd suggest is rooted in developer practice generally, and computer games developer practice specifically. It is a view which recognizes that which is scripted, modeled, or otherwise generated according to the practice of software development as seemingly both the (only) site of creativity and (therefore) the ultimate locus of value. Cheap FFXI Gil are on hot sale on all servers, especially on American servers. They looked friendly enough--at least, no one had fruit ready to throw at us. It was simply kind of surreal, after reading the comments on TN this past week and hearing other things at the conference about the problems with game studies and developer/academic relations.

Many speakers called for the development of standards of measurement but also admitted that standards will be particularly difficult to develop in this interactive medium.

Yesterday I attended the Advertising in Games conference here in New York. Most of the conference was off topic for virtual worlds enthusiasts, as there were very few references to MMOGs. However, it offered interesting insight into the current ad agency mindset and I enjoyed catching up with speaker Ian Bogost from Watercooler Games. Read on for a brief summary of common conference themes and a few metrics gleaned from the presentations. This is an attitude (deeper than that, it's a disposition) which I'd suggest is rooted in developer practice generally, and computer games developer practice specifically.

But I’m not sure why. Maybe it -would- be a good idea if opposing sides took up virtual arms – anything is better than stones and bombs. For example, one might argue that the current India vs Pakistan test series is a cathartic political statement, the leaders of both nations being present seems to suggest that that game does have political significance. Or am I just trivializing matters now? After all, war’s not a game (pdf) now is it? Similarly, cory: i'm not saying that gold exchange is now always and everywhere inside the magic circle. I’m saying i can conceive of games designed with the *incentives* to ebay kept firmly in mind, that *will* be in the magic circle. This is an attitude (deeper than that, it's a disposition) which I'd suggest is rooted in developer practice generally, and computer games developer practice specifically.

The ongoing conflict between China and Japan seems to be spilling over into the MMO mulitverse. As I say I feel that this will see shifts and divisions in games. No eBayers (we need a new term here) will find places that will satisfy their needs if eBayers corrupt their spaces. We might see the rise in effectively eBayer zones where they are playing on roughly the same field with their shiny automatic paint guns, boats and football teams in the English league were not a single player actually is English. This is an attitude (deeper than that, it's a disposition) which I'd suggest is rooted in developer practice generally, and computer games developer practice specifically.

To be picky I don't really like the use of the term Social Contract in this context as I feel that that really picks out a particular relationship between an individual and a state. Cyber-exceptionalists and the like might want these connotations but I'm not sure it's what we are getting at here, at the very least it can be a distraction. I've adopted the term ludic-contract because I think that that gets to the heart of things. That heart being, as I commented the other day on Nathan's thread, that which sustains a kind of ultra-minimal ludic state i.e. where two or more people share a common myth and values of the game (the network of bonds of trust that make up and sustain the magic circle is another way of looking at it, especially if one wants to be contractarian in ones ethics).