Journal For Virtual Worlds Research (Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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Evaluating Participation in an International Bilingual Virtual World Educational Intervention for Youth
No full textThis paper reports on an evaluation of participation in a complex, international, bilingual project called ClubZora. ClubZora was an eleven-month educational intervention in which the Zora virtual world was introduced to an international after-school community of youth spanning 11 countries and two languages, English and Spanish. Zora is a multi-user virtual environment that provides a safe space for youth. In Zora, users can create and populate a virtual city by making their own places and interactive creations, using 3D objects such as picture frames, movie screens, houses, interior decorations, message boards, and signs. Zora provides both a real-time chat system and a message-board system for communication. Each action performed by the participants in Zora is logged into a database and analyzed with a customized online log-parser. The log parser allows for easy exploration of population demographics and data related to software usage (i.e., logging on/off, conversations, object creation, etc.). In addition, a master registry of the objects created in Zora is contained within a file called
Understanding "Gold Farming" and Real-Money Trading as the Intersection of Real and Virtual Economies
No full textThis paper has three purposes. First, it extends the range of economic ideas that have been applied to massively-multiplayer online games (MMOGs), drawing on scale economies, exchange rates, and information failure. It does this, as its second purpose, by deepening the analysis of one relatively-neglected aspect of virtual economie
Methodology of a Novel Virtual Phenomenology Interview Technique
No full textThe use of virtual world technology as a social and communications medium is increasing dramatically. Virtual world-based interview environments are emerging as a tool that qualitative researchers may consider either to supplement or to replace traditional face-to-face interview settings. Guided by previous studies comparing computer-mediated communications to face-to-face interviews, this study explores the character and degree of interviewer influence on participant
Compounding the Results: The Integration of Virtual Worlds with the Semantic Web
No full textOver the past 20 years governmental use of web-base information and technologies has continually expanded taking advantage of the Web\u27s vast, ever-expanding volumes of browser-accessible information
dint u say that: Digital Discourse, Digital Natives and Gameplay
No full textDiscourse analysis has the potential of providing insight into gameplay dynamics and team success. However, because of factors such as interrupted sequences, gameplay discourse does not easily lend itself to discourse analysis. Therefore, in addition to traditional methods, new and modified discourse analysis methods were applied to a corpus of 858 discrete gameplay discourse events disclosing discourse characteristics during collaborative problem solving. Four teams of four digital natives each played PanelPuzzle, a limited-time span, goal-oriented game, in a virtual environment. Discourse both reflected and impacted team dynamics. It manifested leadership. To promote team success, gameplay digital discourse tone was serious, showing little evidence of fun although players reported enjoying gameplay. Brevity, ill-formedness and distorted syntax were chief characteristics, but, because it was goal-oriented, it differed markedly from reported social digital discourse. Digital natives used digital discourse effectively to communicate, build community, collaborate and accomplish gameplay tasks. We conclude that gameplay digital discourse constitutes a distinct linguistic register which prioritizes efficiency over well-formedness. We characterize this register in a taxonomy and a meta-taxonomy
A Design Research Approach to Developing User Innovation Workshops in Second Life
No full textThe Design Science Research approach is increasingly being applied in the field of Information Systems (IS) research. The philosophy behind design science research is that new scientific knowledge can be generated by means of constructing an artifact, and the core of this approach is a problem solving process used to develop the artifact. As virtual worlds are a relatively new IS medium, limited attention has been paid to investigating the use of design research in virtual worlds. Nevertheless, it is considered a relevant approach as much research in the field of virtual worlds involves the design of virtual spaces to support some kind of business activity. As such, the research purpose of this paper is to investigate the use of the design research approach in virtual worlds. In this paper, we describe and take a practical perspective of a specific case study in which design research was developed and used for a specific project. The specific project in focus is the development of a user innovation workshop inside Second Life for a start-up company interested in gaining insights and ideas for the development of its product
Virtual Junk Food Playgrounds in Europe: Advergames in the UK and Hungary
No full textUnhealthy foods and drinks are among the top products advertised to young children. Considering the growing childhood obesity epidemic and the soaring number of children accessing the Internet, even online junk food advertising has come under increasing scrutiny. Many countries are in the process of expanding and revising existing regulation to account for the realities of the digital age and to respond to health and other social concerns. This paper focuses on two European countries in particular to examine and compare these processes through the lens of junk food advergames aimed at children. Our questions are: 1) Given the differences in the media landscapes of the UK and Hungary, what types of junk food advergames target children?; and 2) In light of the growing childhood obesity problem faced by both nations, how have government bodies, advocacy groups, and advertisers approached junk food advertising targeting children in general and online advertising including advergames in particular? The United Kingdom represents a country with the highest Internet usage by children and the most developed online advertising market in Europe, while Hungary, a post-communist country, represents an emerging media market where young people have less access to the Internet and buying power but constitute a crucia
Growing Up with Neopets: A Personal Case-Study
No full textNeopets.com is a popular virtual pet site attracting roughly 44 million players worldwide. As more and more children spend time on sites like Neopets.com, there is debate over whether they are being victimized or empowered by their exposure to cultural products and discourses online. The existing literature mostly consists of observations and interpretations that are made by researchers from an adult outsider\u27s perspective. In this study, I discuss how, in my nine years of membership on Neopets.com, I have developed an awareness of myself in relation to a larger society, and also gained important skills that proved useful to me later in life. I conclude that a virtual world can enable a young person to try on active roles in addition to passive ones in a modern commercial society
Virtual Goods: Good for Business?
No full textWhilst 2008 saw the emergence of the virtual worlds sector, 2009 has to be called the year of the virtual good. With online destinations such as social networks seeing a creation of brand-new revenue steams and virtual world