Reading Response 3

Discussion Blog - Robert Gapinski and Sara Greer

I was planning to write a dialogue post in response to a blog that was posted on this week's readings. However, there was no blog on which to respond. By Sunday evening, I couldn't wait any longer. Of all the articles we've read this semester, The Star Wars article was my favorite. I identified with it became I am an amature videographer myself. The following is a response to Robert Gapinski's 4/21 blog on the middle portion of the Castronova book. Sara Greer has posted about this blog as well.

Before reading this book, I didn't give much thought to synthetic environments. When I thought of WOW and people with WOW addictions, I thought it was really stupid. This book has changed my mind and I now have a better understanding of the importance of these complex worlds.

Like Sara, my personal experiances in the kinds of synthetic worlds are limited. However, from time to time, I do play in the virtual community Neopets. (Unlike other worlds, I think this world would be very hard to become addicted to because a strong social element is absent. )I do see elements of real life in the game. There is a rather complicated economy, a fluctualting "stock market", currency, you can have your own house, and you can run a store . One of the main points of the game is to collect many items to sell in your store and and take care of your pet. These experiances have helped me to understand what the Castranova book was trying to say. Virtual worlds definately do immitate and have implications in the real world.

I do agree that the lines between virtual and real life are constantly becomeing increasingly blured. People have a lot of time and effort invested in thier avatars and their synthetic world of choice. The virtual world can easliy become an important part of ones life (when this becomes and addition is called toxic immersion). People can take these games so seriously that they will kill someone for stealing their sword or refuse to leave their world for 80 hours and die of exaustion. Iwas interested in a portion of Robert's blog where he talked about how a tramatic event in a synthetic world like rape or theft could effect a persons RL interactions and relationships.

I think that the "membrane" metophor was a very good description of the sparation of virtual and real worlds (Robert's chosen quotes on this were insightful and useful in understanding this idea). There is a sparation between virtual and real worlds but there is a constant exchange or information and items between them. You can have a profession soely based on the synthetic world that you are part of. People build up charecters and collect gold that they will sell to people. People will pay up to $500 for a higher level charecter (pg 149). This is a clear blending of the virtal items, money and eBay which are in RL. This is not suprising because some people take the game so seriously.

Another way that I have seen this blending of RL and virtual worlds is in advertisment. In Neopets there are real advertisments every where. There are ads for McDonalds, Limited Too, and childrens TV programs. Also, Neopets has just added a feature where you can buy Neocash (which you pay real money for) to buy real and virtual items through the game. It is a constant reminder that there is a real world out there and it is bleeding into the game.

Explore:
http://www.neopets.com/