[...] put them in places that we wouldn’t normal see digital characters. Second Life being on the cover of Business Week is great and Tony Montana on MTV’s Cribs is interesting in a how long did it take them to [...]

[...] The Sunday Poem: The City the Genius BuiltYou could walk forever                               and never run out of streets tripleproofed and wired                with maps on every corner The police carried ray guns                               and there was a rocket launch before breakfast once a week –                anyone was welcome to watch The genius himself presided                               from inside his marvelous house glass panels                translucent paper walls Passersby wrote on the walls                               tales of the genius and the genius read them backwards                from [...] Some historical precedentFor the next time that your friendly local government starts using your hobby as a weapon in the culture wars… Wired catalogs past “threatening” media. It’s interesting to me the way in which control of idea flow is truly a nonpartisan concept. If it’s not the right bashing evolution, it’s the left protecting the children. Both [...] Massive, XFire, what’s next?CNet says that the Wall Street Journal says that Microsoft is going to buy Massive, the in-game ad people. This mere days after we learn that Viacom is buying XFire for $102 million. Obviously, it’s great to see Chris Kirmse, one of the pioneers of MMORPGs, get his fair share of all the riches that are being [...] New laptop: a tablet PCSo I settled on a new laptop, and I got the Toshiba M400 convertible Tablet PC. I’ve been wanting a Tablet PC ever since Mark Terrano and Mike Steele showed me theirs, since I frequently design and think while sketching. They both have Motion Computing’s slate models, but I wanted something with a better keyboard [...] Mischiefblog has a surveyJust helping spread the meme: take the MMO Survey, improve human knowledge or something. http://www.sicher.org: The Game Content DodgeOver at http://www.sicher.org there’s a post discussing the “next next gen” issue that ends with a challenge and an interesting speculation. The challenge seems a close cousin of the annual Indie Game jam: I would like to see a contest that is a little different – that has a different focus. I would like a challenge with [...] The Sunday Poem: So I RememberIt seems that mortality is around me everywhere these days. Relatives left and right are failing, and a few days ago, my sister-in-law’s mother passed away. I have many poems about death and dying, because I have had a lot of people die in my life — most specifically, a lot of peers. Over time, [...] Second Life on the cover of Business WeekI guess our hobby is mainstream now. My Virtual Life article, discussion at TerraNova. The article also features an assortment of extra goodies, such as a slideshow of the evolution of online worlds. Image of the cover: The next next genSo here we are, in the next gen land of 75+ person teams and $30 million dollar budgets. What do I see when I look out across the future landscape? I see an inflection point. We’re hitting a wall on the financial side. Barring major breakthroughs, we’re looking at incredibly high costs for content generation. Unless we [...] ( vote for this news ) [...]

http://www.darniaq.com/phpNews/news.php?action=fullnews&showcomments=1&id=223

(someone turn off embedded hyperlinks? )

Lets face it guys and gals, Our little “private club” of gaming has hit the masses and they like it.

Next time a reporter shows up, ask them if they know the difference between a 24 sided dice roll or an 18 with a 6 back up.

–matt

[...] Comments [...]

But one concern I have is that with the rise in awareness will come a rise in the easy reporting. If it’s controversial, it’ll be reported. Sex for sale in SL? Let’s report on that! Stolen money or assets? Human drama stuff. The actual breadth and depth of the genre? Nah, too messy.