:: Netwoman ::

:: Saturday, January 26, 2008 ::

Why Guitar Hero & RockBand are Good for the Music Industry

In the last couple of months I've spent a good deal of time playing Guitar Hero 2 & 3 and RockBand. Music has always been central to my life, and I've really enjoyed the next wave of gaming.

As an avid music fan, some thoughts have come to mind about what the implications of these video games and gaming have on artists and the music industry. For example, The Romantics filed a nice lawsuit against Guitar Hero developers for sounding too much like them.

But aside from these petty quibbles, these games have a lot more social & economic implications:

• Strengthening Old Ties: one of the things I like about these games is hearing some of my favourite songs of the past. I could play Rage Against the Machine & Bon Jovi over and over again if it wouldn't drive my friends crazy. We like hearing our favourite bands and our interest in them is often rekindled - sounds like good PR to me; good for concert tickets, purchasing band merchandise and so forth.
• Creating New Ties: Aside from songs we already know, there's several songs in these games that I have never heard before (makes playing/singing challenging to say the least). I've found some new bands and songs that I really like (yet never heard of), which are now in my iTunes. Again, this is great PR for bands and music labels = $$. Crooked X is a great example. Their song 'Nightmare' found on RockBand, is a cool tune. I promptly Googled them and found their MySpace page. What I didn't expect - the band is made up of 13 year olds. I was clearly impressed, but never would have heard of them if it wasn't for a video game. Imagine that.
  

There's a lot to be said about gaming & the Music Industry. We can buy soundtracks for Movies, and several artists have written songs for video games already (for example, Breaking Benjamin - Halo 2 Soundtrack). While I'm not interested in the economic potential for corporations and labels, I'm more interested in what this can do for artists, and importantly Indie artists that are struggling to be heard.

:: Netwoman 1:56 PM [+] ::
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Virtual Identity & the Politics of (In)fidelity

I've been seeing more media articles about dating in virtual worlds, similar to other media articles of the past about internet dating sites. But now that we've moved from a flat web (text & IM) to web 3D, there's much more to be said about avatar interaction.

The usual debates seem to surface - for example - RL pictures on SL profiles that are deceptive once you meet the person in RL. One of the more interesting debates is the notion of 'realness' & 'virtuality'. Are you really cheating on your RL partner if you're engaging in intimate online interactions? The answer isn't simple, and it really depends on the people involved. Some would argue yes, it is cheating while others would argue no; after all, it's not physically 'real'.

Realness seems to be at the root of the debates. Your not really engaging in s e x in second life (for example); there's no 'physical' interaction, purely mental & emotional (perhaps). This detachment from mental & physical is a complex subject, and reminiscent of Cartesian debates about Dualism.

Recent media articles have lead me to think more about Descartes and arguments concerning Idealism.

Is your husband's avatar faithful?
Online cheating can lead to real cheating, experts say.
BY JESSICA YADEGARAN

Online infidelity was once limited to chat rooms and dating sites.

But there is rising concern that virtual worlds such as Second Life and Kaneva and role-playing games like "EverQuest" can escalate the potential for and extent of infidelity.

After all, avatars, or alternative identities, do it all: shop together, get married in wedding ceremonies and even buy property with virtual currency they purchase with real-world dollars. They can also commit crimes against each other, get divorced and sue one another in real-life court over in-game disputes.

Getting to know you
by Rin Simpson

Can love blossom on the internet, or is dating someone online a sure fire way to be deceived? Anna Simms investigates

YEARS ago dating went something like this: boy meets girl, boy asks girl out, boy and girl get to know and like each other, boy and girl get married and live happily ever after.

But in the 21st Century dating, like pretty much everything else, has got a lot more complicated, not to mention technological.

Writing a letter, or even making a telephone call, has been replaced with sending emails, texts, even messages on Facebook.

And you’re just as likely to meet someone on a forum as you are to bump into them at work.

There are some extremes. Take Carolyn, a 37-year-old American woman and the subject of a BBC documentary next week called Wonderland: Virtual Adultery And Cyberspace Love.

Carolyn was a married mother of four who was fed up with suburban life before she discovered Second Life, an online community and virtual existence. She created an avatar – a buxom brunette in a skimpy dress with black lipstick and a glossy ponytail – and began a virtual affair with Elliott.

:: Netwoman 1:15 PM [+] ::
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Second Life News

Some interesting tid-bits of news:

Mutilated Furries, Flying Phalluses: Put the Blame on Griefers
Julian Dibbell

Pwnage, zerging, phat lewts — online gaming has birthed a rich lexicon. But none, perhaps, deserves our attention as much as the notion of the griefer. Broadly speaking, a griefer is an online version of the spoilsport — someone who takes pleasure in shattering the world of play itself. Not that griefers don't like online games. It's just that what they most enjoy about those games is making other players not enjoy them. They are corpse campers, noob baiters, kill stealers, ninja looters. Their work is complete when the victims log off in a huff.

Halo 3 Meets Second Life
Chris Gonsalves

The U.S. Army enlists new virtual world video game to teach soldiers interpersonal skills and cultural awareness for combat environments like Iraq and Afganistan.

Video games and military training are a natural fit. Any exercise that can sharpen physical reflexes and shooting skills has obvious applications for soldiers preparing for war.

For researchers at Sandia National Labs and BBN Technologies, however, the video game platform is being used to prepare soldiers for much more genteel aspects of modern warfare. Sandia's specialists in computer simulation and human interaction have developed a new interpersonal skill-building and cross-cultural awareness video game to prepare troops for difficult communication situations in places such as Afghanistan, Iraq and other global hotspots.

Students can take OU tour in virtual world, attend SAT strategy

Two days this month - this Saturday and Jan. 31, high school students from around the globe can visit Ohio University's Second Life virtual campus and attend SAT strategy sessions sponsored by The Princeton Review.

I wish I had the opportunity for something like this when I wrote SATs in the late 80s. I had no clue, as Canadian students dont have tutorial classes the way US students do.

:: Netwoman 11:19 AM [+] ::
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Generation Me: Media Hype & Moral Panic

Stephanie Rosenbloom New York Times

Teens & Youths have always been a hot topic of discussion among adults. Ever since the social category of 'teenager' was constructed in the late 1940's early 1950's, people have had a lot to talk about. Each generation of parents have complained with detail and scrutiny about rogue teens that can't conform to social norms. The wagging finger of parents over the last 50-60 years tells the tale of terrible music, subcultural behaviours and overall misbehaving. It became an us versus them dichotomy. If we look at the teen-tales told over this time span (from a parent's perspective), we see a lot of commonalities; the same complaints and debates about how terrible and naughty teens are, and the worries of our future. After all, what will the fate of the world be when these degenerates reach adulthood?

Teens of the 1950's - the post-war mods, the rockers and others - all grew up challenging the tight social constraints instilled on them by their parents. James Dean became an icon, and Rebel without a Cause framed the discourse of youth culture. These teens grew up and did what most of their parents did - get married and have children. Society didn't fall apart when these teens matured, in fact they followed the ideological script quite well. Most of these folks were the Baby Boomers - they were the first generation with television, and we saw hype about how television is demoralizing youth.

Some of these teens matured into civil rights advocates; women fighting for equal pay and respect in the workforce, people fighting against racism and an overall movement towards civil liberties ensued. It was a turbulent time in North American History, but it was also a time that raised many social issues. Teens in the 1960's & 1970's - the Hippies who went bra-less (and maybe burned them), grew their hair long, smoked copious amounts of Cannabis, and marched with hand written signs expressing their discontent of the socio-political world - were all seen as social rejects and troublemakers by their parent's generation.

Teens of the 1970's & 80's - or Generation X as they've been referred to, were also seen as rejecting or challenging traditional values. These teens were often referred to as materialistic, cynical, apathetic (see Wikipedia) with no social identity (despite clear identity markers seen in 80's fashion, and a resurgence of punk and anarchistic behaviours). Generation Y - the media-saturated generation - continued to challenge cultural norms, and were shaped by the 'just do it' mentality and focused on self expression and personal needs - also seen by their parents as individualistic and materialistic.

Teenagers in the last 50-60 years have always been targeted for public (adult) scrutiny; blamed for inappropriate behaviours, complacency and cited as the reasons for society's social ills. Teens have always challenged the social order in some way (and changed it for the better in some ways), and parents have always worried about what it might mean for the future.

When I read the New York Times article by Rosenbloom, I was struck by the same tone and accusations we've seen when talking about teen generations of the past.

Conventional wisdom, supported by academic studies using the Narcissistic Personality Inventory, maintains that today’s young people — schooled in the church of self-esteem, vying for spots on reality television, promoting themselves on YouTube — are more narcissistic than their predecessors. Heck, they join Facebook groups like the Association for Justified Narcissism. A study released last year by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press dubbed Americans age 18 to 25 as the Look at Me generation and reported that this group said that their top goals were fortune and fame.

Teens today are cited as narcissistic - so involved and infatuated with their own identity that they care about no one else. It is unfortunate that we still seem the same thing happening generation after generation - and yet, parents STILL cannot seem to understand their kids (even though teens have a closer relationship with their parents than previous generations). Enough with the moral panic and media hype of how terrible teenagers behave. Let us move on and focus on the positive. I think we have a lot to learn from the next generation.

:: Netwoman 10:04 AM [+] ::
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