Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p> This article argues for using virtual worlds as experimental environments for social science questions at the macro level. The authors can foresee two major objections to this approach and will address them as to show why they do not prove to be significant. The first being that virtual worlds are not like the real world; therefore, one cannot generalize from events within them. The second of these foreseeable objections states that human society is too complex to be controlled in the way that controlled experimentation requires. Humans discover things by building environments suited for exploring the questions the authors have a rat maze is a very abstract environment, yet it is useful for exploring very general questions of mammalian cognition. The authors conclude that virtual worlds are no less valuable, on net, than other established experimental tools. The next stage in toolmaking, after Petri dishes, rat mazes, and supercolliders, should be virtual worlds. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Games are created through the act of gameplay, which is contingent on player acts. However, to understand gameplay, we must also investigate contexts, justifications, and limitations. Cheating can be an excellent path into studying the gameplay situation, because it lays bare player’s frustrations and limitations. It points to ludic hopes and activities, and it causes us to question our values, our ethics. In comparison, the concept of the magic circle seems static and overly formalist. Structures may be necessary to begin gameplay, but we cannot stop at structures as a way of understanding the gameplay experience. Because of that, we cannot say that games are magic circles, where the ordinary rules of life do not apply. Of course they apply, but in addition to, in competition with, other rules and in relation to multiple contexts, across varying cultures, and into different groups, legal situations, and homes. </jats:p>

<jats:p> The name of the author of ‘‘Game Time Modeling and Analyzing Time in Multiplayer and Massively Multiplayer Games’’, (original DOI 10.1177/ 1555412008325479, published in Games and Culture, Volume 4 Issue 2, April 2009), is Anders Drachen who was formerly Anders Tychsen. The article carried the author information incorrectly as Anders Tychsen. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Virtual worlds have become the new playground for millions of tweens but we know little what it takes to become a player in a virtual community. This paper focuses on one virtual world, called Whyville.net, which at the time of our study hosted over 1.2 million players ages 8 to16 years, with the average player 12.3 years old. Girls represent over 68% of all players. A guided tour to the various places in Whyville, the different types of science games, and the range of players’ activities provides insights into what players talk about, with whom they socialize, what they like to play, and how they engage in investigations. In 2005, a group of researchers set out to study Whyville by recruiting hundreds of participants online and offline in classrooms and after school clubs and by conducting observations, surveys, and interviews about their online activities. In addition, we collected log files that captured their online movements and chat interaction during a six month period. We discuss ethical issues of conducting research as adults in tween virtual communities and limitations of capturing the complexities of interactions simultaneously in online and offline spaces. The paper concludes with an overview of following papers in the special issue that cover players’ avatar designs, representation of race, cheating practices, learning how to throw virtual mudballs, and participation in virtual epidemic. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Avatars in online games and worlds are seen as players’ key representations in interactions with each other. In this article, we investigate the avatar design and identity play within a large-scale tween virtual world called Whyville.net, with more than 1.5 million registered players of ages 8—16. One unique feature of Whyville is the players’ ability to customize their avatars with various face parts and accessories, all designed and sold by other players in Whyville. Our findings report on the expressive resources available for avatar construction, individual tween players’ choices and rationales in creating their avatars, and online postings about avatar design in the community at large. With the growing interest in player-generated content for online worlds such as Second Life, our discussion will address the role of avatars in identity play and self-representation as well as the social issues that arise within the game world. </jats:p>

<jats:p> In this paper, we investigate racial diversity in avatar design and public discussions about race within a large-scale tween virtual world called Whyville.net, with more than 1.5 million registered players of ages 8—16. One unique feature of Whyville is the player’s ability to customize their avatars with various face parts and accessories, all designed and sold by other players in Whyville. Our findings report on the racial diversity of available resources for avatar construction and online postings about the role of race in avatar design and social interactions in the community. With the growing interest in player-generated content for online worlds such as Teen Second Life, our discussion addresses the role of avatars in teen/tween identity development and self-representation, and the role of virtual entrepreneurs and community activists in increasing the diversity of avatar parts available. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Much research has described the various practices needed of gaining access and participation in multi-user game communities. Cheat sites are a continuation of game communities where players engage in knowledge building about game related challenges. In this paper we analyze the cheat sites created by players for a tween virtual world called Whyville.net, which encourages youth to participate in a range of social activities and play casual science games. Through analysis we created typologies for both the cheats and sites related to science content. Further, a case study of an exemplary cheat site elaborates on how some player-generated sites work to build knowledge of Whyville. Finally, investigation of over a hundred player-written articles illuminates how Whyvillians contest different practices of cheating and how cheating affects the virtual world. Implications of these findings as cultural artifacts of the game community and as guides for designing informal online learning activities are discussed. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Little is known concerning how young players learn to participate in various activities in virtual worlds. We use a new integrative approach called connective ethnography that focuses on how a gaming practice spread across a network of youth at an after school club that simultaneously participated in a virtual world, Whyville.net. To trace youth participation in online and offline social contexts, we draw on multiple sources of information: observations, interviews, videos, online tracking and chat data, and hundreds of hours of play in Whyville ourselves. One gaming practice — the throwing of projectiles and its social uses and nuances — became the focal point of our analyses. The discussions address the methodological challenges underlying the synthesis of diverse types of data that allowed us to follow youth across multiple spaces as well as initial insights into how this practice was used to negotiate relationships in multiple spaces through play. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Learning scientists have created and used virtual worlds to support players’ historical, scientific, and ecological inquiries. Much less explored has been the impact of community events on players’ investigations in virtual worlds. The authors present here the case of a community event Whypox, a virtual epidemic whose annual outbreak in Whyville affects players’ communication and appearance. The authors analyze the different levels of participation ranging from casual to systematic in which players searched out more information about the Whypox, participated in online discussions about its causes and investigated different scenarios with simulations. The discussion examines ethical concerns, the contributions of our findings for the design of such community events, and educational resources in virtual worlds to support informal learning. </jats:p>

<jats:p> The author, T.L. Taylor of the article ‘‘The Assemblage of Play’’, published in Games and Culture 4(4), 331-339, October 2009, original DOI: 10.1177/ 1555412009343576, would like to acknowledge funding from the MacArthur Foundation. This information was not included in the article. </jats:p>