Virtual worlds are persistent online computer-generated environments where people can interact, whether for work or play, in a manner comparable to the real world. The most popular current example is World of Warcraft, a massively multiplayer online game with eleven million subscribers. However, other virtual worlds, notably Second Life, are not games at all but internet-based collaboration contexts in which people can create virtual objects, simulated architecture, and working groups.
This book brings together an international team of highly accomplished authors to examine the phenomena of virtual worlds, using a range of theories and methodologies to discover the principles that are making virtual worlds increasingly popular, and which are establishing them as a major sector of human-centred computing.
Author(s): William Sims Bainbridge (auth.), William Sims Bainbridge (eds.)
Series: Human-Computer Interaction Series
Edition: 1
Publisher: Springer-Verlag London
Year: 2010
Language: English
Pages: 318
Tags: User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction; Computer Graphics; Computer Appl. in Social and Behavioral Sciences; Computers and Society; e-Commerce/e-business
Front Matter....Pages i-vii
Introduction....Pages 1-6
New World View....Pages 7-19
Culture and Creativity: World of Warcraft Modding in China and the US....Pages 21-41
The Diasporic Game Community: Trans-Ludic Cultures and Latitudinal Research Across Multiple Games and Virtual Worlds....Pages 43-56
Science, Technology, and Reality in The Matrix Online and Tabula Rasa ....Pages 57-70
Spore : Assessment of the Science in an Evolution-Oriented Game....Pages 71-85
Medulla: A Cyberinfrastructure-Enabled Framework for Research, Teaching, and Learning with Virtual Worlds....Pages 87-100
A Virtual Mars....Pages 101-109
Opening the Metaverse....Pages 111-122
A Typology of Ethnographic Scales for Virtual Worlds....Pages 123-133
Massively Multiplayer Online Games as Living Laboratories: Opportunities and Pitfalls....Pages 135-145
Examining Player Anger in World of Warcraft ....Pages 147-160
Dude Looks like a Lady: Gender Swapping in an Online Game....Pages 161-174
Virtual Doppelgangers: Psychological Effects of Avatars Who Ignore Their Owners....Pages 175-186
Speaking in Character: Voice Communication in Virtual Worlds....Pages 187-200
What People Talk About in Virtual Worlds....Pages 201-212
Changing the Rules: Social Architectures in Virtual Worlds....Pages 213-223
Game-Based Virtual Worlds as Decentralized Virtual Activity Systems....Pages 225-235
When Virtual Worlds Expand....Pages 237-251
Cooperation, Coordination, and Trust in Virtual Teams: Insights from Virtual Games....Pages 253-264
Virtual Worlds for Virtual Organizing....Pages 265-278
Future Evolution of Virtual Worlds as Communication Environments....Pages 279-288
The Future of Virtual Worlds....Pages 289-302
Back Matter....Pages 303-318
