The point is to get the reader to see ethical dilemmas in MMORPG economies -- this is Julian's Bone Crusher anecdote writ large (though short). On the one hand this may seem like technical arcanum, but note that we all often pretend this point in our discussions and comments on Terra Nova and elsewhere. It is how most of us conceptualize a simulation.

Fred (who argued the case in the 9th Circuit) and Rebecca Tushnet are right to see the ruling as a loss for the copyleft: this inducement prohibition chills the spread of technology, to some extent, by opening up new avenues for creative litigation claims (e.g., Tushnet asks if "Rip. Mix. Burn." is now a risky way to advertise?). Still, one can also see the glass as half full. The ruling confirms the strength of the Sony standard in the age of digital copyright as protecting the vast majority of technologies (if a company doesn't actively encourage the infringement of copyrights). Things could have gone worse.

Brad King (EEG News) cites an article from Technology Review claiming Electronic Arts (EA) intends to diversify in order to minimize exposure to the cyclical console game release schedule. EA seems to be considering involvement in other media (e.g. music and movies) as well as broadening its game title and platform portfolio. This activity raises an interesting question: what is diversity (in a business revenue sense) when it comes to games/worlds genres? On the one hand this may seem like technical arcanum, but note that we all often pretend this point in our discussions and comments on Terra Nova and elsewhere. It is how most of us conceptualize a simulation. We talk to the illusion of a world with many concurrent activities and a speak least metaphorically, to the agencies that can live in such places (e.g. of Non-Player-Characters and Player-Characters interacting with shared world state).

If we do, where do we send our students to read through the literature? So far, I've treated Terra Nova as a sort of repository of ideas. But this will not easily sustain us as more scholars join the field. So... I wonder. Is it time we publish a journal of our own? Or at least a yearly review of some form?

When Roy Trubshaw and I worked on MUD1, we saw it as a means of giving people freedom. For players, freedom to do and to be; for us, freedom to make our imaginations real (well, OK, virtual). Most of the early UK virtual worlds that followed had that same sense of idealism. After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers.

When Roy Trubshaw and I worked on MUD1, we saw it as a means of giving people freedom. For players, freedom to do and to be; for us, freedom to make our imaginations real (well, OK, virtual). Most of the early UK virtual worlds that followed had that same sense of idealism. After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers.

When Roy Trubshaw and I worked on MUD1, we saw it as a means of giving people freedom. For players, freedom to do and to be; for us, freedom to make our imaginations real (well, OK, virtual). Most of the early UK virtual worlds that followed had that same sense of idealism. After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers.

When Roy Trubshaw and I worked on MUD1, we saw it as a means of giving people freedom. For players, freedom to do and to be; for us, freedom to make our imaginations real (well, OK, virtual). Most of the early UK virtual worlds that followed had that same sense of idealism. After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers.

When Roy Trubshaw and I worked on MUD1, we saw it as a means of giving people freedom. For players, freedom to do and to be; for us, freedom to make our imaginations real (well, OK, virtual). Most of the early UK virtual worlds that followed had that same sense of idealism. After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers.

When Roy Trubshaw and I worked on MUD1, we saw it as a means of giving people freedom. For players, freedom to do and to be; for us, freedom to make our imaginations real (well, OK, virtual). Most of the early UK virtual worlds that followed had that same sense of idealism. After our "high energy" presentation, the questions were even stranger. Someone asked why humanities research got left out, and we had to say that we couldn't find it to be directly relevant on our top 10 list of bulleted points. Ian made the point, and I agreed, that doing the research for this panel made us think differently about academic research. While I'm not going to say that what we've done personally has no value, it was a definite challenge to try and make it *directly relevant* in a BULLETED POINT for developers.