J201Video gamesa short history of videogamesgames are invented1952: Tic-Tac-Toe as a dissertationgames go interactive1958: abstract tennisgames enter the university1962: Spacewar! on the PDP-1games go corporateAtari “VCS” (2600)Nolan Bushnell and PONGthe “Golden Age”1982 hit song1980 hit gamegames and feature filmTRON the game 1982 TRON the film 1982games and animationDragon’s Lair videodisc game, 1983crash and comeback1983 E.T.1985 NESvideo games become computer gamesTetris 1985 SimCity 1989decline of the arcadesbut why discuss videogames in a mass communication class?a significant mass media industry•$6 billion/year market•World of Warcraft alone: $1 billion/year (8 million subscribers)•Not just Atari vs. Nintendo, but Microsoft vs. Sonya signficant mass audience•one out of every 10 HH has PlayStation•children play an average of 10 hours/week•62% of market age 18 or older•“average gamer is 29 years old”negative media effects?•violence•lawlessness•addictiongames get more violentgames get more realisticpositive media effects?•education•moral choices•audience as producerslearning problem-solving from video games?the future of film?the audience is producing the gameWorld of Warcraft - The Burning Crusade - Journal - New York... http://www.nytimes.com/ref/arts/warcraft-journal.html?8dpc1 of 7 1/28/07 10:23 AMThe Times's Seth Schiesel sets out toexplore the ‘‘World of Warcraft: TheBurning Crusade’' for his onlineserial review and travelogue throughthe world’s most successful virtualuniverse.MultimediaInside the Burning CrusadeRaid Attunement ChartRelatedVideo Games: O Brave New World That Has Such Gamers in It (January 19, 2007)Enlarge This ImageConquering the Burning CrusadeAdventurers battle through the Shadow Labyrinth. More Photos >By SETH SCHIESELSaturday, Jan. 27VIRTUAL LOOTToday I want to talk about money.No, not about the wad of real-world cash I’ve saved staying home playing Worldof Warcraft for almost two weeks. And no, not about the more than $1 billionBlizzard Entertainment will take in this year from WOW’s 8 millionsubscribers. (It helped that the new Burning Crusade expansion sold 2.4million copies within 24 hours of its release last week.)Instead, I want to give a peek into the teeming in-game economies that are one of the less glamorous but surprisingly seductive elements of online game worlds.Certainly, the core play mechanic in World of Warcraft and similar games isfantasy combat. Characters mostly advance and differentiate themselves bydefeating evil monsters and demonstrating prowess in battling other players.But as in the real world, the best things in life aren’t free all the time. As in thereal world there are paupers and moguls, misers and spendthrifts. And for allthe excitement of slaying a marauding beast, there are players who prefer tomake their killings on the bottom line.In previous online roleplaying games there have always been chat channelswhere players would advertise to sell items they had found but couldn’t use or tobuy items they needed. Let’s say you’re a spell-slinging wizard who justblasted a cave full of kobolds with a conflagration of fireballs. In the kobolds’treasure chest you find a huge magic battleaxe. You can barely lift the thing,but you know there’s probably a brawny barbarian out there just itching to burythat axe in a few necks. So you head back to town and sit there hawking yourwares.That’s not too exciting when really you’d rather be out there with your friendschasing down the kobolds’ necromancer mastermind. So one of the greatflourishes World of Warcraft introduced was a robust, eBay-like in-gameauction house system. In WOW you can just stop by town, post all of the itemsyou want to sell on the auction house for 8 or 24 hours and get back toadventuring. Just as cool, you can stop in and see at a glance if there’sanything posted that you can use.MOST POPULARYour Money: A Contrarian View: Save Less, Retire With Enough1.Unhappy Meals2.Op-Ed Contributor: At Ease, Mr. President3. 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See [email protected] Change E-mail Address | Privacy PolicyGet UrbanEye by E-MailWorld of Warcraft: The Burning Crusadethe future of
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