Experimentation and virtual worlds: why worry?

In the spirit of backlog* (which is the real theme of my blog), I've been meaning to write about a couple of concerns I had after reading Edward Castranova and Matthew Falk's  article in the October issue of Games and Culture entitled Virtual Worlds: Petri Dishes, Rat Mazes, and Supercolliders. Now let me start by saying that Professor Castranova has the unenviable task of representing a relatively controversial research ideology within the context of the emerging field of virtual worlds research. There are a lot of methodologically qualitative/ epistemologically constructivist researchers in this field, and Castranova does generally quantitative work operating from a more or less Post-Positivist perspective. For the non-researchers among you, this means that he uses numbers a lot and that (as near as I can figure) he proceeds from an assumption that truth claims can be proven through measurement provided the tools are good enough. Motivational Poster borrowed from xdr.com - In case you didn't notice I'm a big fan of these posters. This one has only a tenuous connection to this blog post.

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"You put the last piece in like this."

Apparently the grocery store is a good place for studies of cognition. As it turns out, it may also provide fertile grounds for the study of games and learning. My mother Judy shared the following story with me the other day. With her permission (and the permission of the Trader Joe's employee from this story), I offer it here for your consideration. She wrote:

"I took 3 TJ's* bags out of the back of Volvo, wandered around in the usual way and checked out to the tune of $75 or so. The checker started bagging and I said, 'Don't worry if there aren't enough bags. I have more in the car.'  He responded, 'So you don't want any extra bags?'  I came back with the usual bit about not needing to use more paper etc. 1 1/2 bags into the process he said, 'I don't think you need to worry about it Ma'am. Everything will fit. I'm good at Tetris. Do you know what Tetris is?'  We talked about Tetris, and he told me how you just have to think ahead and then finished up by putting the eggs across the top of the last bag of stuff saying, 'and then you put the last piece in like this.' " *Trader Joe's

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Games and Simulation for Healthcare Library and Database

My colleague Eric Bauman and his team of crack ninjas have been working on a new portal for Healthcare games and simulations (now with a new URL), and it is awesome! In their own words:

"This website aims to provide a portal and network to meet the needs of clinicians, researchers and educators in the healthcare community who want to integrate games and simulation into their scholarship and patient care strategy.  This resource also welcomes healthcare consumers, advocates, and others interested in patient and clinician education, and clinical research taking advantage of games and simulation-based learning."

If you're in any of the healthcare, serious games, or game and simulation research communities you should definitely check it out. If you want to get involved or have recommendations, there's a contact button on the front page. In case you're feeling lazy, here's the URL one more time. http://healthcaregames.wisc.edu/

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Not enough orcs they said

So it seems that my previous post advertising my need for more guild leaders for my research was less effective than I might have hoped. After consulting with the oracles of high fantasy gaming and research, I have established that the problem was a lack of orcs in the original post. I will rectify that now.

Orc Waaaaaghh borrowed from DustDevil75's photobucket

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The Escapist has made me happy today

I have tagged the following two posts from The Escapist in my Google Reader as well, but since I never publish out from there to my blog directly I am going to go ahead and share teh awsumness here as well. First I came across Tom Goldman's post that there may yet be hope for Goldeneye on the Wii! I recognize that this is probably yet another in a line of false hopes, but the prospect still delights. If for some reason you are reading my blog but you don't know why this would be significant, here for your convenience is a link to the article about the original game. Almost immediately thereafter, I read this extremely convincing argument by John Funk that we need an MMO with giant robots. Personally, I'm a firm believer in the power of giant robots to make things more awesome.

Giant robots in the process of making Warhammer 40K more awesome

Okay it's true, Funk wasn't writing about Imperator class battle titans at all. In fact, given his stated predilection for Japanese robots he might even find this a little disappointing (I can't really say)

At any rate, his post has inspired me and sometime in the not too distant future I will share some of my own thoughts on things we need in, around, and out of MMOs.

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