Journalism At The Edge of Reality

Some interesting news from the world of virtual reality. The Alphaville Herald is a news resource for The Sims Online, and has in recent weeks investigate fraud, child prostitution and the community's attempts to form a force to combat some of the issues plaguing the game, the Sim Shadow Government. The journalist behind the Herald has just had his account suspended by EA/Maxis, and the story is featured in this Salon article from last Friday.

Meanwhile, a bug has been found in Ultima Online which allows players to rack up millions of gold pieces easily. So what, you say? Well, for a start, the various MMORPGs are beginning to resemble nation-states. Last month, the Gaming Open Market opened its doors for trading. This is a currency trading site that allows players to exchange currency between the different gaming systems, or to convert into US dollars. This bug will likely cause the value of the UO Gold Piece to drop considerably against the dollar, and could set off a hyper-inflationary rise in prices in the game itself. This in turn could lead to increased migration from the UO to a world that has a more stable currency, like The Sims Online, for example.

I've never been enticed by the MMORPG, as in order to get anywhere, you need to put in ten or more hours of game time each day. Which seems a little excessive to me. But it is interesting to see the problems that are occurring as this genre develops…

currently playing: Joss Stone - I Had A Dream

Best of 2003: Kingdom of Fear — Hunter S. Thompson

A rather depressing book, to be honest. HST is getting old, and all the venom he's spurted over the years has come to nothing. They gave Nixon an full-honours funeral, praising his name, and the current Administration fills Hunter with a new sort of Fear: a relentless, unending rule of The New Stupid. The book tells the story of a law suit that a woman filed against Thompson a few years back, but mostly this is a collection of random thoughts and rantings from a man who has seen it happen before. They didn't listen to him then, and they probably won't listen to him now…

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