BEER Ch. 7, part 2: point of DeepArcher

[David Morris]

Yes.  Acquisition is the Ideal in these games.  Kid loses gained stuff if
they stop playing too soon.  Then cry.  These games do condition.  So
does  everything else. Like Birth.

On Tuesday, October 29, 2013, Heikki Raudaskoski wrote:

> Sorry for another belated message.
>
> Wandering "around a spectacularly detailed environment" manages to make me
> shiver, as I remember how my daughter started playing this kind of software
> in either the fall 2000 or spring 2001... She was seven, about the same age
> as Maxine's sons. The Hotelli Kultakala (Hotel Goldfish) software was
> implemented by two dudes from Helsinki for young people. For the
> international version, they changed the name to Habbo Hotel, later just
> Habbo.
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Habbo <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habbo>
>
> I remember how thrilled my daughter was to have an avatar of her own and
> make friends in that virtual world. I enjoyed the occasions when she
> allowed me to visit the Hotel with her...
>
> Yet this software was soon corrupted by commercialism, as kids were lured
> to acquire more and more features in that world. (My daughter left Habbo
> after a year or two.) Then, credit-stealing hackers; fake avatars by adults
> to rob the kids; pedophile spottings... A sad story indeed.
>
>
> Heikki
>
> Quoting Monte Davis <montedavis at verizon.net>:
>
>  No namecheck for the Miller brothers' Myst
>> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**Myst <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myst>>
>>  (1993), but that's as clear a precedent
>> as any for this "wander around a spectacularly detailed environment"
>> software - that plus Second Life <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/**
>> Second_Life <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Life>>
>> , which combined multi-user interaction, avatars, and the ability for
>> users
>> to contribute new elements to the virtual world. Second Life didn't launch
>> until 2003, but as the Wikipedia article notes:
>>
>>
>>
>> "During a 2001 meeting with investors, Rosedale noticed that the
>> participants were particularly responsive to the collaborative, creative
>> potential of Second Life. As a result, the initial objective-driven,
>> gaming
>> focus of Second Life was shifted to a more user-created, community-driven
>> experience."
>>
>>
> -
> Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?**listpynchon-l<http://www.waste.org/mail/?listpynchon-l>
>
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