With a population of Net-cafe refugees in Japan reported in August to be 5,400, and the recent demise of a 28-year-old South Korean, identified as Lee, who reportedly died after playing an online computer game for 50 hours straight, many are wondering what online virtual worlds are all about.
Terra Nova ( terranova.blogs.com ) is arguably the best virtual-world blog out there — whether those visiting the site are newbies just thinking about buying their first longsword, hardcore players who already command a galactic army, or any gamer in between. Well-known game designers and academic pundits dish out news and views on just about everything that has to do with the evolution of virtual societies online and offer insightful commentary on a wide array of social and economic factors that govern online virtual worlds.
For example, Greg Lastowka writes: "So I've been wondering a bit about how our mental construction of real cities might carry over to the structure of virtual worlds. As we've noted here before, there are important reasons why virtual architecture need not, and perhaps ought not, look like real architectures. But generally it does, making the similarities and dissimilarities worth thinking about for students of the virtual."