Planet.nl asked me to write a piece on Second Life and my take on it. I like Second Life. Not because it’s such a cool place to be but because of its technological innovations and because of its intellectual property model. It’s a hype but for all the wrong reasons. For researchers, such as me, it is a very interesting object (and it should be for my colleagues as well). I can understand the sentiments among marketeers (many of whom don’t seem to understand Second Life) and gamers (who approach Second Life and compare it to let’s say Gears of War). To both I would say: Yes, Second Life is buggy, laggy, and reaaaallly ugly, but don’t compare it to your favorite game or to ROI models. Second Life is one big experiment. It might fail or it might be a disruptive new media object – either way, look beyond the fluff of big companies and give it a try.

My essay “Second Life is terecht een hype” can be found here at Planet Multimedia. I got some comments and I understood it had quite a reasonable number of readers :).

One of my (ex)-UvA colleagues, Bibi Fadlalla does a radio show on Lijn 5. We did a short radio interview for her show ‘Lijn 5 Radio show with Farid & Bibi’. Here is some more info such as Mp3′s and such. I explain a bit about Second Life being not a game. The reaction of the DJ is quite funny: “That’s some serious stuff!” I think he meant it as a compliment.

Following the introduction of the Wii closely got me thinking. Is the advent of Web 2.0 (yes it’s a buzzword but it’s a helpful one) changing the way consoles get launched. I do think so. At least if you look at the Wii. Lots of bloggers and game websites are putting up all these weird little Wii related… ‘things’. From websites with accidents to Miiplaza.net and such. And Google maps + Wii may not be that useful but has this nice Web 2.0-ish gimmickness.

So read more after the break or go to FoliaNostra to see a nifty picture!

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My first contribution for Dagblad De Pers. De Pers is the new Dutch free ‘quality’ daily newspaper (circulation 250.000) distributed at train stations and some bars. Distribution will expand up until 800.000 in the months to come. I am really happy about my re-entry into the newspaper biz and hope I can make something of a difference among the many stories on addiction & “game related” violence.

The piece is on the new Nintendo Wii. I am quite enthusiastic about it, love playing Rayman: Raving Rabbids. Other games I discuss a bit are Wii Play, Wii Sports and Wario Ware: Smooth Moves. From the intro: “Nintendo heeft een nieuwe spelcomputer: de Wii. Dit is in elk opzicht een toegankelijk apparaat. Niet dikker dan twee op elkaar gestapelde DVD’s glimt het witte apparaat je tegemoet.”

You can download De Pers (.pdf, 1.4 MB) for free here or you can read it online (Flash) here, look out for page 17. There is some discussion about the introduction of De Pers at De Nieuwe Reporter. Expect some more game related contributions for De Pers the coming months.

The Canadian Broadcaster CBC has an interesting (short) interview with Joseph DeLappe who’s a visual artist and Associate Professor at the Department of Art at the University of Nevada, Reno. Prof. DeLappe will visit Amsterdam (and the University of Amsterdam) in March and talk about his work, I really look forward to it! The interview deals with his America’s Army project. Which isn’t exactly news, but it’s still worthy of attention and discussion. Here’s the link to CBC.

“The Dead Army – The US army has a popular video game on the net, called “America’s Army”. It has nearly 8 million players registered. The game simulates war.

But a guy (sic!) named Joseph Delappe is using it for performance art, in a project called “Dead-In-Iraq.” What he does is log onto the site as “Dead_in_Iraq.” He doesn’t fight. Instead, he lets himself get killed.

Once that happens, he types in the name of a real American soldier his age and the date he was killed in Iraq. The name scrolls across for other gamers to see. One dead soldier’s name at a time.”

While Gamespace.nl has been (too) quiet, I’ve been busy with my Folia game columns. Last week I had one on Games and Emotions. In this piece I discuss the brilliant A.I. in Company of Heroes (the PC RTS). This weeks column is about, what else, World of Wacraft’s expansion pack. Some general remarks about is success here: Meer, meer, meer Warcraft!.

And to add up to the hype of the week century, I had a discussion with a Folia author on game addiction. Folia’s frontpage even reads: “In therapy with game addicts”. I am reallly happy to be part of the same magazine right now…. I have some remarks about Keith Bakker (with his infite wisdom about game addiction). You can read the PDF here. To qoute Bakker: “Games are the biggest threat since nuclear bombs”. Right…

For all those who can’t speak Dutch, here is a short clip (interview) with Bakker and an anonymous gamer. It may be somewhat of an understatement that I am not that happy with his view (and the massive attention he gets. To end on a brighter note, I added a “Games die je dagen kunt spelen” list I also wrote for Folia after the break.

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I got some emails about my website. If I’m quitting? Will gamespace.nl shut down?

Hell no! I am redesigning and upgrading. I will use WordPress blog software, which is far more powerful than my previous blog software. I grew unhappy with it. It started looking ugly and I broke down.

On a personal level – I am doing great. Working on some very groovy projects – research, freelance research, game journalism and teaching. Oh and I am more than happy with my Wii (and Mii). But more on all that later!

-Dave.

Welcome to my new blog/website. Well, new. It’s updated. I’ll change stuff a bit the coming days/weeks. If you want to contact me, my email still works of course:
David @ gamespace . nl