Japan steps up and takes real life judicial action for a virtual crime:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/10/23/international/i063235D45.DTL&tsp=1

A 43-year-old player in a virtual game world became so ( Read more... )

Checking in briefly from my sister's rather fantastic cabin south of Denver. Photos from the trip will be up on a Flickr at some point.

Very much ahead of schedule, Booksurge put Settlers of the New Virtual Worlds out on Amazon -- we finalized the book a week ago, but had thought it would take at least two to three weeks to appear on Amazon. ( Read more... )

I have an Escapist feature up this week, "Someone Stole My Magic Sword", with many thanks to Dave Weinstein and, of course, to Michelle, for coming forward and sharing her story. There was a lot to compress here -- my interviews with Michelle alone totaled over 5,000 words -- but hopefully we got the meat of the story across. I know I say it for ( Read more... )

With Naomi Novik's recent announcement about the Organization for Transformative Works there's been a renewed energy in discussion of fanfiction and its impact on the specluative fiction community. I'm not really going to comment on the OTW -- I tend to concur with John Scalzi on its feasibility and potential danger to the fanfiction community ( Read more... )

Common Sense Media, which one of the posters in the Escapist drew my attention to recently, is hosting a forum November 14th on what kids learn from virtual worlds:

http://www.eventsatcommonsensemedia.org/evite/

Notable on the panel is Douglas Thomas, editor of the new Games and Culture journal, and who, according to the Common Sense bulletin, is ( Read more... )