Helpful for essays?

Kudos goes to Tama Leaver and his blog (http://www.tamaleaver.net/2008/10/29/interactive-australia-2009-report/)... here are latest stats on video gaming in australia... I'm quite happily surprised by the stats on female gamers!!

• 88% of homes have a device for playing computer or video games.
• 68% of Australians play computer or video games.
• 46% of gamers are female.
• The average age of an Australian gamer is 30 years.
• 84% of Australians aged 16-25 compared with those 50+ play computer and video games.
• The average adult gamer has been playing for 11 years.
• Half of all gamers play daily or every other day, a quarter play once a week.
• The average game play session is one hour.

So, in line with international trends, the majority of Australians play videogames, there is close to a gender balance, and far from being exclusively for children, the average age for a videogame player is well into legal adulthood at 30 years old. Moreover, most adults see videogame play as something that should be supervised:

• 70% of parents in game households play computer and video games, 80% of these parents play them with their children.
• 78% of parents say an adult is present when games are purchased for their children,
• 92% of parents say they are aware of the games played in their homes.
• 75% of all computer and video games classified in Australia are G or PG (Classification Board).

Also not necessarily surprising is that most adults in Australia presume that there is an R18+ rating for videogames (there isn’t):

• 63% of adults do not know that Australia has no R18+ for computer and video games.
• 91% of adults (including gamers and non-gamers) say Australia should have an R18+ classification for games.
• 17% of adults in game households admit to having pirated games in their collections with nearly 10% of all games in Australian homes being illegal copies.

final reflective post

so we have come to the end of this unit..my God, the semester went so fast..

okok..so what I have enjoyed about this unit...I really loved writing on the blog, althought I did forget at times...it made me feel cool and look 'knowledgeable'...

I also learnt about cyborgs, something which is completely new to me. I was really impressed by what I learnt in the unit and have been really informed. At times, I wonder, if I am a cyborg as well...then again, I ponder on the definition of a cyborg..and the conclusion is...yup, I am a cyborg in a certain way!!

lastly, I want to thank Alison for making this unit an informative and interesting one..and also my tute mates without whom the blog entries will be dry.

final reflective post

According to the blog instructions document, we're supposed to have made a final post this week reflecting on the unit and the blog. I thought it was next week, but it says week 12, so...

The blog: I enjoyed using the blog for tutorials. Having the conversation spread over a week or so gave us more time to think about and discuss the ideas that came up and pursue different lines of thought related to the readings and lectures. I liked having the time to think about what I wanted to say, carefully consider other people's points, look at the articles again and so on before I posted my comments.

A disadvantage, I suppose, is that without the immediacy of a live tutorial, people could forget to post or just not be bothered. Possibly some people were also intimidated by the technology. Most of the time there didn't seem to be many people actively posting - or they would make their one post for the week and that would be it. (I was guilty of this myself a few times.) Many weeks had very little that you could call a conversation. (On the other hand, I've been to plenty of face-to-face tutorials in various units that have been like this too...)

The unit: The tutorial blog was one of my favourite things about this unit. But I liked a lot of things about this unit: the workshops, the reader, the lecturers... and it was very well-organised, which is always helpful!

Am I a cyborg? To be honest, I'm still inclined to agree with what Liam said right at the start of the unit: it depends on how you define "cyborg". And since "cyborg" is a very politicised concept, just accepting one person's definition - Donna Haraway's, for instance - and running with it seems to miss the point.

But I love technology and I'm happy to consider myself a cyborg. I don't believe there's going to be a techno-utopia or anything radical like that. Whether technology's effects are good, bad or benign depends on the way we use that technology, and humans don't have a great track record there. But I'm excited about the possibilities that technology is opening up to us - new ways of communicating, new artworks we can create, new abilities to improve life for some members of society - and I want to be part of that. In any case, like Donna Haraway, I'd rather be a cyborg than a goddess.

reliability of Wikipedia

Relevant to yesterday's discussion: Wikipedia and the Meaning of Truth

Technorati: State of the Blogosphere

The website Technorati has released its annual report on the "blogosphere". I haven't read much of it yet, but I found the statistics on who is blogging interesting. I think there must be a certain amount of selection bias, as only bloggers registered with Technorati were surveyed. But it still shows how privileged an activity blogging is, despite the fact that we tend to think of it as a democratic practice. Two-thirds of the bloggers surveyed were male, and 70% had a college degree. Both education level and household income were higher than those of the average Internet user.

Woman jailed for 'killing' virtual hubby

Note: I've copy-pasted this article from ninemsn.com. Available at http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=652750

Woman jailed for 'killing' virtual hubby
11:03 AEST Fri Oct 24 2008
By Mari Yamaguchi

A 43-year-old player in a virtual game world became so angry about her sudden divorce from her online husband that she logged on with his password and killed his digital persona, police say.
The woman, who has been jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data, used his ID and password to log onto the popular interactive game Maple Story to carry out the virtual murder in May, a police official in the northern city of Sapporo said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

"I was suddenly divorced, without a word of warning. That made me so angry," the official quoted her as telling investigators and admitting the allegations.

The woman, a piano teacher, had not plotted any revenge in the real world, the official said.
She has not yet been formally charged. If convicted, she could face up to five years in prison or a fine up to $US5,000 ($A7,427).

Players in Maple Story create and manipulate digital images called "avatars" that represent themselves, while engaging in relationships, social activities and fighting monsters and other obstacles.

In virtual worlds, players often abandon their inhibitions, engaging in activity online that they would never do in the real world. For instance, sex with strangers is a common activity.
The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married to kill the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his online avatar was dead.

The woman was arrested on Wednesday and taken 1,000km from her home in southern Miyazaki to be detained in Sapporo, where the man lives, the official said.

The police official said he did not know if she was married in the real world.

Bad online behaviour is usually handled within the rules set up by online worlds, which can ban miscreants or take away their virtual possessions.

In recent years, virtual lives have had consequences in the real world.

When bad deeds lead to criminal charges, prosecutors have found a real-world activity to cite - as in this case, in which the woman was charged with inappropriate computer access.

In August, a woman was charged in the US state of Delaware with plotting the real-life abduction of a boyfriend she met through the virtual reality website Second Life.

In Tokyo, a 16-year-old boy was charged with stealing the ID and password from a fellow player of an online game in order to swindle virtual currency worth $US360,000 ($A534,760)

Virtual games are popular in Japan, and Second Life has drawn a fair number of Japanese participants. They rank third by nationality among users, after Americans and Brazilians.

Flash mobbing

Some examples from youtube:

From Japan

From America (mentioned in the lecture)