Second Thoughts

/Fail

"Now shall we see/if power change purpose/what our seemers, be." The Duke, in "Measure for Measure".

It's something like the phenomenon whereby debtor nations force concessions out of their creditors because they have them over a barrel. Renowned virtual world economist Ted Castronova is allowed to fail big, when he blows through a $240,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation, and doesn't get his much-ballyhooed "Arden," a Shakespearean world, up and running for the public (or even for designated users), and declares it stalled/failed. He ends up only with sympathy and congraultations -- and a self-justifying, pugnatious rebuttal to even mild criticisms. All he can say is that he should have made this grad students on the project more into slaves and run the project like a despot.

Huh? So little critical review of this fiasco, which few outside the charmed game circle of the Ludiumites got to see, and so much fanboyzing. Benjamin Sycophanske was lined up among the first to kiss ass -- here's a post that is unlikely to get past his ban-hammer of me on his blog:

1. Sycophanske says the Annointed One never really had very much cash with a quarter million anyway -- why, that's not enough to pay the code monkeys. But...this wasn't a VC angel, but a grant-giving foundation. Big difference. That hurts, in a program line in a budget at a philanthropic institution that won't be able to gin that up again. And that makes it very hard to go to the well again not only for Castronova but any academic like him trying to do research in this field.

2. I haven't seen academics burn through grants that size -- and keep getting them -- and get tenure. Sorry, that's no excuse. It's a big grant, it could have been "crowdsourced" more and wasn't, and the students related to this project based at a university presumably wouldn't cost as much as a "code-savvy project-manager type". Ted's response: "In future work I will subscribe to the Lee Sheldon Fascistic Theory of Managing Creative Projects, which, if I my improvise, is to tell your volunteers and employees to be slaves or be gone." Um, that's not necessary -- this sounds like a personality problem, not even a management problem.

3. If the project had been about, "make a game to help people learn Shakespeare," that would be one thing. But it was "make a world to study virtual economies". So...why wasn't an existing platform like Second Life used? Especially given that Castronova went to Neverwinter Nights in the end..

If game-gods think it's all good because an academic whom they're willing to forgive learned humility about world-building, that doesn't justify the cost for such an expensive experiment.

Even Tony Walsh, while being more candid than any other blogger that the Emperor Has No Clothes, made a post that sounded like a clap on the shoulder at the old boys' club. "I really don't mean to kick the dude in the nuts, but holy crap, Ted, given everything you know about synthetic worlds, what made you think building one from scratch wouldn't be so hard?"

Um, Tony then hawks himself as a consultant in the future for projects like that.

/Fail

Creator Fascism

After a hiatus from the Second Life Herald where I really do not wish to post anymore as a "Junior Author," I thought it would be interesting to shake things up and post a piece from SLCC about Philip's transformation into a concerned customer-service rep. This post came after a long talk with Urizenus inworld, where he kept urging me to post, and said the Herald wasn't as interesting "because he and I weren't posting". Right. I guess bukakke is as interesting as it gets, and poor Uri was reduced to recycling the chapter from his Pirates book AGAIN (I am so embarassed). So, wracked with pity, I went to post at the Herald, knowing full well that the predictable gaggle of junkyard dogs would foregather to chew on the bones, that Artemis Fate could reliably be counted upon to be an arrant bitch and that all those "Anonymouses" and "Realities" and "GetALifes" would show up and bark and bite. Which they did.

Pixeleen published that piece promptly -- but this new Junior Author crap doesn't enable you to post a photo and its credit alongside it. I had sent her an email (and also Uri) with the photos and the credit lines, and somehow she ignored them. I sent another one, saying it had posted without the credit, please put it up. She ignored it. I reached her inworld, sent her an IM, urging her to put the credit -- I know how anal people get about their credits. She didn't reply. She's tied up always in RL and SL, gets up early, goes to work, is too busy, and it sits there for 12 hours. I finally post the credit in the comments, and praise Tarah Oh of Ugotrade for the interesting interview.

SheepBS

The wires are all a-twitter with the announcement in the wee hours today of a new "strategic alliance" formed between CBS, that staggering old-media dinosaur, and the Electric Sheep Company, still wobbling on its lamb limbs. What's in it for the little people?

I'm guessing they *aren't* going to call the project "SheepBS," but it's indicative of the world in which we live that I didn't feel as if I could put a title like that on a blog at the Herald without fearing Walker, whose own blog is sponsored by the ESC, would pull the plug on me.

The news of the $7 million infusion from CBS for our favourite FIC sherpa company isn't really all that surprising. After all, they had contracts with the L-word and Star-Trek, and the CBS guy seemed to be gushingly in love with them. And small wonder, because the Sheep deliver the dream to people who otherwise would still be stuck in appearance mode and getting their asses caged in the Welcome Area.

I know the Sheep have been hiring like crazy, and few people realize how many regulars at SL have been sucked up by the Sheep Borg -- Torrid Midnight has essentially now left the nasty, back-biting world of SL fashion and now works as an events manager for the Sheep; SnoopyB Zamboni who used to be a futurist for a think-tank called Accelerating Foundation is now the futurist-in-residence at the Sheep; look on the web pages and you'll see lots more, some hired from real, some from Second. They're going to be moving into a big loft in Brooklyn and it will probably be a cool, happening sort of place.