Elvin Li

Have you ever wondered of the educational values of the Virtual Worlds ? Think math. Micheal Field, an enthusiatic parent, used the World of Warcraft (WoW) to teach his two children about money management by offering them an in-game allowance for their real world activities such as doing homework or other household chores. This parent plays the game with his children and earns game currency as he plays the game. During the course of game play, his children come across things they would like to have for their avatars such as pets or a new weapon. He doesn’t tell them how to spend their in-game allowance but reminds them that if they spend it they will not be getting any more money until their normal allowance date. Also when it comes to helping in household chorus these children get rewards for WoW in game currency for helping out. Next Well’'s Fargo bank had also tapped into area to educate young financial responsibility. In the digital environment of SecondLife, Visitors there ...

Have you ever encountered scenarios where people talk about virtual worlds and you don't understand a word they are saying. Look no further, here are some common terms you can learn: Avatar - A representation of the player that is used to interact in the game environment through controllers or a combination of keyboard commands and a mouse-driven interface. Communication occurs through a typed chat interface as well as animated expressions or gestures. Bot - a subset of Farmer. A bot refers to using an automated script or computer program to perform certain functions over and over without the need to a human to actually control the avatar. Camp - To remain in the same physical location in the game world for an extended period of time. Typically, this refers to waiting for a special or rare NPC to appear. Farmer - A player who camps the same spawn repeatedly and for hours on-end for the express purpose of obtaining some game currency or item, denying others the opportunity. MMO ...

From " The Growth of the Computer and Video Game Industry " by Adam Bryzak : An interesting correlation between the computer and video game industry against the movie and music industry brought up was brought up in this article. It was compared that sales figures of the games in 2005 amount to $7.0 billion , closing up the gap against the U.S. box office which was $8.99 billion and the recording industry’s sales at $12.3 billion. Over the past 10 years , the gaming industry has evolved and growth so much that it is now a competitive entertainment medium against the traditional businesses. Through records, the gameing industry has also almost tripled dollar sales since 1996 however the recording industry has decreased sales since 1996 by more than $0.2 billion. Is the gaming industry becoming a threat to the movie and music industry? Most people wouldn't think so. I believe that all these industries are inseparable, movie inspire games, games need music, music inspires m...