Subject: PARC Forum: "The Blurring Boundaries of Play: Labor, Genocide, and Addiction", Nicholas Yee, Thursday July 20th at 4pm

From: [email-masked]
Date: Mon, 17 Jul 2006 09:40:50 PDT

Open Forum

[email-masked]

PARC FORUM

Thursday, July 20th

4:00 - 5:00 p.m.

Title: "The Blurring Boundaries of Play: Labor, Genocide, and Addiction"
Nicholas Yee 

Abstract: 

Every day, millions of people around the world interact and collaborate
via avatars in online games such as World of Warcraft. The marketing and
media rhetoric make it easy to think of these online games as fantasy
worlds that are somehow cut off from "reality", but the boundaries of
these virtual worlds have always been porous. After a brief overview of
what these games are, who plays them and why they play, this talk traces
out several case studies in the blurring boundaries of play and
challenges some assumptions of what play means in these virtual worlds.
Are some players' virtual jobs more challenging and stressful than their
day-time jobs? Can you really be addicted to online games? And in a
fantasy world of ogres and elves, why is it that being Chinese can get
you killed?

Bio:

Nick Yee is currently a Ph.D. student in the Department of Communication
at Stanford University. Over the past 6 years, he has surveyed over
40,000 online gamers on a wide variety of issues, such as age and gender
differences, motivations of play, relationship formation, and
problematic usage. At Stanford's Virtual Human Interaction Lab, he works
with Jeremy Bailenson in performing experimental studies exploring
issues of social interaction and self-representation in immersive
virtual reality. Nick also works with the PARC PlayOn group, helping to
analyze server-side and other forms of aggregate data of social behavior
in online games. His work has been noted in many news outlets, including
the Wall Street Journal and Business Week. More detailed information
about his research along with copies of his published articles can be
found at: www.nickyee.com <outbind://19/www.nickyee.com> 

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