Journal of Virtual Worlds Research, an online journal that started this year, has just published its second number, titled Consumer Behavior in Virtual Worlds. Also, the Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, a more established online publication, has published a special issue on virtual worlds. Most of the articles from these two publications fall into the familiar group of Second Life -based qualitative studies and essays. There are also a couple of surveys. Below, I briefly introduce four of the papers that touch on VERN's topic areas.

According to Korea Times, MMO publisher Nexon "is preparing to repay users who own paid items" in ZerA, an unsuccessful Korean MMO that is due to be closed in January. The game was launched in 2006 and peaked at 40 000 concurrent users. According to Korea Times, ZerA took three years and 10 billion won (approx. 7.5 M USD) to develop. Plans to launch in Japan were dropped after lukewarm reception in Korea.

We rarely blog about new games and services, but I will make an exception since Whirled by Three Rings seems to be an intriguing concept, design and research -wise.

"Whirled is an in-browser virtual world that is open to player creations and customizations; anything can be uploaded to the Whirled, from simple image furniture to mini-MMO games. Sophisticated avatars, pets, toys and games are coded to Whirled's Flash ActionScript APIs, which support multi-player games with arbitrary numbers of players driven by client or server-side code."

• 3 comments
• Read more

Dr. Eyjólfur Guðmundsson, the economist from CCP, HIIT's partner in virtual economy research, has published one more Quarterly Economic Newsletter (QEN) for EVE Online. The latest issue deals with Q1/2008 and can be found here (the previous ones are Q3/2007 and Q4/2007). The latest issue includes updates to some of the indices that have been published in the past.

We are pleased to announce the launch of the new and improved Virtual Economy Research Network (VERN): a communication hub for scholars, students and developers interested in virtual goods, currencies and economies. The new site features:

Our friends at MindBlizzard report that a Netherlands court has found criminal liability for the real-world theft of virtual goods from the hybrid free/paid MMO roleplaying game Runescape.

From the post at MindBlizzard:

[T]he court has reached a verdict and has sentenced two boys to conditional detention and civil services because of the virtual theft from the game Runescape. [T]he boys from Leeuwarden, at the time both 14 years old, forced a thirteen-year-old victim to hand over virtual goods, a mask and an amulet, and to transfer the items to their account. The thirteen year old had collected a large amount of credits with which artifacts could be purchased. The boys forced him to a house and there he was kicked and threatened with a knife, until he transferred the goods and credits.

Reporting in from Tampere, Finland. I am here at Mindtrek, or should I say, I am ON a Mindtrek. Mindtrek is an annual mediaweek with variety of events and competitions for new innovations and products. Since last year they have also had an academic conference beside all the other wide ranging activities. I also participated in Mindtrek in 2000, which was on the primetime of the dot-com bubble. This year the themes are ranging from games to social media and to ubiquitous computing. Anyway, today I'm here in my original hometown taking part to the academic track on games.

This track consists of three main themes: 1) creativity engagement and algorithms in games 2) games in education, learning and health care, and 3) policies in game industry. All of these are intriguing topics, but what I'm especially interested in is the final presentation/paper about "Revenue Model Innovation in the Chinese Online Market" by Jessie Qun Ren and Philip Hardwick.

This edition of Virtually Blind’s Reading Room features an article addressing legal issues associated with transactions of virtual items in virtual worlds. The article, Transactions of Virtual Items in Virtual Worlds (.pdf), by Michael Passman, is available here courtesy of the author and the Albany Law Journal of Science & Technology. Passman is a recent law school graduate who works at Cassiday Schade LLP in Chicago.

Transactions of Virtual Items in Virtual Worlds raises some interesting questions, including key inquiries into the nature of virtual goods. Passman argues that “transactions in virtual items are not sales of goods, but, rather, licenses of intellectual property.” His theory is based partly on an analysis of the virtual items themselves, and partly on user expectation, as derived from interviews with Second Life users. From Passman’s article:

Greg Lastowka over at Terra Nova writes about the way Sulake limits the amount of money users can spend on virtual goods in Habbo. I've written a little bit about the topic in a paper that has been in review for a long time. Basically what interests me in it as a researcher of consumption is how a certain type of spending is legitimized and becomes socially acceptable. Lots of products from jazz music to microwave meals were initially "improper" consumption, not something a respectable person would buy. Gradually, in a process were advertising played no small part, people accepted those goods and started to consume them. At the same time, they left behind some of their earlier ways of consumption.