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Rock Band in Your Library

A video featuring Nebraska librarians setting up and playing Rock Band with a projector in an auxilliary room of some kind has local taxpayers outraged. OUTRAGED.

Should Reviewers Go Easy on Cheap Games?

In "researching" for my previous post about free MMO's, I came across the following comment on Kotaku:

Third and most important, its FREE TO PLAY, FOREVER. You aren't losing any money playing this game (unless your buying cash shop items, but who can blame them for trying to cover some of the costs) Try it out yourself and stop saying how much its this or that. I personally think they did a really good job at the game. There are bugs here and there (It's beta) but its a F2P game that I'd actually play. Most of the F2P games I have tried have either been soo god awful I couldn't play more then 20mins. Others were kind of fun but soo cartoony and kiddish I'd be embarrassed to be seen playing them. On top of game play issues in every other F2P game I've played (mind you I've tried a lot) they lack updates and fixes support. If Runes of Magic is going to do any of what they said they were going to there's going to be content patches with class balancing and new content.
They wanted to give a new F2P experience, and so far they have delivered. I'd urge anyone on the edge to try and play it and remember, It's FREE.

This mindset really bugs me!

Drew Carey Ventures into Second Life

Libertarian-leaning news source reason.tv has a fascinating piece on free market economics in Second Life.

SL is based on a simple set of institutional arrangements that would make F.A. Hayek proud. In essence, the people who own the property in SL make the rules. The result is a spontaneously ordered world in which residents are free to fly, teleport, build, trade and interact with others without interference from the state.

Recently, Linden Lab—the SL equivalent of a state—has begun acting more and more like a real life government by restricting activities such as gambling. But open source competitors based on the SL platform are currently in development. So better virtual worlds offering even more freedom are just around the corner.

As virtual real estate gains value, it will be interesting to see how MMO hosts like Linden Labs handle personal property. They draw parallels between the folks who sought freedom in the New World centuries ago and those who seek liberty and fortune on these new virtual frontiers. Neat stuff.

For some reason (ha!), I can't get the video to embed here, so you'll just have to click on through to the other side.

Posted Sep 12 2008, 10:00 PM by Cole Stryker with | with no comments

Filed under: cole stryker, second life, mmorpg, free markets, reason.tv, libertarianism, linden labs

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.