Today my posts about the metaverse for New World Notes are coming from Beijing, a city with gravity-defying architecture surrounded in a post-apocalyptic smog (that's the view of Rem Koolhaas' CCTV tower from my hotel room), which is the capital of a country where it's not uncommon for the nation's elite to spend six figures a year on virtual goods, and for the working class in the remote cities to spend nearly half their income on items that don't strictly exist. I don't have a particular point beyond that, except maybe to say the virtual world is not always as strange as the real one. Also, question for my regular readers:
I've been thinking of blogging more about China tech and gaming culture -- sort of a New Old World Notes -- anyone interested in reading more of that, along with our usual themes?
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To me, North American culture is pretty damn alien anyway. So I can't see it making any difference.
Posted by: Wolf Baginski | Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 10:25 AM
Hamlet, I'd love to know more about their gaming culture. It's terra incognita to most of your readers.
I've learned from Chinese students how they use social networking there: not at all like US users. So I wonder how different their gamers are?
Posted by: Iggy | Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 03:02 PM
I would be. Since many of us end up playing Chinese or Korean games, and run into these odd halts in gameplay, where it's obviously a gaming culture moment we just don't understand, I'd definitely be interested in additional insights.
Posted by: Emilly Orr | Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 06:16 PM
Didn't the Chinese have their own version of SL back in the day? Of interest would be their take on censorship where they block keywords in media yet you would think that would be fairly impossible within a closed ecosystem like SL.
Posted by: Connie Arida | Tuesday, April 23, 2013 at 08:58 PM
Yes, Hipihi -- they didn't get enough users, and had to pull the plug. That's a very good point about chat in MMOs, I'll have to look into it.
Posted by: Hamlet Au | Wednesday, April 24, 2013 at 12:31 AM
China, Korea, Brazil, Russia, Japan, India... bring it on. The distances between us are shrinking. We need a lot less fear and a lot more understanding when we're rubbing virtual elbows.
Posted by: Arcadia Codesmith | Wednesday, April 24, 2013 at 06:34 AM