A MITH Digital Dialogue
Tuesday, October 31, 12:30-1:45
MITH Conference Room, McKeldin Library B0135

CALLING ALL GAMERS!

MITH currently has several research initiatives pending in the area of
online gaming, especially Massively Multiplayer Role Playing Games
(MMRPGS). MMRPGs such as Second Life and World of Warcraft create
complex social, narrative, and imaginative spaces that have been the
subject of important recent books by Edward Castronova and Henry
Jenkins, among others. Far from merely idle pastimes, these virtual
worlds, or simulations, manifest increasingly vexed relations to our
own daily realities. Castronova has calculated that one of the most
popular and longest running games, EverQuest, has a real world economy
whose GNP places it somewhere between that of Bulgaria and Russia;
Reuters, meanwhile, has just opened a news bureau within Second Life,
where it might be expected to cover events such as a Suzanne Vega
concert that unfolded entirely within that world’s virtual setting.

On Tuesday we are interested in talking with persons/players active in
one or more of these game worlds. We want *you* to come and educate
*us* about your experiences, we want to get feedback on our current
proposed work, and we want to discuss the possibility of creating an
interest group for those interested in discussing MMRPGs at some kind
of regular interval.

Note: Jason Nelson’s appearance, originally scheduled for 10/31, has
been CANCELLED.

Coming up @MITH Nov. 7: VIKA ZAFRIN (Brown University), “The Virtual
Humanities Lab and the Evolution of Remote Collaboration.” View the
complete Fall 2006 schedule for Digital Dialogues here:
http://www.mith2.umd.edu/programs/mith_speakers_fall_2006.pdf

Free and open to the public.

Contact: Neil Fraistat, Director, MITH (www.mith.umd.edu, mith@umd.edu, 5-5896).