GLS 1.0 Day Two

Day Two started off with a presentation by a team from PARC on utilizing the potential data gathering opportunities in virtual environments. I had not considered the research opportunities virtual gaming environments present, but it is possible to capture extensive data for quantitative and qualitative analysis. After a brief presentation, the facilitators passed out DVD's with captured video from a game session of "Star Wars Galaxy" and some log and other data files. My table was overwhelmed with the amount of data and struggled to filter out the noise of in game merchant marketing and the behavior of AFK (away from keyboard) avatars. However, an adjacent table demonstrated greater proficiency and were able to analyze how much of the game dialogue were ads, analyzed the content of the ads, and compared the prevalence of the word "please" vs. average usage. I'm impressed by the potential to study decision making and social interaction in virtual games and need to consider whether the potential exists to develop predictive simulations. We just need to match questions to gaming environments appropriately.

For the second session, I am in a session on simulating schooling with Kurt Squire and Levi Giovanetto presenting on Civ III's Apolyton University (where hardcore Civ players go to advance their knowledge) as an educational institution, followed by Rich Halverson on "Games for Leadership, Leadership for Games."

Apolyton is a user community on the Civ website where virtual courses are organize