The Reality of The Virtual
First Podcast Episode of the (un)Real Estate Series
by Alina Nazmeeva and Dr. Andrea Marie Chegut
Disclaimer:
(un)Real Estate is the Medium blog series and podcast series. It is a part of an open-ended research project at MIT Real Estate Innovation Lab, exploring the economy of the virtual, the value and norms of virtual space, land, goods, and a real life made of bits.
This is the first podcast episode, titled The Reality of the Virtual. In this episode we highlight the general context and motivation for our research, place online digital games and virtual worlds in the context of global culture, the entertainment industry, and the disciplines of real estate and urbanism. We define what virtual worlds are, and situate their position in the context of culture, technology, and economy.
Virtual worlds are not games, but games are played within them. Yet we refer to these spaces as games: Online Massively Multiplayer Online Games, Online Digital Games, Video Games. While games and the practice of play are deeply connected to virtual worlds and are one of the main purposes for them to exist, this term (game), as conventionally applied to these spaces, seems to obscure political economy and social systems emerging within them.
Ultimately, virtual worlds have become a dominant cultural form, markets and social spaces for millions of people. There are over 2.2 billion gamers in the world, and a portion of them is engaged in the economic market of virtual goods and virtual real estate. Besides, videogame industry is larger than cinema and music industry combined.
As mass entertainment products, virtual worlds infiltrate everyday reality and influence other social and technical systems. Since the days when first uses of computers and the internet was a networked multiplayer game, people have learned how to think of computers and the internet through the interaction with virtual world systems.
Virtual worlds are subsequently becoming complex representational, computational and social systems. Ultimately, the spaces of virtual worlds blend visual culture and aesthetics and computer science into a spatial system that operates with the tropes and affordances inherited from both spatial and ‘computer-mediated interaction. From this perspective, they are not unlike urban systems.
We invite you to check out the first episode of our podcast series. In this episode we unpack these questions and many more.
In our next episode we will discuss the economic systems and transactions happening in virtual worlds and some of the key economic concepts and how the play out in the virtual. Stay tuned!
