Differences between VW and MMOG

7 grad students met in a room and tried to grasp the differences between VW and MMOG.

We defined VW as massively multiuser virtual environments (MMVE). Examples: Second Life is a VW, but Super Mario Galaxy 2 is not. VW are free-form, open-ended, they allow more UGC than MMOG. In VW, UGC is expected and tools are given to users so that they can create content. In MMOG, new content comes from developer updates and expansions. Somehow, we managed to scratch the surface of the ludic-to-paidaic axis that Pearce talks about.

Then someone mentioned MineCraft. MineCraft has 2 different gameplay versions. In the "Classic" mode, players can only remove from or add to the world textured cubes of virtual matter. In the "Alpha" mode, monsters and zombies wander in the open world and players have health points (and can die). Hence, Classic would be a (sandbox) VW while the multiplayer Alpha would be considered an MMOG.

MMOG development studios want to provide the exact game they have playtested to their players. The virtual world is, somehow, protected: players are not allowed to modify it. Hence UGC is client-side only (eg UI add-ons for WoW). However, Game Masters can bring new and refreshing entertainment during live events such as summoning a demon in Stormwind, the Human capital city in WoW. While these events do not happen often in MMOG, they are inexistent in VW. Somehow, Game Masters could evolve into "dynamic" game designers, while traditional current game design would be considered "static".

List of conferences and journals

Based on the ACM library and several links, here is a list of current conferences, workshops and journals dealing with games. It is not totally complete, but covers a wide spectrum: from software engineering, databases and networking (tech) to game design (GD), sociology and anthropology (soc), game studies and humanities (hum), and arts (art). Also, some acceptance rates have been collected by professors for the areas of computational intelligence, networking, software engineering and database.

Name	Full name	Rate	Domain	Notes	Society
DIMEA	Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts	-	tech	2008, incorporated into ACE	-
DISIO	DIstributed SImulation & Online gaming	-	tech	workshop	ICST
FSE	Foundations of Software Engineering	18%	tech	also named SIGSOFT	ACM
GDC	Game Developer Conference	-	tech|GD	industry-oriented	GDC
Globe	International Conference on Data Management in Grid and P2P Systems	-	tech	-	-
ICSE	International Conference on Software Engineering	14%	tech	-	ACM/IEEE
IJCGT	International Journal of Computer Games Technology	-	tech	-	Hindawi
IMSAA	Internet Multimedia Systems Architecture and Applications	-	tech	-	IEEE
MMVE	Massively Multiuser Virtual Environments	-	tech	workshop	ACM
MMTA	Multimedia Tools and Applications	-	tech	2010, online journal	Springer
NetGames	NetGames	40%	tech	2008, 2009, 2010	ACM
NIME	Networking Issues in Multimedia Entertainment	-	tech	workshop	IEEE
NSDI	USENIX Symposium on Networked Systems Design & Implementation	19%	tech	part of SIGCOMM	ACM
OOPSLA	renamed into SPLASH	27%	tech	see SPLASH	ACM
P2P	Peer-to-Peer (IEEE)	20%	tech	2008, 2009	IEEE
P2PNVE	Peer-to-Peer Network Virtual Environments	-	tech	2008, 2009	-
NOSSDAV	Network and Operating System Support for Digital Audio and Video	37%	tech	workshop, paper list	ACM
SIGCOMM	Special Interest Group on Data Communication	10%	tech	paper list	ACM
SIGMM	SIGMM conference on Multimedia systems	17%	tech	-	ACM
SIGMOD	Special Interest Group on Management Of Data	20%	tech	-	ACM
SPLASH	Systems, Programming, Languages and Applications: Software for Humanity	27%	tech	used to be OOPSLA	ACM
TCIAIG	Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games	-	tech	-	IEEE
TOMCAP	Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications and Applications	-	tech	-	ACM
TOIT	Transactions on Internet Technology	-	tech	-	ACM
TOSEM	Transactions on Software Engineering and Methodology	-	tech	-	ACM
VLDB	Very Large DataBase	-	tech	archives	ACM
VRCAI	Virtual-Reality Continuum and its Applications in Industry	-	tech	-	ACM
Name	Full name	Rate	Domain	Notes	Society
ACE	Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology	-	tech|soc	conference that gets published in CIE, EntCom and IJART incorporates NetGames and DIMEA 2007, 2008, 2010	ACM
CIE	Computers in Entertainment	-	tech|soc	journal, paper list	ACM
CIG	Computational intelligence and games	49%	tech	2010	IEEE
CGames	CGames	-	tech|soc		IEEE
EntCom	Entertainment computing	-	tech|soc	journal	Elsevier
FAG	Fun and Games	36%	tech|soc|GD	biannual	ACM
FDG	Foundations for Digital Games FDG	30%	tech|soc|GD	conference and workshop papers	ACM
GIC	Games Innovations Conference	-	tech|soc	papers	IEEE
IGIC	International Games Innovation Conference		tech|soc|GD		IEEE
ITS	Internet Technologies & Society	-	tech|soc	-	IADIS
VR	Virtual Reality	-	tech|soc	-	IEEE
Name	Full name	Rate	Domain	Notes	Society
DiGRA	Digital Games Research Association	-	soc|hum|GD	library, biannual?	DiGRA
Eludamos	Eludamos, Journal for Computer Game Culture	-	soc|hum	online journal, biannual	-
FM	First Monday	-	soc	online journal	self-pub
GAC	Games And Culture	-	soc|hum	online journal, long review process	SagePub
Game studies	the international journal of computer game research	-	soc|GD	online journal, once or twice issues per year	-
IJART	International Journal of Arts and Technology	-	art	-	Inderscience
JGVW	Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds	-	soc	online journal	Intellect
JVWR	Journal of Virtual World Research	-	soc	online journal	self-pub
Loading	Loading... the Journal of the Canadian Games Studies	-	soc|hum|GD	online journal	-
SAG	Simulation and Gaming	-	soc	online journal	SagePub

[Conf] Notes from an NSF workshop about CGVW

This workshop focused on computer games and virtual worlds (CGVW) and gathered researchers in the STEM field and arts.

Notable positions

Some interesting points from position speakers.

Speaker	Desc.
Boellstorff	WoW is not overstudied, but there is a hype cycle. Making a distinction between computer games and virtual worlds. Impossible to research the future.
Hayes	Learning is part problem solving (provided by current computer games) and part sociocultural (provided by multiuser virtual worlds).
Kesselman	WoW is not revolutionary, it is just polish and history. Limited resources for many players is a bad game mechanic, it is frustrating.
Wright	There are few social theories/framwework to explain why VW are so popular. It may be worth studying the impact of CGVW software on exclusion, relations between children and adults, cooperation and conflicts between players, and the reproduction of real-life social inequities in CGVW.
White	Scripting languages can be used by professional game designers; in that case, it is pre-architected. If it is UGC, it is certainly buggy and possibly harmful. In some cases, the system limits the design (ex: 8bit consoles, Racing the Beam from Bogost) but in others, current designs do not yet use the full potential of the systems on which they are built (ex: augmented reality is still nascent).
Wardrip-Fruin	Close-reading (in media studies) goes hand-in-hand with rapid and agile prototyping.

Working Groups

I found the 6 working groups to reflect well the domains currently implied in CGVW research. Here they are, taken from the workshop slides.

Title	Desc.
Advanced GGVW Technologies	AI, scripting, narrative and emergent systems, procedural and non-procedural content generation, avatar generation and customization, world building kits, etc.
Anthropological, Behavioral, Sociological Studies of CGVW	ethnographic studies of CGVW, work-versus-play or work-as-play or play-as-work, patterns of migration across CGVW, CGVW in complex enterprise settings, research methods for studying CGVW,
CGVW for Science, Health, Environment, Energy, Defense	CGVW as research tools or infrastructure for R&D in other scientific, industrial, or government domains, etc.
Education and Learning with CGVW	how CGVW facilitate or inhibit learning in formal or informal education settings, play as learning, CGVW for STEM and Humanities learning, etc.
CGVW Systems Technologies	multi-core and many core processors, computer graphics hardware and software, networking, databases, language design, sensors, etc.
Media, History, Culture and Art of CGVW	CGVW as media, art, literature and expressive forms of social critique; new literacies, creativity with or through CGVW, etc.