State of Play V: Program

Sunday August 19: Arrival and Welcome Day

Registration 4:30 p.m. – 8:30 p.m. 

Welcome Dinner 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

An informal welcome to the conference, exploring the themes that we will be discussing, catching up with old and new friends, and enjoying the delightful dining experience that is Singapore.  With surprise entertainment.

Monday August 20: Conference Day 1

Conference Welcome and Opening 9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.

Opening Address: Dr Balaji Sadasivan, Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Information, Communications and the Arts, Republic of Singapore.

Building Businesses in Virtual Worlds 9:15 a.m. – 10:45 a.m. 

Virtual world builders now encourage third parties to develop content inside their worlds, and so we’ve seen the rise of businesses built inside virtual worlds.  This panel will explore the nature of these businesses, and look at how businesses get built within virtual worlds.  It will ask whether the trend has played out, and examine the future of businesses inside the virtual worlds.

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Coffee Break 10:45 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

Regulating Virtual Worlds  11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.   Watch the video

 Legal experts explore how controversies related to intellectual property, real-money transfer, gaming as political speech, time-limit addiction laws and the policing of Internet cafes play out throughout the region. They will also draw our attention to culturally variable assumptions that underpin analytical approaches to these issues.

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Lunch 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Education, Kids, and Teens in Virtual Worlds 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.  Watch the video

There has been an explosion of interest in the use of virtual worlds in education.  This panel will examine what works and what doesn’t work, and will present some ideas for the effective use of online spaces for student learning.  It will also ask examine how children and teens interact within virtual worlds, and what this teaches us about building kid-and-teen-friendly environments for learning and playing.

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Coffee Break 3:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

Connecting East and West 3:45 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.  Watch the video

Experts explore variations in playing styles, the influence of game mechanics on cross-cultural cooperation, the challenge of intercultural communication, and outcomes of forced localization. This panel will also explore issues of society, governance and virtual worlds as a vehicle for people-to-people diplomacy.

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Dinner: Learning and Imagination 7:00 p.m. – 9:00 p.m.

John Seely Brown (Chief of Confusion and co-author of The Social Life of Information) discusses “Learning and Imagination” with Doug Thomas (USC-Annenberg).

Tuesday August 21: Conference Day 2

Welcome Back and Review 9:00 a.m. – 9:15 a.m.

Understanding Virtual World Inhabitants  9:15 a.m. – 10:45 a.m.

As the virtual world landscape matures, industry and academic researchers are developing systematic methods of measuring user behaviors and understanding resident attitudes. This panel explores the value of quantitative and qualitative approaches to such investigations.

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Coffee Break 10:45 a.m. - 11:00 a.m.

Space, Place and Culture Inside Virtual Worlds 11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

The panel will discuss issues related to the relationship between space and place, and how ­ or if ­ these relationships translate from physical to virtual worlds. The discussion is intended to cover issues ranging from how we can recreate a sense of place within virtual environments, to how this sense of place impacts people’s different engagements with one another and affect their conduct and activities in particular spaces and territories.

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Lunch: Game Within Game 12:30 p.m. - 2:00 p.m.

Charles Nesson, (Berkman Center at Harvard Law School) discusses "Game Within Game: Education in an Integrated Real and Virtual World"

The Wealth of Virtual Nations 2:00 p.m. – 3:30 p.m.

The treatment of virtual property by some Asian courts has diverged markedly from the stance taken in the West. Far from treating virtual artifacts as the intellectual property of the game developer, several Asian courts recognize the rights of players. This panel examines the current practices of wealth creation in MMOGs.  It looks at the law on intellectual property and virtual property in a comparative perspective, and examines the recent developments in various countries. What are the rights and responsibilities of platform owners and operators, of players, and of citizens in these new online societies?

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Coffee Break 3:30 p.m. – 3:45 p.m.

Building Virtual Worlds 3:45 p.m. – 5:15 p.m.   Watch the video

  This panel will focus on the issues for developing virtual worlds and MMOGs.  A lot has changed now that virtual worlds are going mainstream, and various technical and management issues have to be addressed.  This panel of experts will examine some of the problems that they have faced, as a consequence of success.

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Conference Close  5:15 p.m.

Networking Event and Get Together  7:00pm-9:00pm

 

Wednesday August 22: Workshop Day

Educational Applications of Virtual Worlds 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Some theorists argue that games are great environments for learning, but terrible tools for teaching. Is it true that we are still struggling to incorporate games and virtual worlds in the classroom in meaningful ways? Organized by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society, this workshop convenes leading game designers and educators together to examine the ways that games and virtual worlds are already shaping the learning processes of children and adults. During the second half of the session, participants will apply these insights to real-world case studies, developing a concrete list of best practices that will be useful to designers and teachers alike.  This interactive workshop moves beyond broad generalities and will give participants a textured understanding of what works – and what doesn't – in the classroom. For more information contact Gene Koo at gkoo@cyber.law.harvard.edu or Aaron Delwiche at adelwich@trinity.edu. 

Organizers:

  • Catherine Bracy, Berkman Center for Internet and Society (USA)
  • Gene Koo, Berkman Center for Internet and Society (USA)
  • Aaron Delwiche, Trinity University (USA)

Law and Regulation in Virtual Worlds 9:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

From discussions of intellectual property and real-money transfer to debates about virtual community governance, the conversation about online game regulation is typically framed by Western ideological assumptions, including ideals about social networking and social relationships. Building on the insights of conference panelists, this workshop invites participants to shake up the debate by posing questions that truly matter to players, game designers and legislators throughout Asia. Taking it one step deeper, the workshop will also move beyond the tendency to clump multiple countries together under a single word, exploring regulatory and cultural particularities that differentiate the gaming landscapes in select Asian countries. Some of the topics that will be discussed include:

  • personal property and intellectual property rules/ownership in virtual worlds
  • liability of virtual world operators for both the facilities they provide and for the acts of the players
  • responsibilities of virtual world operators (for example privacy, parental and other controls eg state imposed time limits)

The workshop is jointly organized by the Centre for Asia Pacific Technology Law & Policy (CAPTEL) at Nanyang Business School and Singapore Management University Law School. For more information, contact Professor Harry Tan via email at harrytan@pmail.ntu.edu.sg.

Organizers:

  • Harry Tan - Director, CAPTEL (Singapore)
  • Anil Samtani - Deputy Director, CAPTEL (Singapore)
  • Lim Yee Fen - Associate Fellow,  CAPTEL (Singapore)
  • Gilbert Leong - Associate Fellow, CAPTEL (Singapore) 
  • Giorgos Cheliotis, SMU School of Information Systems (Singapore)

Lunch Break

Managing Identities in Virtual Worlds   2:30 p.m. -  5:30 p.m.

Participants in virtual worlds craft alternate identities within technological parameters established by world designers and social frameworks jointly established by other participants.  These identities mediate among goals such as self-expression, exploratory play, mutual trust, narrative coherence, technical stability, disciplinary enforcement, social bonding, and the creation of economic value.  Is identity portable among virtual worlds? How do corporate identities function in spaces such as There.Com and Second Life?

 

This workshop will discuss techniques used within virtual worlds to manage identity. For more details about this workshop, contact James Grimmelmann via e-mail at james@grimmelmann.net.

Organizers:

  • James Grimmelmann, New York Law School (USA)
  • Eddan Katz, Yale Information Society (USA)

Commercial Applications of Virtual Worlds  2:30 p.m. -  5:30 p.m.

 

Once viewed as frivolous, social virtual worlds and multiplayer games are now recognized as a vehicle for conducting serious business. IBM is spending $10 million on its Second Life initiatives to support globally distributed workflow in branch offices around the world. Small programming and design firms based in India and China have launched offices in Second Life, bringing Asian project managers into direct content with their North American and European clients. Meanwhile, marketing experts approach interactive promotions with increasing sophistication, carefully selecting virtual worlds and games based on the niche audiences they are trying to reach. This workshop moves beyond the familiar discussion gold farming to examine the issues that really matter to business strategists, virtual world designers, and market researchers.Some of the questions addressed in this workshop include:

 

  • How can we develop precise, meaningful metrics that demonstrate substantive return on investment to virtual world initiatives?
  • What are we learning from the early enterprise applications of virtual worlds?
  • To what extent can these spaces nurture and amplify the outsourcing relationships that characterize our global economy?

For more information about this workshop, contact Jeremy Snyder via e-mail at jeremy@metaversum.com.

Organizers

  • Jeremy Snyder, Metaversum (USA)


Online Poker - Internet Freedom - Open Education  2:30 p.m. -  5:30 p.m.

Organized by the newly forming Global Poker Strategic Thinking Society, this workshop combines open philosophy, internet strategy, instructional entertainment, and vision of a line of development for integrated real and virtual education fueled by human interest in mastering games of skill, poker in the lead. We will begin by distributing in advance of our workshop a paper on education in virtual worlds. We will aim our trajectory going forward as projection of a new way of thinking embodied in the learning and understanding of a game. We will demonstrate the teaching of the game to beginners. We will talk about why it is a good idea to teach poker to kids. We will demonstrate transition to an integrated real and virtual internet environment. We will introduce team play. Lastly, we will examine the critical issues surrounding poker and other games of skill in education and beyond. What are the key strategic thinking points of departure? How far should we go in promoting poker in the field of education? Should poker be taught to children on the $100 laptop? Can how poker and poker strategic thinking serve as a departure point for openness on the Internet, global education, and beyond. We do not expect any previous knowledge of poker, and invite those with a willingness to learn. For more information about this workshop, contact Andrew Woods via email at amwoods@law.harvard.edu. 

 

Organizers:

  • Elizabeth Stark, Harvard Law School (USA)
  • Charles Nesson, Harvard Law School (USA)
  • Andrew Woods, Harvard Law School (USA)

Updated Sept 1, 2007