The change in sentiment was global. The pay-per-view I think was only in the US. In the UK boxing was on free to air TV for another decade. Having said that, I think that the last household names in boxing did probably end as the sport moved over to paid TV. So it could simply be that if boxing's not just on, it falls out of favour. It would be interesting to understand what happened in other countries.

For some reason popular sentiment lost touch with boxing. I can't put my finger on why exactly. I feel that it may be a combination of the rise of polarity of other sports and a general tide of sentiment against the direct combat nature of boxing. Through the centuries boxing was a rather singular spectacle other things that competed with it at fairs most likely included cock fighting and the like - things we now see as outrageously cruel. So boxing took on a place in society and through that and the participants took on a more representational place. Boxers were noble, boxing made a man of you (though historically women also boxed). We must also remember that this was long before the codification of sports such as football, so as an 'organised' event (thought it's relationship with the law was dubious for many years) it was exceptional. TV came along and made it bigger and bigger. But it also built up other sports - Football (soccer) in the UK and around the globe, and more national niche sports such as American and Australian rules football. So I think in part because of our general attitude to violence in such a pure form and easy access to other sports boxing lost it's pre-eminent position. When it lost this, we stopped loading cultural meaning into it and so it slid still further. Did pay-per-view have an impact? Possibly, but not as much as general feeling and competition I think. What I feel eSports needs to become as big, as meaningful, is to understand what eSports tells us about ourselves. What values does it embody and are those ones we aspire to? I'd say yes - eSports is global. The influence of Asian on it is palpable. The global community with Europeans, Americans and the East all competing is global politics on a small screen. It also embodies everything you need to succeed in today works, you have to be physically and mentally sharp, adapt to games that constantly change. Combine split second action with long term tactics and medium term strategy. An eSports star is the very embodiment of this century - now if only it could be a bit (LOT) more diverse as a sport and industry.

Mr Pizza, I originally assumed that hero name was the default as the first casts I listened to mainly used hero name. As a n00b to the area this worked for me because as you say they were talking about what I could see rather than the small name above the character. The general trend seems to be that the higher the level the cast in respect of the expertise of the casters, rank of players and level tournament - the greater the emphasis on the individual player. This assumes that the audience has a lot more knowledge about who is playing what, which also assumes a lot more attention to the cast. All of which, I feel are probably sound assumptions for much of the audience. Yes, it is a recognition of the player behind the character (though later I'll talk about how they are negated), but I think it's more an acknowledgement of where the motivation of the audience lie, I think that people follow people. Another point I'll get onto is the construction of narrative around events and a requirement for there to be people as part of the eSports soap opera. It would be interesting to hear some casters talk about why they do what they do.

Thanks for: http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2014/09/making-it-official-rip-terra-nova.html?cid=6a00d8341c022953ef01b7c6e81838970b#comment-6a00d8341c022953ef01b7c6e81838970b tom

To add to what Greg said. The court specifically looked at these two issues (as they were two of the four raised by the defence) and said: 1/ It's not about ownership per se, it's about control. So just so long as you have legitimately control of something and that is taken away from you, then it can count as theft - see currency and passports, both owned by the state. 2/ If the goods had been stolen within the context of the game, that would have been fine - but the acts happened completely outside the context of the game, so it was not. The decision was quite well thought out I think. Ren

Thanks for the props Greg. If any TN readers are interested in being on the show, particularly people from industry, drop us a line: info AT virtualpolicy DOT net, we are keen to get a range of points of view about the legal, regulatory, and other issues impacting the online world.

Ahh, I thought there might have been some dead-tree involvement somewhere, makes sense.

Dave, Yeh the guys on the podcast were saying they would have gone anyway - and I guess if you have gone all the way to a GameStop you may as well pick up something. Though if the numbers of people are right down I can see why it would not work not to pay the overtime, but not telling anyone till the last moment, that's just dumb.

SL does not have an overriding Magic Circle, indeed one of the competing overarching narratives of SL is one of capitalism, another is fantasy but one that is often cast as being hyper-real. It’s because of this lack of overarching narrative that the Magic Circles that those that choose to use SL as a play space create among them selves can be of such variety and be in such conflict. In a game such as Modern Warfare it would be perverse to deny that it is a game and act as if it were not (though this of course is done in multiplayer FPS’s, often for political purposes). Similarly in MMO’s there are sometimes categorical clashes over purpose but these tend to be in exceptional cases such as funerals, other clashes are based on play style (though these may vary so widely the that casual observer my think the conflicts are more deep rooted than they in fact are). In SL it is not similarly perverse to use it, say, as a mimetic tool for business. What’s more ludic uses of the space that are in direct opposition or conflict have no external basis on which to claim cultural or moral superiority other than those where people make direct appeals to supervening norms e.g. the case of age-play. Senban Babii of courses expresses a normative stance of their one – one of moral relativism within the context of SL, it seems this is no more justified than the opposite view, though it may be less popular. If I step further into the theory of play and meaning I’m still working on I’d start to go on about how individuals are constantly changing the bounds of their circles (or frames) through a process of negotiation, but I won’t.

Joey, The IEEE event is merely supported by tVPN, it's not a tVPN event. The IEEE event is open to all however it's participatory so as long as you are prepared to turn up and join in you will be welcome. BTW tVPN defines it's scope as such as we've not worked out how to effectively engage with users over detailed policy matters, though members of the public have attended many tVPN events.

How about this for a grouping of the points thus far: Community & Culture - everyone is a gamer of some type, games pre-date literature and their modern pervasive form ‘computer games’ are played by an increasing number of voters Games and understanding - Game play helps us understand systems. This form of learning can help everyone understand politics and could be used to reform the education system Economy - Computer games are an increasing part of the economy

The piece is not very clear. It starts by saying it's for players then talks about companies. If the latter part is true then it reads a lot like standard commercial insurance against legal claim targeted to a vertical industry sector and legal sphere outcomes are uncertain. The kinda insurance that any decent size company will already have as part of its over all risk management strategy. Could someone that can read the original tell us if there is anything new here?

Isaac, Thx for the reference, I'll read the paper. Isaac Knowles > To me, this sounds an awful lot like leisure itself is something that we are laboring at. So how does one escape the conclusion that leisure is not just a mislabeled form of labor? My lack of understanding of how terms are used in Economics makes it hard for me to say something useful here. I guess the issue comes down to what the terms connote on your field, I'm not sure why leisure cannot be a form of labour that has as specific set of intentions and intended outcomes, functionally it can be exactly the same as labour in many respects, functional descriptions are often lacking. I certainly support your urge to research this more. In the policy circles that I hang out in it does seem that notions of leisure are no the proper subject of a policy debate - so I can see why this area has been overlooked by parts of the academy that see it as part of their role to influence the debate.

CherryBombSim > Actually, BitCoin *1s* a fiat currency because it's value is not pegged to any specific commodity. No. Fiat currency refers to one that exists by order of a state. > The words that come to my mind are "pyramid scheme", though. Part of the BitCoin FAQ explains why they are not a pyramid scheme. You might think that they are scam, but that are not that type of scam. > Andrew Tepper over at A Tale in the Desert is a big fan of BitCoins. You can pay for your game subscription with them. Interesting >I suppose he wants them to use in his on-line casino. I was not aware he ran a gambling site, is that what you are suggesting / alleging? Given inter-state gambling laws in the US that’s a quite a suggestion.

kmellis > A significant point to make about BitCoin..."The Silk Road" That would be why I made that point in the post.

> Like the fact that we're obsessed over sexting and other digital phenomena related to sex, yet we have done little to improve sex education in this country ‘we’ / ‘this country’ – you mean Americans and America? In the UK we are having a moment of moral panic over kids and sex. With the recent release of ‘Letting Children Be Children: the Report of an Independent Review of the Commercialisation and Sexualisation of Childhood’ aka “The Bailey Review”: http://www.education.gov.uk/b0074315/bailey-review/ See also the Childhood Wellbeing Research Centre’s 'Summary of regulatory frameworks in four selected countries, for the Bailey Review of commercialisation and sexualisation of childhood' and 'The commercialisation and premature sexualisation of childhood': http://www.cwrc.ac.uk/news/941.html I’m thinking about posting more on this, but first this … Sex’n games n’Rock and Roll === As to what games are out there, new year 2006 I wrote: “Welcome to oh oh ooooh6” : http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2006/01/welcome_to_oooh.html as it seemed to be the year of the sex multiplayer game. I had my reservations about the market back then, I still do – though unlike many (though probably not on TN) this is for practical reasons rather than moral qualms about sex games. I’ve just looked at the list of 2006 games and the current status seems to be as follows: • Heavenly Bodies – seems gone. • Naughty America: The Game – now just pr0n • Rapture Online – apparently they are still working on it • Red Light Center – still going • Spend the Night - gone • 3Feelonline - gone • Sociolotron – still going. There have also ben some new entrants into the market such as Digamour http://www.digamour.com/ And of course we have not even touched the wonderful world of Japanese game genres such as: bishōjo, otome, eroge/ hentai games etc (OK there was no rock and roll) Social Outcomes === That’s sex games generally though, looking specifically at education / social outcomes…. In the UK Channel 4 (partly publicly funded TV channel) moved much of its education budget online, the games element of this has been lead by the brillian Alice Taylor, and one of their creations is Privates: http://www.e4.com/game/privates.html To quote from the site: “Loads of you have enjoyed playing with our bits, so we had a bit of a fiddle and have erected a new level. Now you can play as Celestia, as you rescue Jack and his Marines from their balls up and get to fight a brand new STI. You're going to have to shoot a load, before someone shoots their load...” So a game about STD’s rather than sex as such, but you get the point. Smokescreen on Social Networking is also worth checking out: http://www.smokescreengame.com/ The UK Government has been doing a few things around games (full disclosure: myself and the Virtual Policy Network were commissioned to support some of this work). One of the outcomes of of a ‘hack day’ was The Bump Game: http://trippenbach.com/2010/03/22/the-bump-game/ by Philip Trippenbach which is a game for ‘pregnant couples’ but again, you get the point. Main lesson of Bump I think is that games work for some things in some circumstances – they don’t have to be computer games. Panic!! === The main problem I guess is the moral panic around sex. Informing kids about safe sex seems statically linked to reducing pregnancy and disease but in the eyes of the press and many groups is linked to promoting sex (which is a bad thing). Here’s the upside – kids have got smart phones. Wana educate – make free smart phone games about sex. Anyone know Apple’s rules about loading stuff on the App store – would they cave to pressure? Droid anyone? Surely this is something that begging for a tie up with research institutions – we must know what kids don’t know about sex and what they need to know. To get something going in the US we probably need: - a hack day or similar - an audience: IGDA Sex in video games sig is a good start - sponsors – to get the action going (as they say in Poker) tVPN’s willing to help out with this – let’s go!

Isaac > Perhaps in this alternative world, the company uses the extra revenues to hire people to play with me. Once the population reaches a critical mass, however, the 'paid extras' are no longer necessary. Consider that free trials get people to pay for the game, but also simply get a lot of people playing at once. In other words, companies take an initial hit in hopes of recouping the loss later on. One point I meant to make in the more whimsical section that seemed to drop out during editing was the proposition that at a certain critical point companies should pay guild leaders as the lifetime in-direct value of a guild leader is so high that it’s worth the small margin to keep them. In a sense companies to pay to get players, they just don’t pay the players they pay other companies. In the more ‘casual’ market and more and more in the freemium market metrics such as Customer Acquisition cost vs Life Time Value become much more important. > But I think its harder to come up with a suitable, standard economic answer to the question of why people engage in the tasks necessary to produce, say, Auctioneer or wowwiki, or to lead a raiding guild. Why do people labor to play? Is this ‘the problem of altruism’ or something different? I'm always a bit suspect of economics as from a non-economist point of view it seems to have problems like this, which suggests to me it’s models have the wrong motivation set. Is this a psychological question? Maybe people create wiki pages etc because they enjoy it - they like to see the fruits of their labour, as an added bonus other people get to use their stuff, which is nice, and may reflect on them positively. > Nevertheless, it would be nice to start teasing out some kind of explanation in economics of what leisure really is and why people engage in it, because up to this point it has received very little scrutiny. That’s interesting. Is it because it’s fundamentally too challenging? Is there an economics world view that the world does not fit into? Perhaps the fact that a lot of our leisure is conducted in a space where it can be defined and counted is a great help for economists etc as we have much better data than we did for gardening or other pursuits you mention. Also there was a recent study about productivity and how time off makes people more productive (and I think creative). So if we wanted to draw a line between work and leisure then maybe it’s any form of leisure at a first analysis – I guess this must have been done, I’m soo not an economist.

c3 s > i think you might want to examine the history of "artifacts as art" that are based on the "changes that occur to it and viewer while being interacted upon by a viewer" and what that thinking means in the examination of "art". i think youll find that there is no "aesthetic" per say to find in the traditional meaning, but only a "gestalt"-overall feeling- to the entire process. I’m not really sure what you are getting at. I’m coming from a fairly traditional 20C notion of aesthetic theory. I threw a little Kant in there for those that don’t quite get philosophers distinctions between things and the apprehension of things. > experiential art. hamlet may always have the same fate, but how YOU FEEL about it, WILL and can change with time, and experience. That’s why I noted in the original post “I see aesthetic response as intrinsically bi-directional”

Ren>> I tend to it in the philosophical camp that tends not to see properties as essentially inhering in artefacts but in our experience of them Richard > Well, non-physical properties, yes. Then again, even physical properties are often artefacts of our experience of them. If I say "this ring is made of gold", what I'm really saying is that this set of particular atoms, which I am arbitrarily grouping together and calling a ring, is made up primarily of atoms of gold. To the universe, however, those are just part of an unimaginably vast cloud of atoms interacting with one another in various fixed ways. The philosophy of science is a bit of a side-track but, many would tend to say that that’s all metaphor. The kinda thing was pointing out was the difference between saying (1) ‘it is cold’ and (2) ‘I have the experience of it being cold’ – in aesthetic theory as I understand it people tend to be talking about the latter. Given the main subject of what I’m on about the distinction might not matter as this specific point is common to the nature of aesthetic experience and does not very across the things that one is having the experience of. That is in a painting or watching a play, it’s not the thing but the experience of the thing that theorists tend to talk about. I was just clarifying for those that have not read aesthetics. Richard >Your argument seems to be that because playing computer games is a different experience to anything else, that makes them a different kind of art to everything else. I have two problems with this. I’m saying the nature of the experience contains things that are common e.g. looking at pictures, and then a combination that is different from anything else I can think of. Richard > Firstly, and maybe I'm misunderstanding you here, you seem to be saying that the art is in the playing. I’m not sure we are using terms in the same way. I’m talking much more about aesthetics than art. I’m focusing on aesthetic experience which a category of experience we sometimes have when apprehend some works. Art is a category that is applied to some works – I gave the two main theories of how this categorisation operates. I’m using work as general term for artefacts, performances etc and apprehend for the mode by which we exerpeince them – read, watch etc. Richard > I see there can be art in play, yes, but this art is enabled by the design of the game. It's like saying that the art in a novel is in the reading of it, not in the authoring of it. I’m saying that the aesthetic experience comes from reading, yes. There is a different experience that comes from writing – I’ve not made a comment on the nature of the latter. Richard > I guess you could argue that in the case of computer games the art emerges from a dialogue between the designer and the player, but I don't buy that. That is what I’m saying. Richard > The art of play is different from the art of design because the symbols they use are different. I like the idea of using the fact that computer games are experienced differently to other creative works as support for the idea that game design is an art form. I don't see how you can make the play itself part of that, though, except in a designed-for sense. It may be an art, but it's a separate art. I’m not sure how you are using ‘art’ here. I’ve not made any comment on the act of design. But I have said that the design in-and-of-itself can have aesthetic qualities – these are distinct, in some ways, from the ones that come about through play. There are arguments about things like mathematical proofs, I’m sure there are ones about writing – I’ve noted that at least some of these exist but I’m not focusing on them here as there is a large existent literature in some areas e.g. code as art. Richard > Secondly, computer games are not homogenous. The experience of playing different genres of game can be vary greatly. I would particularly draw a distinction between single, multiplayer and massively-multiplayer as step changes of experiences. I don't think you've yet got to the heart of what they have in common, which makes it difficult to accept the proposition that they share a "computer game" aesthetic that isn't shared by other computer-based products (Powerpoint slides) or other game types (board games) or indeed other game types played on computer (play-by-email). Come to that, the visual aesthetics of games from the early 1980s are so different to those of today, it could be argued that the further into the past you go, the less likely it becomes that a "computer game" of the era is the same basic art form as what you're describing; as a corollary, today's games are going to be a different art form to those 30 years in the future. There's no common thread of experience (well, there is - they're all games - but that's not the thread you're aiming at). As per my comment on one of your previous remarks – I need to think about the primary class here. Is it that there is an aesthetic of play and that different computer games share it; or maybe there is a quality of experience of some computer games that elevates them. This gets tricky as if one asks a philosopher why one painting is art and another is not – there’s no short or universally agreed answer. But people agree that paintings can be art – that is can give rise to an aesthetic experience etc. So I think the best I can do is layout a set of criteria and then others can argue whether any given game or gameplay experience meets them or not – these will differ based on person etc.

Richard, I tend to it in the philosophical camp that tends not to see properties as essentially inhering in artefacts but in our experience of them – which of course is related but the properties we talk about are the ones we have direct experiential access too. So when applying the Functionalist theory of art to games it’s the property of our experience of the work that counts. Now we can just look at or hear a computer game, if so the experience falls into one of the other categories out outlined. But when we experience a game through play then I’m suggesting that the experience of a computer game has aspects that are both aesthetic and different from say the standard way we experience a book or a picture or a board game (of course we can play with a book). It might be that I should actually work on a general theory of the aesthetics of play as there are elements that I've identified that may be a play aesthetic that would give rise to slightly different experiences if we are playing with a video game or a board game or a stick. Then again it might be that the play experience is not an aesthetic one when looked at generally, but only in conjunction with a given type of artifact. Ren

I probably would say the Battlechess is closer to traditional chess. But I think that’s a slightly different discussion that the one I was having. In the popular and middle-brow world there has been a discussion of games and art and, in some quarters, a round reject of video games being capable of being art. Academically I’ve not found a defence of the view of games as art that I’ve been happy with – those that I have found have either focused on excellence in some traditional areas, or looked at interactivity out of context – what accounts seemed to lack is any notion of games being situated within a context and that one can accumulate literacy that is part of the experience. Thus I wanted to establish that computer games could be art in virtue of the experience they can create and it struck me that this had a particular character. Now, like with any art form there is then a discussion about any given putative token of that form. For example we can ask is something a painting or a sculpture, we can ask if it is art or just craft, whether it’s good art etc etc. All these are valid but not what I was addressing here.

Richard, Well the particular mix I'm talking about it unique to video games. That's not to say there is not also a related experience that can come from different types of games e.g. one related to board game. The gameness though is only one of the elements that I pick out, I'm interested in that in combination with the other responses we have, in particular, to digital games - as opposed say to film, or digital art. There can be an intensity of experience that maybe I should also make note of. ren

Marcus, EvE vs SL banking issues is one of the things I had in mind. But, who's Ryan?

Richard > One additional thing I think that needs to be made clear is that statute should somehow approve of the rules that the sport has. After all, the kind of framework you describe could be set up around cockfighting, but even if all the processes and procedures are followed scrupulously statute in most countries is going to pay no attention to that at all. All this comes out of my research into the history of sport and law. In common law jurisdictions there tends to be no explicit definition of what is legal in sport and what is not. Indeed one of my points is there is often a direct contradiction. In the case of boxing (in English law which I know the best), I don’t think there was or is a statute that says boxing is ok, nor is there one say that a tackle in Rugby is ok. Rather there has been an accommodation over time where certain statutes are not applied in certain circumstances – one of the driving forces behind this was the codification of boxing through practitioner defined and regulated norms (to get really nerdy the Broughton Rules of 1743 still form the core of today’s boxing rules). One of the things that rules and governance do is act as a signal that there has been consent and that something will happen if an act falls outside of what has been consented to. The limit of the rules is bounded by the limit of what one can consent to. So, indeed the system that I’ve outlined could apply to Cock Fighting, in fact the world of C18 boxing that Broughton’s rules applied to would no doubt be illegal today (it was not boxing as we understand it now, it was more akin to bare knuckle full contact cage fighting), what occurred over time is that the bounds of self-governed practice and the interface with law changed as sensibilities changed. Why I’m resting so heavily on sports law is that this subtle change overtime is understood within the legal regime. Thus I don’t think statue does need to recognise the governance structure that I’ve outlined, but I do think that nation states and other regulatory bodies do have to respect it. This will occur if it is seen the kind of harms that regulators may be concerned about fall under the normative power of the governance. So, to take the several cases of people that have been forced to give virtual items to others. We have two documented cases of this in the Netherlands, in one someone was convicted of theft. That aspect will always remain a criminal matter. But, what about the items that were stolen, we neither want them to be given a ‘hard’ value that would require a online provider to set up as a bank, nor (I suggest) do we want to leave the victim in the circumstance where the contract with the service provider gives them no right of access to their item and no other recourse than to sue for the stuff back – which was the subject of the 2002 Hongchen vs Beijing Arctic Ice Technology Co Ltd case. This takes work – the online industry would have to talk to policy makers about what they were putting in place, how it would work etc. ren

5 Appendix I: A history of disputes, cases and statue Here is a quick run down of the relevant major disputes, cases and statue involving video games and virtual items. 1982 Atari v. North American Philips Consumer Elecs., 672 F.2d 607. (infringement) 1982 Williams Electronics v. Artic International, 685 F.2d 870 (3d Cir. 1982) (play as co-authorship) 1983 Apple v. Franklin, 714 F.2d 1240 (3d Cir. 1983) (copyright in code) 1996 National Basketball Association v. Motorola, 105 F.3d 841 (2d Cir. 1996) (play as authorship) 2002 Blacksnow Interactive 2002 Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition 535 U.S. 234, 122 S.Ct. 1389 (2002) (virtual child porn) 2003 Hongchen vs Beijing Arctic Ice Technology Co Ltd – theft of virtual goods 2003 Kremen vs. Cohen (property in domain names) 2003 Intel v. Hamidi (trespass on chattels) 2003 Taiwan – clarifies Criminal Code making it illegal to steal virtual items (possibly illegal before the clarification also) 2005 Sony Station Exchange Launched 2005 Marvel vs NC Soft 2006 Kopp v Vivendi (game guide) 2006 Bragg v Linden 2006 Korean Game Industry Protection act 2007 Korea bans gains from ‘abnormal play’ 2007 Eros LLC v. Volkov Catteneo 2007 WoW v. Peons for Hire 2007 Hernandez v. Internet Gaming Entertainment ltd (anti-gold farming class action) 2007 Korea applies 10% VAT to virtual currency sales – but only to a limit (akin to prize fighting?) 2007 Linden bans ‘gambling’ 2008 Habbo & RuneScape item thefts in Holland (theft under 312 Dutch Criminal Code) 2008 Linden ‘bans’ banking 2008 Blizzard vs WoW Glider 2008 Blizzard v. In Game Dollar LLC 2009 Bank ‘theft’ in EvE online 2009 China ‘bans’ the use of virtual currency outside game 2009 Korean supreme court clarifies Game Industry Protection act – in case of players selling virtual currency 2010 Stern v. Sony (disability / accommodation) 2010 Blizzard vs WoW Glider (9th C decision) 2011 Zinga poker chips case ( 2011 Meguerian et al v. Apple Inc. allowing children to purchase in-game items