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The Thin Line of Sanity presents you an an interview with Tracy Spaight,Producer/Director of Real People, Virtual Worlds, a 56 minute film documentarywhich traces the history of (massive) multiplayer online environments from thefirst experiments to code text-based worlds in the late 1970s to the emergence of persistent state, graphical worlds like Ultima Online and Everquest. Here's a bit:
TLOS: MMORPGs occasionally make the news in oneway or another. For example, in Korea, Lineage is huge, and it came into the news when one or more players were assaulted because of their character's actions. What we've seen in other games are marriages taking place between players. The latest item are groups of players sueing a companies in order to allow 'free trade' fortheir accounts, as the recent spat between Blacksnow Interactive and Mythic Entertainment. How do you intend to use items like these?
Tracy Spaight: Over the past two years, I’ve collected a whole drawer full of newspaper clippings and magazine articles about MMORPGs. I’ve followed stories about Lineage with great interest, since fully 5% of the population ofSouth Korea is playing. If funding allows, I’d love to travel to Seoul and followsome of the players around for a week. I’ve already talked to a couple of players who’ve met and married through online games.
The boundary between the real and the virtual, and the ways players draw these boundaries, is going to be a major theme in the film. We’re planning to sit down with Prof. Castranova, who recently wrote an analysis of Norrath’s economy, to talk about virtual economies and their “exports” (through Ebay) into the real world. I’ve also arranged to talk with some of the “Ebayers”, whopile up virtual wealth in Ultima Online or other virtual worlds and then sell itthrough Ebay for a living. I’m also fascinated by the burgeoning field of cyber-law. I was particularly interested in the lawsuit brought against NCsoft last summer for recovery of “Giran’s Castle,” which he lost in a server reset. The Blacksnow Interactive lawsuit is also intriguing … I’m curious to see how it willturn out.
Read the whole thing here.
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MMORPG Film Interview
