Baba Sucks

Reuters again! Adam is really on the ball. Edward Castronova, the TerraNova blogger and virtual world economist, comes to Second Life. Update: He still hates Second Life, and is rolling his own VW. Good luck mate ;0

Prof gets funding for virtual Shakespeare world

By Adam Reuters

SECOND LIFE, Oct 18 (Reuters) - Indiana University Professor Edward Castronova has made a name for himself as an economist who studies virtual worlds. Now he’s been awarded a US$240,000 grant to create one himself, based on the world of William Shakespeare.

“What we plan to do is have people encounter the texts in Shakespeare and ideas in the text at many points within a really fun, multiplayer game, so without even knowing it, they gradually are learning more about the bard’s work,” said Castronova, (right) author of “Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games.”

But Arden, Castronova’s planned world, will have a hidden purpose beyond teaching: he plans to use it as a Petri dish for testing out economic theories by creating controlled experiments within the game’s population.

^{Read the rest at Reuters}