MV co-founder to speak on virtual worlds at Harvard
Hello from Cambridge, MA. This afternoon, I’m giving a talk on global youth culture and virtual worlds on the Harvard campus. The talk is organized by the undergraduate arm of the university’s Asia Society, and it will be held from 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. on Friday in CGIS South 020, on 1730 Cambridge Street. The event is open to the public, so please feel free to stop by.
“Kill all these Chinese Gold Farmers” – Transnational conflict and cooperation in virtual worlds
During the first decade of the 21st Century, two world-historical trends are converging. The first of these trends is China’s rapid ascent to global superpower status. The second is the emergence of virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft and Second Life as legitimate vehicles for business, education, and entertainment.
Whether they take the form of games, social spaces, or instructional environments, virtual worlds are now truly global in scope. From Thailand and Malaysia to Indonesia and the Philippines, the Asia Pacific region’s on-line gaming market generated approximately $1.4 billion in annual revenues last year – a figure that is expected to reach $3.6 billion by the end of the decade.
At this very moment, from Shanghai to Peoria, tens of thousands of young Chinese and American citizens are encountering one another in virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft and Maple Story. In these shared digital worlds, young gamers from both countries have the opportunity to work together to achieve shared objectives. Unfortunately, as in the real world, the potential for cooperation is overshadowed by fierce competition over scarce resources. One need only search Youtube for the words “Chinese” and “Warcraft” to uncover dozens of angry, anti-Chinese videos created by American gamers.
The cross-cultural interactions unfolding in contemporary game worlds are too important to ignore. The ways that young people interact in these worlds today offers a glimpse of what might happen when virtual worlds become further entrenched in the global economy. Today, Chinese and American gamers fight over gold pieces and monsters. Tomorrow, they will compete in virtual worlds for the chance to perform symbolic labor (e.g. computer programming and 3D modeling) for transnational corporations.
Drawing on fieldwork conducted with youth in Hong Kong and Thailand, Dr. Aaron Delwiche explores the increasingly blurry boundaries between fantasy play and real-world cultural politics. Despite evidence of cross-cultural conflict in virtual worlds, he believes that virtual worlds have the potential to enhance transnational cooperation between Chinese and American youth in profound and meaningful ways.
April 13th, 2007 at 11:28 am
I am very interested to hear more about cooperation of American and Chinese youth in virtual worlds.