On that note, my pick for the winning entry was The Port by Simon Goldin, Tor Lindstrand, and Jakob Senneby. Taking the term "grid" quite literally, this project is described as "a spatial WIKI" that is redefined by its community on an ongoing basis. Slots in the borg-like Port grid are made available to anyone wishing to engage in a cultural research project. This is an original balance of innovative formalism and civic-minded content with the potential for future development. The creators of The Port explain: "Our ambition in this project is not so much to produce alternative architectural styles as to promote a re-thinking of architectural concepts. We are trying to work away from architectural representations, towards more site-specific strategies."

At the State of Play III workshop on virtual property, Andy Zaffron of Sony gave us some live data regarding how their Station Exchange is doing. The service opened on 2 of 22 possible servers mid-to-late July. As of Thursday last week, these two servers (taken together) had: Maybe the majority of aspiring virtual world architects are overcompensating for the ephemeral nature of virtual worlds by filling them with re-creations of familiar real-world places. Is this something that should be viewed negatively, whether you’re an architecture critic or a denizen of virtual worlds? Could the judges' reactions simply be explained away as yet another case of expert vs. amateur tastes? It also raises some interesting non-design problems. It looks to me as if it would discourage RMT, for example, because investments won't necessarily be seen as sufficiently long-term.

Did they fail so completely to meet the criteria of the contest? The decision criteria as stated on the design competition page read: "Judges are looking for the designs, spaces and structures that foster civic engagement, promote civil society and strengthen the public sphere while, at the same time, demonstrating artistic and aesthetic vision." The root of the panelists' discontent appeared to lie not with any lack of civic or community engagement, as those qualities abounded in many of the entries, but rather in the fact that most were too intent on reproducing exact simulacra of idealized offline spaces rather than demonstrating what the judges would consider truly avant-garde artistic and aesthetic vision. It also raises some interesting non-design problems.

Well to some its about acting and actors, and this is where Harry Kalogirou steps in. He recently wrote a thoughtful piece about programming in Stackless Python ("Multithreaded Game Scripting with Stackless Python"), but embedded in the canons of his technology how-to is also a religious statement. It goes like this: And other than Ren, there's probably no one here who has spent more thinking and writing about cheating in games. She's got a piece forthcoming (later this year) in New Media & Society called "Console Video Games and Global Corporations: Creating a Hybrid Culture" (of cheating??), and she's on the steering committee of the group Women in Games International (wigi.org).

What do game engines, Matrushka Dolls, Stackless Python, and your children have in common? In fact, my one takeaway was that if you looked at the demographics of the folks who showed up to play Tombstone, that they looked remarkably like the SLCC attendees. In both cases, older and more gender balanced than the prototypical videogame audience. It also raises some interesting non-design problems. It looks to me as if it would discourage RMT, for example, because investments won't necessarily be seen as sufficiently long-term.

Here at Terra Nova, we're concerned about quality, and we've maintained a facade of it by regularly inviting new authors whose erudition and skills are great enough to distract the uncareful reader from the obvious inadequacies of the founders. That is the case once again as we welcome Mia Consalvo to our happy band. She is an associate professor in the School of Telecommunications at Ohio University as well as the director of Graduate Studies for the School (for which, as a fellow DGS, I must extend my heartfelt sympathies). It also raises some interesting non-design problems. It looks to me as if it would discourage RMT, for example, because investments won't necessarily be seen as sufficiently long-term.

And there are huge gaps in what we don't know. Where is the research about sports games, to take just one example? Anyway, the point is, I enjoyed the exercise, and learned a lot from it. I hope the audience did as well.

And there are huge gaps in what we don't know. Where is the research about sports games, to take just one example? Anyway, the point is, I enjoyed the exercise, and learned a lot from it. I hope the audience did as well.

And there are huge gaps in what we don't know. Where is the research about sports games, to take just one example? Anyway, the point is, I enjoyed the exercise, and learned a lot from it. I hope the audience did as well.

And there are huge gaps in what we don't know. Where is the research about sports games, to take just one example? Anyway, the point is, I enjoyed the exercise, and learned a lot from it. I hope the audience did as well.