One Journalist's Second Life

Jerry23 writes "The Second Life Community Convention site is carrying pre-release excerpts from O'Reilly Publishing's 'Only A Game: Online Worlds and the Virtual Journalist Who Knew Too Much' due out in 2006 (direct link to 10-page PDF). From the introduction: 'When virtual journalist Peter Ludlow was banned from the digital world of The Sims Online for being a bit too good at his job, it wasn't the end of the story but the beginning of the headlines that would capture readers around the world. Only A Game follows Ludlow's career as a virtual journalist as he and colleague Mark Wallace take us behind the scenes into not just The Sims Online but a fascinating universe of worlds that are far more colorful-and, at times, more disturbing-than their creators would have you believe.' As online *worlds* grow to earn their name, the last line of the PDF asks the million dollar question: 'How big is your game?'"

Comments

Ludlow's problem

[Red Flayer]

Ludlow may feel that he was doing a service by bringing to the public eye what some users of TSO were up to.

My feeling is that he was doing a disservice, by publicizing an avenue by which some people could do things that society at large feels is unethical -- and where to find that avenue.

The correct course of action, the method of greatest benefit and least harm, would have been to make his concerns known privately to the operators of the server(s) in question. If that produced no effect, he should have brought it to the attention of authorities.

Only if legal authorities did not take action should he have set up his broadcast antenna.

My opinion? Ludlow is an attention-whore. He revels in the attention that people give him when he publishes his shrill opinions.

The best solution would be for him to be ignored by the public. Unfortunately, as we've seen with recent action against adult game content, this isn't going to happen.

The only plus I see from his outcries is thatparents maypay more attention to what their kids are doing -- but this doesn't apply to Second Life, since that kind of content is only allowed on the AO server(s).

What the gamer community, and the freedom-of-speech community, need to do is to expose him for what he is -- a sensationalist. We need to publicly scoff at his petty tirades, and ridicule his luddite attitude.