Kaneva

Kaneva, a social network and a virtual world featuring 3D entertainment, can certainly learn from the lessons of earlier multi-user social game-worlds. Kaneva is marketing entertainment which consits of experience ("fun and exciting things to do") such as shopping, dancing, chating, playing, and hanging out with friends; interaction(chatting with people from around the world), attending online events and connecting with others); and creative activities (the users can decorate their 3D home, design and sell clothing, build community hangouts). Kaneva's advertising appears to unleash the power of imagination with slogans such as "Imagine What You Can Do." Well, what can you do? Below follows the suggestions intended only to provide a fresh breath of criticism and the direction for improvement.

1. Exdend the conceptualization of culture. Some may be ready to dismiss virtual worlds and particularly social networks by arguing that they are neither games nor they are productive activities. Using Pearce (2006) notion of "creative production for its own sake," I would argue that players experiences can be improved by expanding the universe of assets what can be produced by players. By producing players generate their own entertainment (Pearce, 2006). Such form of cultural production is a form of "folk art" (Pearce, 2006) of that social community. In Kaneva currently players can produce clothing, decorate their apartments, build their own living space and community hangouts. These experiences can be extended by offering the players the experience of creating clothing for NPCs, creating parts of the town, creating their own shops and world objects for entertainment and shopping (besides clothing and shoes, and home decorations). It is these new objects: cars, hovercrafts, bags, banners, ticklers that can push players imagination.

2. Implement better ways of communicating human behavior. One of the main lessons one can learn from games such as Lucasfilm's Habitat, is that "cyberspace is defined more by the interactions among the actors within it than by the technology with which it is implemented" (Morningstar & Farmer, 1991). Game-world designers need to provide the means to communication human behavior. Kaneva at the moment offers extensive and well implemented repertuare of Emotes, Gestures, and Dance moves, and even voice chats(for $s). Morninstar's and Farmer's (1991) lesson for other developers is to define "a virtual environment in terms of the configuration and behavior of objects, rather than their presentations." In comparison with Habitat from 1980s and 1990s where players could play games, go on adventures, fall in love, get married, get divorced, start businesses, found religions, protest agains religions, self-govern (Morningstar & Farmer, 1991), Kaneva offers limited set of behaviors (create specific things, dance, shop, play limited number of games, talk/interact). As such, the message for Kaneva is to focus more on behavior of avatars than on their looks. Looking good is certainly important as evidenced in the variety of good-looking, well-dressed avatars. But what do they do? Run from one hang out to another, look cool and show off themselves with a series of dances? While it may work for teenagers and cross-dressers, it is less likely to work for more mature or demanding players. And this brings us to my last point about the difference between the players.

3. Allow the exploration of the boundaries of possible, emergent rules of behavior. Any sociologists would tell you that deviance is normal and functional for society. Deviance defines, clarifies, and outlaws certain behavior. Deviant acts help to bond, unify society against such actions. LambdaMoo, for example, offered a chance for imaginative space in terms of social structure and legal mechanisms to control deviance (Mnookin, 1996). Management of behavior and community life in Kaneva (as in many other social worlds) worlds appears to be static, under the eye of the godly providers, and hence, not evolving and not allowing the community to unite. Certainly, abuse, verbal and text-based rape are serious matters and have to be prevented. World keepers are dreading the appearance of Mr. Bungle/Dr. Jest and committing the crime against the "emotional true," dirty crimes against the minds of others (Dibbell, 1993/1998). Yet, little can be done to prevent it. The sacred privacy of players and insistence on "a strict separation between real life and LambdaLife[in our case, KanevaLife]" (Mnookin, 1996) is indispensable. This privacy makes possible "creative self-fashioning". Tough, socializing, dancing provocatively next to another avatar who may be very young or very old is rather uncomfortable experience. Many players in Kaneva have RL profiles, yet, who knows how real they actually are. To summarize, Kaneva's new direction can be to offer activities for all age groups. The challenge of community and behavior management, I'm afraid, is there to stay.

Comments

[Alena]

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Alena

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