Opinion: The Kids are Alright

 

In real life American news, one of the top stories are the students at a number of college campuses engaging in anti-Israeli protests, often speaking out in support of the Hamas terrorists despite their brutality. Any1 Gynoid, who wrote for the Newser regularly in the past and sends an occasional article, recently had a few things to say about the matter after going about for about a week in Palestinian fashion. Just what are the students really after?

Read Any1's commentary in Extra.  

VR Chat Security Update Results in Mass Protests by Playerbase

 

The Newser hasn't written much about VRChat in a while. This is mostly because we've been busy with reporting on Second Life, but until recently we didn't hear of much other than it's increasing userbase that was making it a true competitor to the older and more established virtual world. But this week there was a major development that's gotten a lot of anger from its users. The developers installed a security update in order to combat the mods of hackers and other malicious users. Trouble is, it also disables the mods players made over time to improve the experience of users, notably disabled users, some saying a number were to address issues the developers were slow to act on. 

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

News and Commentary: More on Blizzard's China Controversy

This month, the players of the game "World of Warcraft" are celebrating it's fifteenth anniversary, with in-game presents, events, and bonus experience. But there's been a dark cloud over the celebrations. It was last month that the company that owns Warcraft, Blizzard/Activision, banned a player from Hong Kong in another game, Hearthstone, after when given a chance to speak on a televised stream, he called for the freedom of the people of his city. Since the Newser's first article on the subject, the situation has continued to develop. And finally at Blizzard's annual convention, the company President addressed the issue.

Read more in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

News and Commentary: Blizzard's Removing Hong Kong Gamer From Tournament Sparks Calls for Boycott, Debate on Free Speech

For years, American companies have been trying to get into the Chinese market. With over a billion people, the potential number of customers for a large business is huge. However, the country is under the control of a dictatorship that does not react well to criticism or remarks in opposition to it's goals. It frequently makes demands to such companies, and penalizes those already in for perceived comments or actions against it. The debate flared up again this week thanks to three stories in the news. One of them was a tournament of players of the Hearthstone game, which is owned by the same company that owns the still noted MMO game World of Warcraft. When one winner was interviewed, he proclaimed his support for the protestors in the city of Hong Kong. Blizzard soon reacted with actions many of its customers have found troubling, including yours truly whom had recently just signed up for Warcraft again after an extended break.

Read the story in Other Grids, MMOs, and Games.

Satirical Aritst Kake Broek Banned From Second Life

Art can sometimes be strange, weird, even disturbing. But at what point should an artist be punished for his or her work? Late last month, satirical artist Kake Broek announced he had been permanently banned by Linden Lab. This sparked protests, and questions about just why the satirist had been expelled from the virtual world.

Read more in Extra.

News and Commentary: "Fat Shaming" Publicity Stunt By Store Draws Protests, Traffic

Businesses have tried many ways to draw traffic, occasionally resorting to silly commercials or publicity stunts. But one clothing store in Second Life recently began putting a sign in it's store, and the owner some lines in her profile, that were quite insulting to women of large size. The results were people coming to the store to protest. But might have these protestors ended up doing what the store owner wanted?

Read more in Extra.

Protest and Banning at Burn2

Burn2 calls itself an event of "radical free expression." But on Sunday October 21st, this principle was put to the test when the festival grounds were the scene of a protest. The result was those taking part in the protests, and supposedly even those just watching, were banished from the Burn.

What was the protest about, and why did the Burn staff ban them? Read more in Extra.

Video: Rally to Save City of Heroes

Footage of a demonstration in the City of Heroes MMO on Saturday Sept 8. The decision by NCsoft to shut down the game naturally isn't sitting well with the players. Many aren't just sitting down, but taking action to get the attention of the company behind the game and hopefully change their minds.

Massively writer Eliot LeFebvre who plays CoH is among the supporters of the protests, admitting the odds are against them, but, "at this point, 'winning' doesn't enter into it. The point is that was as players have to stand up and make it clear that this game is important to us, that whether it remains online or not, you can't just shut it down after three months with no warning. We have a voice; we need to make use of it. Sometimes you fight because you need to fight, not because you expect it to work."

More of LeFebvre's article can be found Here. You can also sign a petition to keep City of Heroes running, Here. There's also one particularly imaginative protest: sending capes and masks to one of the three NCsoft offices (find the forum thread Here).

Byngo! Maybe ....

There is a new controversy in Second Life. Many happy byngo players pass time in SL by playing this game. It is my understanding that it all began with neighbors of the byngo sites complaining about the shouting of the balls was bothering them. There seems to be a way to control this issue on land. But some property owners are not bothering, which added to the issue. After many requests to Linden Lab just to see if the issue had been solved, the creator of the byngo, Dazza Staheli, has shut down the byngo servers until it is all resolved.

I spoke to Dazza this morning and he told me, “I really don't think the first return was about shout .... Ok, well the first one was on a empty sim .. was rezzed then 5 hours later was returned .. our alt who is owner on all boards got a warning for wagering ... NOT ME and its my name on all boards as creator ... now the problem is this .... that game was never played .. even the Linden didn't play it .. so how could he say it was wagering ???? ... ok then .. 3 days past .. 400 sims played 100's of games 1000's of people and nothing .. all boards have same owner .. but nothing!!!! Then in a separate 'attack' on a sim, our board was AR'd .. a 180 day old linden employee went to that sim .. looked on her records and see's that the owner was warned 3 days earlier and she just does what she thinks is right and returns the board .... I still had no contact .. but my alt got 1 day suspn ... so I was faced with a decision .. run it and take the risk of losing my alt or close it down and let the Labs do their thing ..."

There are protests going on at various locations. One was held at Governor Linden’s home, and another at Mia Linden’s office. Here is a video of a protest held Saturday:



Byngo players are hoping that the issue is settled soon and there is also a petition up on the web at http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/byngo-bonus-4-sl/

Gemma Cleanslate