Virtual World Crime

External Resources:

• Documents
• Newslinks
  • The PBS’ Frontline television program has an excellent overview on Virtual Worlds as part of their Digital Nation series. The show includes video and multiple interviews demonstrating how virtual worlds are changing society in the US and around the world.
• Organizations
  • Association of Virtual Worlds. The association has a good introductory overview guide for newcomers to virtual spaces.
• Educational
  • Foundational Books/Theories on Virtual Worlds:
    • Neuromancer is a 1984 novel by William Gibson, notable for being the most famous early cyberpunk novel . Gibson explores artificial intelligence, virtual reality, genetic engineering, and megacorporations long before these ideas entered popular culture.  A true pioneer in the field.
    • Snow Crash.  Understand this book to understand the MMORPG phenomenon.  This is the Neal Stephenson novel in which he coins the phrase “Metaverse,” as a successor to the Internet.  The book constitutes Stephenson’s vision of how a virtual reality-based Internet might evolve in the near future. Resembling an MMO, the Metaverse is populated by user controlled avatars as well as system daemons. Although there are public-access Metaverse terminals in Reality, using them carries a social stigma among Metaverse denizens, in part because of the poor visual representations of themselves as low-quality avatars. Status in the Metaverse is a function of two things: access to restricted environments such as the Black Sun, an exclusive Metaverse club, and technical acumen, which is often demonstrated by the sophistication of one’s avatar.
    • Virtual Community.  Howard Rheingold’s seminal work on community in cyberspace.  An in-depth review of the technologies at the time including Usenet, MUDs (Multi-User Dungeon) and their derivatives MUSHes and MOOs, Internet Relay Chat (IRC), chat rooms and electronic mailing lists.  All pre-cursors and fore-bearers of  the Virtual World, MMORPG and social networking services we know today.  The book is available online in its entirety here.
    • The Warcraft Civilization: Social Science in a Virtual World by William Sims Bainbridge.
• Law Enforcement
• Miscellaneous
  • The Guild is an excellent and humorous Web series about a group of online gamers and life in virtual worlds.