The Disney brand of games have always been known for its fun and wholesome content aimed for the younger audiences. Disney Online's Mike Goslin recently talked about the challenges and the merits of how they were able to create an game which caters to kids while retaining the compelling elements of an MMO game. Read more of what Goslin had to say in the full article.

A recent study shows that violent video games threaten even Saudi Arabia's society, with piracy allowing children to get a hold of these interactive forms of entertainment that contain evil scenarios of combating security forces, destroying state property, and violating people in various ways. More on this at the full article.

 

Two of the online millionaires from Second Life (Anshe Chung) and Entropia Universe (NeverDie) have teamed up to launch the Virtual Worlds Academy. This Academy is said to help in the promotion of the creative community by recognizing various achievements in different fields such as virtual artistry, technology, commerce and culture.

The first project they will be implementing upon its launch is the Virtual World Awards. The awards is slated to be an annual event which recognizes excellence and originality in virtual reality. Various awards will be given to those who have contributed to the evolution of these online worlds. Another feature of the event is the induction of various "industry icons" into a virtual hall of fame.

NeverDie spoke about the said awards saying that "the Virtual World Awards are designed to honor the creativity that people bring to this booming universe. As the online community develops we think it’s essential to document its history and its forefathers."

For those who are interested in submitting their own nominations for the Virtual Worlds Academy, the window to do so will be open from May 1, 2007 through November 15, 2007. It should also be noted that to be nominated, you should have created original content for Virtual Worlds. You can click on our read link to go straight to the Virtual World Awards webpage to submit your projects. All the accepted nominations will be announced February next year.

 

The 2007 Online Game Development Conference is now in full swing, as the agenda for the conference happening this May is now up, live on the official OGDC website. After the announcement of Speaker Force 8...err...the first eight confirmed speakers for the Online Game Development Conference, an official press release also previewed a few more speakers of the 80 speakers to attend the event:

• Herb Sutter - Software Architect, Microsoft
• Mike Goslin - Vice President, Virtual Reality Studio, Disney Online
• Diana Li - Vice President, Shanda
• Charles Manning - President/CEO, PLAYXPERT
• Robert Mitchell - Senior Programmer, Sony Online Entertainment
• Tony Park - Vice President, The9
• Michael Goodman - Director, Digital Entertainment, Yankee Group
• Christian Force - Director of Engineering, +7 Systems

Organized by Evergreen Events, the conference will be delivering "world-class content" to "everyone in the business of making online games." The work and preparation behind the conference soon brought forward a list of sessions and panels including, but not limited to:

• Automating Online Game Balance
• Xbox LIVE on Windows and 360: Are Your Games Dead or LIVE?
• The Chinese Game Market: Latest Developments and Trends
• Casual Games Go Global
• Dirty Secrets of Episodic Video Games
• User Research for Online Game Development
• Adapting your Online Games to the Mobile Platform
• Designing worlds - future directions of tools and technology in MMOs

Peter Freese, chairman of the OGDC, is proud to have finalized the conference's agenda, stating, "It's been a long and involved road to reach this point, but I am very proud of what we've accomplished to assemble this truly impressive slate of speakers and sessions." The 2007 OGDC will start on May 10, 2007 at the Fairmont Olympic, Seattle and will go on for two days. Click on the "Read" link below to hop over to the Agenda page.

As Warren Ellis has asserted, Second Life more often than not means that you are immersed in a virtual world where people have to ability to swarm you with flying vibrating implements, run around clothed in whatever unsociable attire, or pose as a man who loves having slow-motion copulation with polygonal felines.

The Laguna Beach - the MTV show - on the other hand, means teeny-bopper joy mixed in with, well, we'll let the folks from the Daily Show explain:

Well, what happens when televised virtual reality attempts to approximate current attempts at creating virtual worlds? You get Virtual Laguna Beach, The Hills. Virtual Laguna Beach, The Hills is a world created using the There.com platform. Show celebrities can interact with hopeful fourteen year-olds, and folks can go enjoy the never ending teen drama that they crave for in pocketbooks and TV series. Think Second Life without the nasty bits, the economy, the education, the government positioning or the mature content.

We do not wish to go into more detail about this game. We fear for our sanity, and we fear the rain that will wash it away. ~~Let the rain wash down...~~~

With universities, retailers, and corporations, setting-up base in Linden Lab's Second Life it only makes sense that governments will follow. Think this is unlikely? Think again. Apparently, Sweden is to become the first country to establish diplomatic representation in the virtual reality world of Second Life.

Swedish Institute (SI) director Olle Waestberg has told AFP the following:

We are planning to establish a Swedish embassy in Second Life primarily as an information portal for Sweden...

News entity The Age, reports that while the embassy will not provide passports or visas, it will instruct visitors on how to obtain such documents in the real world. The virtual embassy will also act as a link to web-based information about Scandinavia. Waestberg notes that the virtual embassy in Second Life allows SI to inform people about Sweden in a convenient and cost-effective manner.

The Swedish institute is an agency of the Swedish foreign ministry. The agency's main task is to inform the world about Sweden. Waestberg adds that the initiative to place virtual embassy in Second Life is fully backed by the ministry.

Given the current trend by terrorists to bomb foreign embassies, we now wonder if future embassies in SL will be be subject to malicious actions of the virtual kind.

This particular bit reminds me of the Musical Youth song, Pass the Dutchie. Anyhow, we all know how prostitution lingers around in the MMO, Second Life. But if you want more uhmm, "entertainment" in your MMO and if you're 18 years old and older, then the virtual world of Red Light Center might just be your thing.

Red Light Center is a virtual reality universe modeled after Amsterdam's legal yet controversial Red Light District. In it, they offer users with nightclubs, hotels, bars, movie theaters, and stores - all of them virtual. Their new offering is a virtual Amsterdam-style smoking room and if you do a bit of research, you may realize why this made me remember the Musical Youth song.

The new feature was introduced this past New Year and according to Brian Shuster, CEO of Utherverse which is the parent company of RedLightCenter, "the response from our community has been overwhelmingly positive...We’re offering a neat experience that’s totally safe and legal."

Clicking on the read-link below will take you to their site. It's a good thing that you should be 18 years old and older to get in, but in the end, the decision of seeing what's in it is entirely up to you. We just dish out the news here anyway.

Virtual reality - the stuff of many a sci-fi cyberpunk anime. Now, if we were to tell you somebody's working on a massive network for this tech, what would you say?

In a Thursday announcement, The Vancouver-based International Association of Virtual Reality Technologies announced that they've started work on a VR-based network system.

Titled Neuronet, it will operate separate from the internet, and as the IAVRT announced, "Will evolve into the world's first public network capable of meeting the data transmission requirements of emerging cinematic and immersive virtual-reality technologies."

The Neuronet will be released initially in 2007 as a first-generation network. It's planned to serve as an exploratory platform for the likes of game developers interested in testing the potential of VR. In line with the technology, the group explained that one major reason for the separate network was the high speeds required to make a workable VR networks - speed not available on normal internet connections.

And while the group didn't say who its backers were, it did give clues: "IAVRT represents the interests of individuals and organizations spanning a wide range of industries working with VR technologies, including the medical, education, entertainment/new media, software, hardware and telecommunications industries, to name a few."

For guys interested in joining up with Neuronet, IAVRT announced that it was accepting registrations for company domain names from February 5 to June 1 next year, with the general public set for June 4.

For the GITS and Masamune Shirow fans out there - yeah, we're wondering if Shirow-san's vision of a fully VR internet environment may not be too far off...or what this could spell for established MMOs like World of Warcraft. What's next: tachikomas, cyber-brains, and comatose-inducing VRMMORPG's (Sorry, Tsukasa...)?

Whether you're ready or not, the next expansion to City of Heroes is coming. While NCSoft and Cryptic Studios officials aren't keen on giving specifics, we learned from yesterday's news that Issue 8: To Protect and Serve should land around Thanksgiving. As we speak, it's open for public testing on the Training Room Server, so you might want to give it a look.

Anyway, that was yesterday. What we have for you today is a trailer video of Issue 8. As always, the clip depicts Paragon City being attacked by villains, then the catchphrase: "Now the heroes are being called into action." Heroes come and villains lose, and once again the city is safe - just another day at the office for our extraordinary heroes.

Or is it? Well, that'll depend on the players, of course. Personally, I always enjoy playing the villain. It's more fun, more exciting and definitely more dangerous. Besides, heroes help people and do good things and we're supposed to do that in real life anyway. So why not kick it up a notch and turn the whole world into a City of Villains?

Nah, don't pay serious attention - it's just me. Enjoy the video!

Download: [City of Heroes: Issue 8 trailer]

While the past security breach and the looming IRS taxation might be keeping people away from Second Life, it has been, as they all say, business as usual. News agency Reuters just opened its cyber branch, and Toyota and Adidas are already there. And in case you're wondering where and when the parties are at, you might want to mark October 19 on your cyber calendars because Ben Folds is coming.

Yup, the real-life artist is venturing deep into virtual reality to promote his forthcoming album, "supersunnyspeedgraphic, the LP!" At 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT, Second Lifers can join Ben for a live chat and album preview on Sony-BMG's Media Island. Also, A Vision of W Hotels has recently announced the grand opening of an aloft hotel in Second Life. With that, they will be throwing a launch party from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Eastern and at around 8:40 p.m., Ben will once again appear and give partygoers a chance to be the first to hear new tracks from the new album.

Interested parties should register in advance by sending an email to frontdesk@virtualaloft.com using their avatar name. Then all you have to do is wait for their email reply that will contain details on how to get to both events. Ben Folds is mostly known for their melancholic single, "Brick."