Massively Multiplayer Online Globe

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games(mmorpg), have become a part of our world. Most people you talk to will know or at least heard of one MMORPG, in most cases, this would be World of Warcraft (WoW) which boasts 11 million players. These games provide a persistent fantasy world where you create an avatar of yourself with a unique set of skills and abilities, and then sends you off on a adventure with thousands of other players, who you are free to communicate or fight with.

Though WoW is the most popular and well known of the MMORPG sphere, there are dozens of other MMORPG's out there. Whether they are free or subscription based, there is a huge global market for these communities, there is an estimated 75 million MMORPG players worldwide. While questing within these worlds it is easy to forget that every single person you see running around is another person behind a computer screen just like yourself.

Elizabeth Erkenbrack,  author of the 'Mediated personhood and World of Warcraft: An Ethnographic and linguistic analysis, states that "An MMORPG is a type interactive social media. Ethnographic treatment of this type of media deserves balanced consideration to ensure that it is recognized as  both cultural artifact as well as an actual site of culture and cultural formation (Hine: 2000, 2005)" . This means within globalization, not only do we have our planet to think of in terms of cultural significance, now we have dozens of other worlds.

References:

 Changyou. "The Globalization of MMORPGs - MMORPG.com Blogs."Online MMO and MMORPG Gamelist, News, Reviews and Community at MMORPG.com. Version -. -, 12 Mar. 2010. Web. 6 Sept. 2012. <http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/changyou/032010/5872_The-Globalization-of-MMORPGs>.

Erkenbrack, Elizabeth. "a thesis in Anthropology." 'Mediated personhood and World of Warcraft: An Ethnographic and linguistic analysis -.- (2011): 6. Print.http://repository.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1559&context=edissertations

Video Game localization

When It comes to video game culture, it comes from two geographical location. There is east and West. East meaning Japan, as their video games market is huge and innovative, and west, meaning America. You can tell where a game is from just by looking at it. You can see the cultural influences instantly

Japanese games are usually filled to the brim with color and hilarious characters, whichis considered culturally jarring to western gamers.

On the other hand, western video game aesthetics are usually brown, grey and a dreary feeling, going for a post apocalyptic setting. see (gears of wars, fall out, ect.).

How this geographic taste in games differs relates to video game localization. This is the reason we have games come out at a later date in certain areas (primarily Australia).

As a result some areas in the world will never see certain games due to localization issues.

Heather Chandler, the author of the game localization handbook in an interview with Bytelevel.com "From a technical standpoint, ant language that uses a non-western alphabet, such as japanese or hebew, presents some challenges there are issues with UI design and character displat that need to be considered when localizing games for these languages."

While game localization is an issue with avid gamers, it is something that has become less of an issue in recent times, with japanese games being released in the west a mere 3-6 months after their local releases.

References:

Chandler, Heather. "Video Game Globalization: An Interview with the Author of The Game Localization Handbook." Video Game Globalization: An Interview with the Author of The Game Localization Handbook. Http://www.bytelevel.com, 2012. Web. 06 Sept. 2012. <http://www.bytelevel.com/global/game_globalization.html>.

Images: 

http://fallout.bethsoft.com/images/downloads/wallpapers/fallout-wp7-1600x1200.jpg

http://images2.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20060607105035/egamia/images/thumb/b/bf/Katamari-box.jpg/150px-Katamari-box.jpg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwhFH75OCDs

Hackers of the World

How can we trust what we read, hear and see when one corporation owns a majority of media outlets? Rupert Murdoch and News Corporation are what we refer to as 'news', hell news  is in their name. As a hypothetical, they could publish a story which is completely false, and publish the same story in all of their news outlets and everyone would think it is true, because we as humans have a inbuilt system of "Majority Rules".

When tabloids know what we fear and what we want, they have power over us. They extort our fear for their profit. That is what was so terrifying about the News of the World phone hacking scandal back in 2011. Information is the most valuable resource in the world, people pay millions of dollars to know what type of shampoo people are using, or what telephone provider you are signed with. How valuable is the information about you on your phone. News Corporation aren't the only people who are spying on you, they were just doing it without your consent. When Face book, Google and ITunes are selling your information and tracking your every step in order to sell you items.

So where does one draw the line when it comes to privacy, just because I pressed some button at the end of the huge wall of text does that mean you have right to know everything about me? is that just as unjust as listening in on my phone calls?

References:

Chandrasekhar, Indu, Murray Wardrop, and Andy Trotman. "Phone hacking: timeline of the scandal."Telegraph UK. N.p., 15 Nov. 2012. Web. 2 Feb. 2012. <www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/phone-hacking/8634176/Phone-hacking-timeline-of-a-scandal.html>.