Terra Nova is a collaborative blog

Collaborative blog

A collaborative blog is a type of weblog in which posts are written and published by more than one author. The majority of high profile collaborative blogs are based around a single uniting theme, such as politics or technology....

 for academics and professionals in game studies

Game studies

Game studies or the new modern term "gaming theory" is the discipline of studying games, their design, players, and their role in society and culture more broadly...

. It focuses primarily on the study of virtual worlds.

Started in 2003 by Edward Castronova

Edward Castronova

Edward "Ted" Castronova is a Professor of Telecommunications at Indiana University Bloomington. He is known in particular for his work on the economies of synthetic worlds.- Biography :...

, Julian Dibbell

Julian Dibbell

Julian Dibbell is an American author and technology journalist with a particular interest in social systems within online communities. His 1993 article "A Rape in Cyberspace" detailed attempts of LambdaMOO, an online community, to quantify and deal with lawbreaking in its midst. The article was...

, Dan Hunter, and Greg Lastowka, Terra Nova initially focused heavily on research and questions surrounding real money trading (RMT)

Virtual economy

A virtual economy is an emergent economy existing in a virtual persistent world, usually exchanging virtual goods in the context of an Internet game...

 in online virtual worlds.
Coverage has expanded to include impacts of gaming on culture, architecture and law.

Terra Nova is cited in the traditional media on issues of gaming in virtual worlds, most notably issues regarding Second Life

Second Life

Second Life is an online virtual world developed by Linden Lab. It was launched on June 23, 2003. A number of free client programs, or Viewers, enable Second Life users, called Residents, to interact with each other through avatars...

and World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Blizzard Entertainment. It is the fourth released game set in the fantasy Warcraft universe, which was first introduced by Warcraft: Orcs & Humans in 1994...

. Various issues have been discussed, from the virtual economy of Star Wars Galaxies

Star Wars Galaxies

Star Wars Galaxies is a Star Wars themed MMORPG for Microsoft Windows developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts.-History:...

to the impact of learning in MMO

MMORPG

Massively multiplayer online role-playing game is a genre of role-playing video games in which a very large number of players interact with one another within a virtual game world....

s.

External links

• Terra Nova
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