Abstract
Virtual worlds such as Second Life and World of Warcraft offer some of the most immersive, interactive possibilities for learning, simulation, and digital design in use today. While it is clear that they support complex collaborations and productivity, often in highly engaging ways, less well understood are the mechanisms that create conditions favorable to these outcomes. Theories of material ecology offer one approach to improving our understanding of the ways that virtual worlds support these forms of collaboration and productivity. This paper presents two case studies, which consider two particular Second Life ecologies: its public sandboxes (used for developing content with its authoring tools) and the most private spaces of a private role-playing community. This paper offers an application of and a contribution to material ecology theory. The application is to use material ecology theory to understand non-casual productivity and advanced social behavior specifically in Second Life. The theoretical contribution is twofold: to clarify the relationship between a given material ecology and its type or kind; and to propose that technologists extend material ecology theory by incorporating material culture theory.
Notes
1. All avatar and community names throughout the paper have been anonymized.
2. Griefing is a term used in online spaces that describe the act of aggravating and harassing other users.
3. Prims are the simple elements out of which the Second Life 3D modeling toolset enables designers to work; they include cubes, cylinders, cones, pyramids, and so on. Designers can position, resize, twist, texture, and deform these shapes.
4. “To rez” in Second Life is a colloquial term for instantiating something materially by dragging it out of inventory and placing it somewhere in the world.
5. The completed result of the main study is published in Bardzell & Odom (Citation2008).
6. Sleen knives are given to the huntresses in the Gorean society, while homestones are important for the Free class. Both objects are thus important in symbolizing the resident's Gorean social class.
7. “D/s” is an abbreviation of dominance and submission.