Promoting Cross-Cultural Interaction in Games

Hello All!

This is Smiling Tanner, the Irish guy on the World Play Research staff here to talk to you about my recent outreach. Lately I have been trying to get the word out about the World Play Initiative in Beta games to see if getting information in on the ground floor would help enlarge our reach. I must say though it has been tough. Currently I am engaged in the Allods Online Beta trying to get the word out but I have run into the problem that I seem to hit with every Beta testing MMO, what I like to call the “walking ghost” phenomenon. When ever I try out Beta’s of games no one is really interested in interacting, even in NeoSteam and Atlus fans are usually such a talkative bunch (projecting too much?). Anyway, these Betas have people too focused on pushing the envelope of their characters as far as they can before the inevitable character resets or actual start of the game. But it looks like that this just makes players anti-social in general and too focused on grinding through the game instead of enjoying it. No one gives you the time of day in Betas which is rather chaffing. Looks like I will have to start getting a little rowdy in the Beta bowls to drum up some more support for World Play. I hope this works.

Peace, and Happy Hunting,

-Smiling Tanner