This is a semi-regular update on my progress to document the history, perspectives, and narratives of the metaverse.
Current book word count: 186,503
Writing
Carla went through the book and suggested multiple changes to the structure. Importantly, she identified some topics and themes I only described in passing, but really deserve their own chapter.
One is the concepts around paratext and metagames. I mentioned them all over the place, mostly in the Field Notes chapters, but that also made it hard to understand why they are important and what impact they had. Now I added an extra chapter to introduce the concepts, going into Kazola’s Tavern, The Syndicate, Goonswarm, and of course the theory behind it, from Raph Koster to Richard Garfield and others.
Same thing with cyberlibertarianism, which was introduced mostly as context and referenced in the Field Notes chapters, which led to confusion. Now it’s a separate chapter with proper structure, going into Barlow, Californian Ideology, Free and Open-Source Software, Winner and so on.
Another chapter that needed work was the one around flow, immersion, presence and involvement. That one simply tried to do too much, explaining everything from Csikszentmihalyi to Lanier to Streuer to Slater and Wilbur, ending with Witmer and Singer. If you don’t know what I am talking about, imagine cramming five fundamental concepts spanning sociology, ludology and technology into a single chapter. After some rearranging and cutting, I now have two digestible ones.
Reading
“A Libertarian Walks into a Bear” is hilarious.