Feature: 'The Esoteric Beat: Ethnography, Art, Space Power'

In another of today's features, regular columnist Jim Rossignol takes a look at the latest goings-on in esoteric game topics for 'The Esoteric Beat' column, including peeking at the concept of 'art games' and looking further at MMO Eve Online's unique economy. In this extract from the new column, Rossignol examines a university course that demanded papers regarding a leading MMO: "San Antonio's Trinity University's undergraduate ethnography class has been assigned a paper on Blizzard's World of Warcraft, and some of the papers have been published in PDF format on the university website. Here's a slice from the paper on sexism by Beth C: "The world of any Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game is often an intimidating one for women. The gaming industry is still viewed as a primarily 'male' environment, and women are thought by many to be out of place and even unwelcome in a MMO game. While the numbers of online gamers who are women are growing significantly, many players feel that the mindset of the industry as a whole has not caught up to the statistics, being that games are still designed and marketed almost entirely to men."" You can now read the full Gamasutra column on the subject, including fresh looks at MMO research, art games and MMO industry. (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).