The article that might be most important for us is the one entitled “The Meaningless of Ritual”. At first I thought that perhaps his very obvious conclusion was a bit of a cop out, a lazy way to get out of thinking about the issues of ritual. Upon reading his work though it seems he has thought about this and has looked at the evidence and made this conclusion. Why is this important in our study of ritual, religion, and virtual reality? Because I feel that it is a call to re-focus not on some meta-idea of ritual and what it means in virtual reality but to get into the nitty gritty and look at specific instances and see how traditional ritual interacts with virtual reality. Just because “ritual” as an overarching schemata is meaningless, it does not follow that individual rituals are meaningless.
The First Person article regarding Facade was interesting because having attempted the actual product, the article made much more sense. I could see where the ideas they were focusing on where implemented and I could also see the limitations they were mentioning cropping up. Most interesting to me was the idea that the player was supposed to come with an expectation of an intense emotional experience and they would watch this scenario unfold for 20 minutes. I, on the other hand, came in with the expectation of poking and prodding the system and seeing how stilted and laughably poor the “dynamic” dialogue would be. I feel a sizable chunk of the internet invites that sort of wry, cynical, “just-for-kicks” approach to its content and I wonder what a shift to more “serious” forms of entertainment on the internet might mean. Or if the culture of the internet will make it inherently hostile to such things as “cyberdramas”
My book report offered little in the way of truly exciting ideas, unfortunately. It was a broad overview of a topic I am a slightly familiar with and so some of its “revelations” like “gamers are not lonely nerds” are not new to me. It did make me realize just how social online gaming can be and how integral social networks can be to “success” or just the joy of the experience in general. I think this does illustrate how the most fundamental aspect of new technology seems to be its social dimensions. More so than religious, educational, and other considerations I feel that social changes are the most profound upheavals and changes that will be caused by continued of integration of new media into our lives.
