Behind the Avatar

Photojournalist Robbie Cooper has published a book Alter Ego: Avatars and their Creators, which has photographs of gamers from around the world, paired with pictures of their respective avatars.  Some samples from the book are available at his site,    http://www.robbiecooper.org/.  Click on the link that says “Simulations” and then on the one that says “Alter Egos” and you’ll pull up a page with a link to the photos.  The ones I find interesting are the ones who’ve clearly gone to some trouble to make their avatar match their real world appearance to some extent, although obviously the gaming system affects that degree to which that’s possible — not much you can do to replicate your appearance in WoW.

PVW on VOA

Art Chimes of Voice of America did a segment on his show regarding the Preserving Virtual Worlds project.  You can find the show online here, with the segment on PVW starting at about 15:53.

There will be no There there.

There.com announces that they’re shutting down as of March 9th.