Edward Castronova is the author of Synthetic Worlds: The Business and Culture of Online Games. Adding him to our Cool Friends brings us back to this suject. We first talked about gaming culture with J.C. Herz in December, 2000. Castronova has a more scholarly approach to the topic, but the message is the same. The worlds you enter by playing are complex; it takes time to learn your role among the many other players—potentially millions. This makes the online gaming experience unique among games you can play. Read Castronova’s Cool Friends interview here.
