Julian Dibbell

I had a chance to see Julian Dibbell give a talk about his latest book, Play Money, at the University of Idaho. He was absolutely engaging, and I’m glad I took the opportunity to pick up a copy of Play Money at the university book store before his presentation. This is definitely the best book about games I’ve read all year, and Dibbell once again manages to make a thoughtful excursion into a compelling story.

Play Money focuses on Dibbell’s efforts to make a living selling things he show more makes/accumulates in the game Ultima Online. He proposes that he can make more money selling virtual goods than he can selling his writing. While his experiment is flawed and doomed, the journey is well worth a read. Dibbell has a way of writing that unites the emotional and intellectual experiences, and the result is part soap-opera and part scholarly dissertation.

If you’re the least bit interested in the economics of game worlds or game studies in general, I highly recommend this one. show less

This book drifts between incredibly interesting moments and long drawn out stories for which I could not find the purpose at first. As the book wound to a close, I realized that these excessive stories were what made this book real to me. By being open and telling all of the story, he provides a way for me to connect to his experience. All the superfluous pieces added to his insights on what lambdaMOO meant to him, much in the same way the superfluous pieces have added to my experiences in show more other virtual worlds.
My Tiny Life is not simply a history of lambdaMOO, but it is a memoir of his time in this world. Though often romanticized, his insights still ring true. show less

Millions of gold pieces, that is. Dibbell is a journalist who gets sucked into a barely known world of intrigue, crime, and emotion known as massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs). This book was a really exciting read that, at times, I couldn't put down. The author moves from writing a piece or two about this barely known but highly populated secret society of sorts, to getting pulled into having his own 'player' and then trying to make money in the gray and black market show more of the game selling virtual goods for real money. I would say having some knowledge of online auction sites like eBay, some knowledge of fantasy video games or games like Dungeons and Dragons, and some knowledge of computer networking hardware/internet protocols is helpful, but not necessary. Let's just say if you've never been on the World Wide Web, this book might not be for you.

Dibbell is funny and engaging and likeable. However, he becomes more and more emotional and introspective as the book progresses. Frankly, I don't want to know about your self-doubts, marital challenges that, according to you, have nothing to do with being consumed with the game, and your relationship to work. While some readers might enjoy them, the forays into introspection, and into discussing the socio-cultural and cosmological issues of blurring the lines between real reality and virtual reality were much less interesting, more pedantic and didactic, and dull than the twists of getting deeper and deeper into the game. The real gem here is that in his quest, Dibbell meets all kinds of really sketchy people, as well as run of the mill Joes, who, online, are really sketchy people. For example, an Orange County-based true criminal, European hackers, arbitrageurs, thieves, Chinese sweatshop owners, and on and on. At times, when the author is getting deeper into dramas and double-crosses with these people, I couldn't put the book down.

All in all, an exciting, gripping expose of a barely known phenomenon, interrupted by periods of dragging legal-ethical essays, peppered with self-loathing. show less

Julian Dibbell always impresses by making a very thoughtful study into an engaging piece of literature. I enjoy reading the books as much as I value them for pushing the boundaries of how we think about virtual and game worlds.

In My Tiny Life, Dibbell studies the world of LambdaMOO. Digital culture and arts scholars will already be familiar with this book already — it was a common reading-list member when I was in college. I read this for a second time after reading Dibbell’s latest, show more Play Money. This time through was much more casual, and I appreciated it for being a compelling story more than I had in school. show less