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‘Activating’ Young People in the Production of Virtual Worlds

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Mediated Youth Cultures

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Abstract

The past decade has seen a rapid expansion of the virtual world market for children and young people. Though virtual worlds exist in a number of forms, this chapter will primarily refer to those that offer an ‘open-ended’ experience in which users can create avatars and are able to interact with other users in a simulated virtual environment.1 At the beginning of 2009, industry figures estimated that there were approximately 246 million registered virtual world accounts for young people aged 10–15 and 73 million registered accounts for those aged 15–25.2 By early 2012 this estimate had risen to approximately 852 million and 712 million, respectively. The growing popularity of virtual worlds has led many large media corporations to break into the market in recent years. Though initially launched by small independent firms, both ‘Neopets’ and ‘Club Penguin’ have subsequently been acquired in multi-million dollar transactions by Viacom (owners of Nickelodeon) and The Walt Disney Company3 respectively. The popularity of virtual worlds has also led to a number of independent firms, such as Sulake4 and Mind Candy,5 emerging as key market competitors rivalling more established media corporations.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Sussex, UK

    Liam Berriman

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  1. Liam Berriman
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Griffith University, Australia

    Andy Bennett

  2. University of Tasmania, Australia

    Brady Robards

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© 2014 Liam Berriman

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Berriman, L. (2014). ‘Activating’ Young People in the Production of Virtual Worlds. In: Bennett, A., Robards, B. (eds) Mediated Youth Cultures. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137287021_13

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