Well, the winner is announced. The Tech Virtual Museum Workshop has won the 2010 Linden Prize. Reading about the Workshop suggests it certainly ticks all the required boxes for the Prize, and so congratulations to those behind the project. It’ll be interesting to see what the $10,000 US yields within the project in the future.
Beyond this, I’m amazed and mystified at the number of people who have leapt to the defence over the inclusion of Sion chickens as a finalist. From many of the reasons cited for their inclusion, it seems apparent that quite a few of those leaping to the chickens’ defence actually haven’t grasped – or have chosen to ignore – the criteria of the Prize. It’s not about in-world activities, nor is it about commercial endeavour, enterprise or success – all of which seem to be the rallying cry of many who have defended the chickens’ inclusion in the first place.
More puzzling still is the attitude of others, such as my dear friend, Ciaran Laval, that it is “OK” for things like the chickens to be included so long as they don’t win. This is something I simply cannot get my head around – together with attitudes that amount to people supporting the chickens just so long as they don’t win – and indicating that they’d have a change of tune were the chickens to actually win.
The only way I can describe such view is, well, as being two-faced. If it is OK for something like the chickens to reach the finals then sorry – it should be accepted that it is OK for it to go on and win. To support a nomination (that has probably come at the expensive of other entrants that more properly fulfilled the criteria of the prize in the first place) and then threaten to protest long and loud should it actually win strikes me as being as baffling as the chicken’s inclusion in the finalist list in the first place.
It matters not whether the chickens actually won or not. Their inclusion simply undermines the reasons for which the Prize was originally set-up. I wonder how many people will be so accommodating next year if we see the likes of a latter-day Anshe Chung or United Sailing Sims listed as finalists. After all, there is little commercial difference between the likes of an Anshe Chung and a Sion Zaius, while something like USS-SL offers the same kind of “immersive experience” that has been used in the defence of the chickens’ nomination as a finalist. I rather suspect that were this to be the case, those leaping so readily to defend the chickens would be the first to howl long and loud.
Inara Pey: Living in a Modemworld 