Virtual Worlds as Subfields

At the start of this chapter, I said that I would not be going into great detail concerning the disciplines that regard virtual worlds as a subfield. Hopefully, this will be something of a relief, given how long I spent looking at disciplines that regard virtual worlds as (on the whole) independent phenomena.

Some of the points I’ll be making here do have wider application in the context of this book, and I’ll describe these in more detail. Others don’t, and for them I’ll limit myself to an overview and some pointers as to where interested readers can look if they don’t feel their academic energies have yet been exhausted.

Oh, I should mention that the brevity of my discussions here means that I am perforce required to make sweeping generalizations that could well cause anyone who actually works in the areas concerned to splutter with rage. Don’t say you weren’t warned.