Press Release

From SPLWiki

The Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab is proud to announce the debut of the Stiff People's League – a mixed reality table soccer game – at the Ars Electronica Festival 2007 in Linz, Austria.

In the Stiff People's League, each team is composed of one visitor to the festival and a set of Second Life avatars who must cooperate to be successful. Visitors to the festival in Linz pay a small fee to play the game which they use to hire avatars from Second Life to form their team. These avatars attach themselves to the rods of a life-sized table soccer stadium in Second Life. During the game, players at the festival control the linear motion of the rods and avatars control the rotation. By working together, the most skilled mixed reality team will prevail.

You can learn more about the League at our website: http://www.stiffpeoplesleague.com/ The site includes live statistics tracking of all Second Life players, live updates of games in progress, and various economic statistics describing the current state of the player market. We also have a blog documenting Season 1 of the SPL and a wiki describing how to get started as a Second Life player and how the festival players recruit their team and play the game.

The Stiff People's League will be opening tomorrow, September 5th, at 20.30 CET (11.30 SLT/PST). The installation will remain open until September 12th. You can find us in Second Life at [secondlife://Sociable/20/119/27 Sociable/20/119/27] or at Marienstraße 10 in Linz. We haven't set daily hours yet, but even if there aren't mixed reality games going on, there are single-player training fields available and the main stadium will be configured for Second Life-only play. Please join us for the opening or subsequent season play!