SecondLife
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Analyzing the press' Second Life obsession
For the past few years, journalists in both the gaming and mainstream press (Joystiq included) have been enamored with Second Life, covering every minor new "first" in the quickly growing virtual world as more evidence that it is destined to become the first true metaverse. Valleywag contributor Clay Shirkey has taken a good look at this press hype and determined that Second Life is a phenomenon "built on sand."Shirkey's major argument is that Second Life's impressive registered user numbers are inflated by a "Try Me" effect where people sign up, tinker around, and then leave in relatively short order. While there are over 1.9 million registered Second Life accounts, Shirkey estimates that there are less than 10,000 or so active users walking the game's servers at any one time. That's not nothing, but as Shirkey puts it, "in a billion-person internet, that population is also a rounding error."Shirkey points to other failed metaverse experiments like MUDs and VRML that were once touted as the holy grail of virtual spaces only to quickly fade to obscurity. He doesn't quite make the same prediction for Second Life's eventual fate, but he makes a good case for the virtual world becoming more of an social niche than an Internet revolution.Maybe we're all just focused on the wrong virtual world -- after all, World of Warcraft just recently passed seven million registered users.[Via Boing Boing]
Economist: taxing virtual property is inevitable
Any economist will tell you, ad infinitum, that there is no such thing as a free lunch. In virtual worlds, people can make high profits by producing goods where there are no tangible costs (only time). Such alchemists are not going to be happy with comments made by Dan Miller, a senior economist with the Congress' Joint Economic Committee.Miller notes that, "given growth rates of 10 to 15 percent a month, the question is when, not if, Congress and IRS start paying attention to these issues ... so it is incumbent on us to set the terms and the debate so we have a shaped tax policy toward virtual worlds and virtual economies in a favorable way."The details of a virtual tax would be hard to assemble, and this CNET article highlights some of the major issues with implementing such a tax. Our take? We're not sure how one could even track all transactions, much less verifying what country in which they reside, but with people making millions building virtual houses and gold farming, they should at least be giving some of that back to the community. [Via The Escapist]
$1 million Second Life land deal
Virtual realty is becoming a big business these days. At the forefront of virtual stuff is Second Life; whenever we hear about some bizarre or amazing cash transaction involving fake goods, Second Life always seems to be part of the equation. A player by the name of Ailin Graef, a Second Life land speculator of sorts, has just surpassed the $1 million point in the game. She started with a paltry $9.95 and her wheelin' and dealin' got her a massive return on investment. Talk about the ultimate stay-at-home job. The world of virtual realty does look quite tasty, but the ultimate question is will it last? None of the property actually exists and could be wiped out by a simple virus. Still, Ms. Graef's business is doing so well she opened up an office in China and is hoping to expand to 50 employees. Anyone else make big bucks selling fake stuff?
Grey goo attacks Second Life
Second Life was attacked over the weekend by a worm that created self-replicating rings, similar to the ones from Sonic games. When users touched them, the rings multiplied, clogging the game world with what Linden Labs called "grey goo." The service was closed briefly to clean up the rings and their nefarious code.While we don't play much Second Life, we're fascinated by its culture. We think that that a big part of general society will eventually meet in an MMO world; these interfaces may turn into the next generation of the internet. And the attack reminds us that pranksters -- or worse -- will always be present.Second Life is still a miniscule scale of what MMOs could become. Will these sorts of hacks prevent MMOs from reaching the general population?[Via Slashdot]
Kids schooled in Second Life
Kids these days with their online avatars ... Why, when we went to school, we we had to put on clothing and shuffle off to a real classroom. Today's kids are apparently taking classes within Second Life, phoning netting it in from their rooms.CNN says that more than 60 colleges and other educational institutions hold classes inside Second Life. The article also describes a real sense of community between remote students in the virtual world, almost as if they were sharing an actual classroom.This might make us sound old, but we don't quite believe that the quality of the virtual meeting space can approach the real world. But we old-school curmudgeons have never taken a class within Second Life and might be underestimating its power; maybe we'll be telling our grandkids what a real-world school-bell sounded like.
Edelman is your new Second Life neighbor
PR and marketing firm, Edelman is entering the world of Second Life without any overt marketing agenda -- at least none that seems to exploit the online residents. Instead, Edelman is working with virtual commerce group, The Electric Sheep Company, to offer a competition and seed funding for a Second Life-based business plan.Edelman and Electric Sheep are also launching a machinima video blog within Second Life, further burrowing into the virtual space. Should Second Life players be nervous that more corporate entities keep appearing within the world? Probably. But we cautiously applaud these Edelman plans; it sounds like the company is trying to build a respectable reputation within the community.[Via AdRants]
Music Thing: Music and audio gear in Second Life
Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment: Now, I've never been inside Second Life, but -- inspired by Reuters, which set up a bureau inside the game, which now has over a million players -- I've spent some time trawling the shops for cool music gear. Dissapointingly, I've found no vintage synths, keytars or mountains of old studio gear. I did find a British virtual instrument-maker called Robbie Dingo, who mainly sells slightly ordinary guitars, drum kits, bagpipes, grand pianos and something called a Hyper Flute, which - disappointingly - is completely safe for work, but allows you to compose your own music within Second Life.Robbie sells his instruments at SL Boutique - a steel drum set costs L$120 (40 cents in real money), while a Hyper Flute costs L$3,000 (around $10). Most Second Life instruments are really toys -- they'll play a couple of sound loops and animate with your avatar. Some are slightly more advanced: Robbie's 1965 Fender Stratocaster (L$400/$1.40) "loops a funky pattern that can be transposed via the menu system to any key whilst remaining in time." How many real-world guitarists can say the same?Robbie's greatest claim to fame was creating the guitar used by folk singer Suzanne Vega when she played a gig in Second Life. As far as I can work out, the guitar in this case was just a prop -- she was playing a real guitar into a microphone, whch was beamed into the concert. Other SL gear manufacturers include Neurocam Audio, who produce headphones and microphones, which really confused me. How does a microphone work? It "serves a purpose: It changes your chat to GREEN in the chat window, allowing the event host the ability to be noticed above noisy crowds!"Finally, for just L$1 (1/3rd of a cent), you can buy a Cigar Box Guitar, just like the one featured in Make Magazine, which will play a short clip of cigar box guitar jamming. Virtual cigars not included.
Taxing Second Life [update 1]
The new Reuters Second Life branch reports on a Congressional probe into games with virtual economies like Second Life and World of Warcraft. Massive amounts of money changes hands in these titles; Second Life users spend up to $500,000 in daily transactions. The U.S. government has caught the scent of money wafting up from the internet tubes and hopes to get its share.Americans are already required to pay taxes on real-world earnings when they cash out of a game, but should they pay taxes on virtual, in-game profits? For example, citizens pay capital gains taxes on real-world asset sales -- profits from an investment over time -- but in-game capital gains policy and enforcement are unclear. Should you owe Linden Dollars to the U.S. government after selling Second Life property in-game, even if you don't cash-out to U.S. currency?Should virtual worlds be governed by real-world laws, or are they becoming something closer to their own nations? If governments start taxing strictly in-game situations, will gamers deserve in-game social services and a virtual seat in Congress?[Via Second Life Insider][Update 1: Thanks, Ish, for the capital gains lesson. Sorry for the mistake; the second paragraph is clarified.]
Custom Second Life figures
Wired News mentions that a new company, Fabjectory, will turn a Second Life avatar into a seven-inch, real-world figure. Once your desk is littered with figures, we can only imagine that you'd perform a puppet show, doing voices for each character. Yes, that's what we imagine.Prices are about $100 for most figures to $200 for complicated jobs with lots of appendages or other extra work. Fabjectory creates an computer model of the avatar, then uses a 3D prototyping machine to produce the real-world figure.While unconfirmed, Spore may offer a way to order plastic versions of your creatures directly through the game. (As part of its marketing, EA has sent real-world versions of creatures reporters created.)We welcome these third- and first-party figures. We just know our World of Warcraft, Second Life, Spore, and Everquest characters will be friends.See also: Our one of a kind Spore figurineSee also: Spore figurines at E3
Economies of scale don't apply to virtual worlds?
The Economist returns to Second Life, exploring several facets of the fascinating virtual world. If you've been asking yourself, "What's the big deal with Second Life?" the article answers that question by giving several examples of how the virtual world makes an impact. The piece is too big for us to break it all down here, so instead we'll use this space to argue with Philip Rosedale's statement that, because Second Life lacks economies of scale, local artisans are safe from the likes of Nike in the Second Life marketplace. He argues that local artisans who craft shoes are protected from Nike because producing one digital pair of shoes costs the same as producing two billion pairs of digital shoes. That's not actually true. First, Nike's presence in virtual worlds will never be separate from its presence in this, the real world. Nike's brand-building activities on Terra Firma do benefit from economies of scale: because Nike buys so much advertising, it pays less per unit than a company that buys only limited advertising in a local market. As a result, Nike's cost of per unit of advertising is lower than the local artisan's. This means that Nike will always have a scale-granted advantage in brand building. That advantage then spills over into virtual worlds where Nike's brand recognition continues to influence consumer behavior. Second, it takes time to design, produce and market shoes. Nike's already got teams of people who do just that, day in and day out. Because of the size of these teams, they've got spare capacity that they can tap for new ventures in virtual worlds. There's no incremental cost to that labor, as they've already paid for it. Here again, Nike's got an advantage as a result of scale. Second Life's denizens are concerned that the entrance of big business into the world will drive them out. They're right to be concerned. Their businesses are as at risk as the local bookseller's business before Barnes & Noble comes to town. [Thanks, substrate9] [Image from SL Universe.com]
Uru Live to let players create ages with developer tools [update 1]
As mentioned in our interview with Rand Miller, co-creator of the Myst empire, Myst Online: Uru Live will eventually let users build their own ages. Miller has always had this poetic goal of letting players "write" Myst environments of their own; Cyan Worlds plans to provide its own development tools to gamers to make this happen.While Miller states that this is "forward looking" and may change, he thinks ambitious gamers are up for the challenge. He says, "We're always amazed at what our fans are able to accomplish, frankly, and by making those tools available, I think we'll be even more surprised. ... Essentially what we're creating in the mythology of all this is a writer's guild."Miller anticipates that the development tools will be available in about six months, the time he thinks is needed for them to stop being updated.Developers rarely give their own game- or level-creating tools to fans. This move is especially uncommon in an MMO with a plot, versus online sandbox games like Second Life. We're interested to see how Cyan Worlds lets players move between its content and community-created ages.Myst Online: Uru Live will launch this "holiday season" as part of GameTap's standard $10 monthly fee.[Update 1: fixed ship date error.]
What's a Warcraft player do in Second Life?
Why, plan raids of course! This is, apparently, the perfect activity for Tuesday's regular maintenance (or any of those irregular maintenances) -- log on to Second Life and go over strategy with your fellow WoW players while waiting for the realms to come back online. Sounds like fun!
Harvard class invades Second Life
A new Harvard class entitled CyberOne: Law in the Court of Public Opinion will be jointly held in the real Harvard Law School and in the virtual world of Second Life. The course, which starts this week, deals with making persuasive arguments in virtual spaces such as web sites, wikis, and, of course, virtual online universes. While registration for the course is currently full, the virtual classroom and lecture materials will be available to Second Life users at-large during non-class hours.While this isn't the first time a college course has been held in-game, this offering from a school as prestigious as Harvard shows that this trend may be growing. Would you attend a class in a virtual world?[Thanks nsomneia]
Second Life's user database breached
Hackers broke into the Second Life user databases on Thursday, according to this post on the official blog of Second Life parent company Linden Labs. Intruders gained access to Second Life account names, real life names, contact information, encrypted account passwords and encrypted payment information. So what? Well, there's something scarier about this theft. Name, address and credit card information is stolen daily from various inept ecommerce sites. We're kind of accustomed to that level of theft. But how many of us are really comfortable with data stolen from the place where we spend our leisure time? To put a finer point on it, what happens when archived MMOG chat logs are breached? It's going to be ugly, like AOL ugly: "I swear honey, that Furry meant nothing to me. It was totally just research for my new book. I'll sell the teledildonics equipment on eBay first thing tomorrow." Gamers haven't been paying much attention to privacy of in-game communications. Given how intimate some of those communications have become, maybe it's time for more scrutiny of privacy protection measures taken by MMOG providers. [Via Techcrunch] [Image via furry.wikia.com]
The Political Game: The Virtual Candidate
Each week Dennis McCauley contributes The Political Game, a column on the collision of politics and video games:Is it youthful and hip -- or just geeky and weird -- for a major political candidate to shake hands with a furry or kiss a baby avatar in the virtual world?We'll find out in 2008.When presidential hopeful Mark Warner visited Second Life last week, it represented a milestone for both online gaming and American politics.For the online game community, the former Virginia governor's Second Life stop was a definite boost. Most notably, it marked the first time anything but negative political attention -- violence! addiction! -- has ever been paid to an MMO. Moreover, Warner's visit was a tacit admission that there is something worth tapping into within the Second Life space -- that, despite the game's virtual landscape and offbeat avatars, SL is a real place, populated by gamers with genuine concerns, and, most importantly, gamers who vote.
Former governor speaks in Second Life [update 1]
Former Virginia Governor and potential 2008 presidential candidate Mark Warner became the first politician to make a public appearance in an MMO yesterday, speaking to a small crowd of avatars in Second Life on issues ranging from the Iraq war to abortion. Warner, who is also founder of cell phone company Nextel, literally flew onto the stage at the start of the event, leading interviewer Hamlet Au to comment that he is "not a noob."The lightly-attended event was put on by Warner's Forward Together PAC and Second Life promotional group Millions of Us as part of an effort to "go where the voters are," according to Forward Together staffer Nancy Mandelbrot. Warner didn't take audience questions during the event, but promised that he would be back for a virtual "town hall" meeting soon.With more and more voters spending more and more time in virtual worlds, is Warner on the leading edge of a new form of campaigning? Or is this appearance a gimmick that won't have any long-term effect on politics?[Update: Changed to reflect the fact that Warner is a former Virginia Governor, not current.]
Second Life to introduce 'Expressive Puppeteering'
Second Life Insider reports that Linden Labs is working to release a new technology into Second Life dubbed, "Expressive Puppeteering." With EP, Second Lifers will be able to manipulate their avatars in real time, resulting in unique movements and gestures. These animations can be easily "learned" by avatars and presumably accessed with ease for repeated use. And, as Second Life Insider points out, EP could potentially crown Second Life the preferred medium for machinima artists.
A hearty Joystiq welcome for Second Life Insider
Spend too much time in Second Life, away from real life? That's cool but, as part of any healthy, SL regimen, Joystiq recommends you log off every 16 hours to rest your eyes checking blogs about Second Life. To assist you in this endeavor, we've assembled a stellar troupe of Second Lifers to serve as tour guides to your virtual home away from home, including Aimee Weber, Akela Talamasca, Caliandris Pendragon, and our very own Jennie Lees Local Jezebel. They've been at it for some time, pre-launch, so head over to Second Life Insider and check out what's been happening.
Top 10 games? Bah! Who're the top 10 gamers?
MTV News' Stephen Totilo took the tired top-10 list and turned it on its ear. The new question: who are "the 10 most influential gamers of all time"? The metric: "gamers whose time playing actually affected the culture, creation or business of video games ...." The results: SHOCKING. Actually they're rather interesting. While our good friend (and aspiring pugilist) Uwe Boll didn't make the cut, there are plenty of names you will recognize. How about the Penny Arcade guys? Or Life magazine profilee, and heavily mulleted arcade champ, Billy Mitchell? Or the two guys who blurred the boundaries between gamers and developers when they created Counterstrike? Or how about either of the picks who populate the user-modifiable online world of Second Life. With only 200,000 "players," Second Life represents an interesting facet to this list. While the world is nowhere near as popular as its MMO-cousin World of Warcraft, the unique marketplace system of Second Life encourages entrepreneurship and creativity. Like the list's virtual real estate mogul Ailin Graef, whose 2005 profits were estimated at over $100,000 (mental note: ditch blogging, become a virtual real estate mogul).Who's missing? And you can't say yourself.
American Apparel opens up shop in SL
Clothing-retailer (and our choice for the Joystiq ringer-tees) American Apparel has recently opened a virtual store in the virtual world of Second Life. In it, Second Lifers will be able to peruse the digital racks and purchase, in true SL fashion, buy clothing for their avatars in addition to the real life counterparts. Of course, American Apparel's simple styles may appear anemic next to the more colorful creations of other Second Lifers. MTV News quotes Raz Schionning, director of Web services at American Apparel, who says, "Everyone else has wings and devil horns and all the rest ... So it'll be curious to see if a red T-shirt makes sense."The real question is, with only 200,000 virtual inhabitants, why does a virtual storefront for a company like American Apparel make sense? Well, publicity of course! Forbes covered their in world presence, comparing it to similar ventures by Twentieth Century Fox and Warner Bros.. American Apparel's fashion-centric approach and socially-conscious sensibility seem to jibe better with the culture of Second Life. Will the attempt net AA anything more than good press?[Via GameSetWatch]Read - American Apparel's Store in Second Life (Lots of pictures)Read - Online Shopping (Forbes)
