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December 20, 2006
Second Life is a graphical 3D virtual world. This life in the virtual world---often seen as new explorers on the electronic frontier ----has its own Herald and a monthly magazine, Slatenight, which celebrates the arts, culture, education, lifestyles and all forms of entertainment in the virtual world of Second Life. This virtual world is one in which you can leave all the labels and identities of the real world behind and create your own. You can be, and act out, whatever you want to be in Second Life.
This is excellent work in a new media form. Though it is software some represent Second Life less as a game in and more a world. issues about reality and identity. Anya Ixchel aka Angela Thomas (who blogs at i-Anya) says that the virtual world of Second Life:
is populated with educators involved in e-Learning, artists creating new media, filmmakers who are creating animated movies or machinima, fashion designers creating clothes, skins, hairdos, shoes and jewelry for people's avatars, and many other people who bring their real life work into the world. But at the same time, Second Life is populated with people who have created fantasy characters for themselves, people who are engaged in role-playing, creating digital fictional, playing games, and exploring fantastical worlds.
I guess you could have photographers/visual artists creating images.That raises all sorts of questions about identity, including gender identity. Or appearance and reality, for that matter in that image and simulacra exert tremendous power upon culture; or with a fashion designer or jeweller marketing their product in the simulated world of Second Life. It has a different ethos to Worlds of War.
How long before Murdoch moves in to buy it to make money? Or more likely, Wired? When this happens the real world/fictional world distinction is placed into question. Things would then become even more fuzzy than they are now. Well, not for the techno-futurists, who think we’re going virtual.
Update:
I presume Second Life is financially viable because you need to buy an account. and then pay for mantaining the account active. That means you--as a gamer---become a person who pays to play the game. It is the account that allows you to enter the world to visit or to play the game. Thus corporations (or schools) could buy 100 accounts at once to be used by all their staff (and students). So the viabilty of Second Life depends on the numbers and the type of accounts. Hence Second Life is a digital business. It provides for paying users a freeform place to play and it allows many transactions to occur in it. So the owners (Linden Labs) can take a percentage and make a profit.
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Wired is already inside Second Life. So is NBC, Toyota, Adidas, American Apparel, Reuters, IBM, and numerous other corporations. So to of course, is Sydney University :) The blurring between reality and fiction has already happened Gary!