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Second Life MMO Attracts Commercial Land-Buyers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the second-life's-top-model dept.

Thanks to Terra Nova for its discussion of PC 'virtual world' Second Life's auctioning of an in-game continent, and its purchase by a possible commercial interest. The piece explains: "Second Life began auctioning its virtual land for $US in December.. [the winner was willing to] pay 2L $1200 plus $200 monthly in perpetuity, in order to make software objects that would live only in the virtual world. It turns out that [island auction winner] 'Fizik' is [related to] a marketing agency with clientele in the fashion industry. Not everyone was happy at their arrival." The piece also links to a Second Life forum thread with user opinions, from the positive ("I've never had an problem with a small-scale commercial interest getting involved"), to more guarded ("It is my hope that my in-world experience will never be ruined by corporations trying to make a buck off me.")

5 of 31 comments (clear)

  1. Out of context quote... by thefirelane · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I believe this quote was taken out of context..

    It is my hope that my in-world experience will never be ruined by corporations trying to make a buck off me

    It should have read:

    It is my hope that my in-world experience will never be ruined by corporations trying to make a buck off me Oops, I almost forgot to pay my monthly subscription to play the game.


    ---Lane

    P.S. I haven't played, so who knows whether you have to pay a monthly subscription, but the sarcasm still stands as I imagine they still had to pay to purchase the game.

    1. Re:Out of context quote... by cgranade · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There's a difference between a corporation and a user entering into a mutually benefitial relationship, i.e., a service provided at a reasonable cost and at reasonable terms, and someone "making a buck off of you," which implies a one-sided nature to the exchange. Often times, the latter comes about by a corp or industry merely controlling a resource so that others may not obtain access to it for reasonable costs. In the case of a retailer, it may be argued that they aggregate the products of many different companies and handle the relations with the suppliers for you, and that this is a reasonable service. In the case of a realtor of virtual land, this argument holds much less water: the purchasing of land is already well automated, I presume, thus removing the need for a realtor. Furthermore, said realtors are merely buying up land and reselling at higher prices. This is indeed someone "trying to make a buck off you."

      --

      #define DRM chmod 000

  2. Why? by Gothic_Walrus · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but since the land is virtual, can't the developers create as much (or as little) open land as they want to? Meaning that everyone in the game could possibly own their own continent, server space allowing?

    Seems like a bit of a waste of money to me...unless the developers won't be creating more spaces for privately owned property.

    --
    Goo goo g'joob.
    1. Re:Why? by BortQ · · Score: 3, Insightful
      The people controlling the system have full control over how much land is made available. Thus they can sell more or less depending on what they want the price to be.

      This is exactly what OPEC does with oil. Their control is less now because they don't have control over 100% or production, but they can still influence prices by selling more or less oil as they see fit.

      --

      A Multiplayer Strategy Game for Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux
    2. Re:Why? by eggstasy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well heck, 25 is still a pretty small company, especially when compared to a few other MMOGs that are funded by such giants as Sony and Microsoft.
      I dont know how up-to-date that fact sheet is, but they recently let some people go and revamped their business model to charge real money, instead of game money, for land ownership.
      This pretty much screamed financial trouble to me and a lot of other players, though Philip and Cory vehemently denied it and stated that they were growing faster than ever.
      You're right though, I also remember Philip telling me once (back in september or so) that they weren't adding new sims because they wanted to achieve a certain density of players, which is probably why they reactivated all dead accounts.
      The world is getting pretty busy these days and the new continent is bound to fill up pretty fast.