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Second Life MMO Attracts Commercial Land-Buyers
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.")
If you live in a popular place for any length of time, you're subject to Icudavitis. This is a disease where people go around saying things like, "That house is selling for $300,000, I could have bought it for 30,000." (Oh God, I've actually said that myself.) Now, it's too late to make a killing in the meatspace real-estate market -- but where is it written that the land you sell has to have physical existence?
At this moment, I'm looking at an ad on Slashdot. If I was to turn on my TV, I'd probably see a commercial. If I pop in a DVD, I'll catch some product placement. If I wanted to play a game, depending on what I'm playing, I'll likely see some billboards advertising real life product.
And they're worried about corporations encroaching on their life now?
Below is the link to the first big thread on the SL forums about Fizik's purchase of an entire server:
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http://forums.secondlife.com//showthread.php?s=
Religion is poison to rationality, and we lose sight of that at our own peril. -- Lurker2288
You can play SL forever with a one time fee of $10, but in order to own land you have to pay a monthly fee as low as $5.
You can still build stuff on other peoples land, or join a group and build on group land, or build on company-owned building spaces that are wiped clean every day.
If you want to have a permanent space for your content, say set up a shop, or a house, or a club, or whatever, then getting some land is definitely the way to go.
Actually, I'd contest that - I don't think Linden Labs is a very small company. I know that they have been significantly and independently funded, and I can see their fact sheet mentions they have 25 employees, which is a reasonable size.
I think the question of who owns entire continents or islands is more related to how many blocs of land Linden want to release to the public, rather than how much it costs for the physical servers - if the world gets too large, the players will get too far spread out, and keeping demand high keeps things exciting. But it could well be a mixture of the two, of course.
I am really amazed -- I haven't been following MMOs, but this sort of thing looks like it's getting closer to the kind of Metaverse that Stephenson described (there are some important structural differences, such as where tasks are handled).
May we never see th
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?
I ran across a prime piece of land in the game, and snagged it. Then with my next paycheck, I bought the land next to it, more land so I had enough prims. I bumped my plan up 15 bux a month, and have enough cash to setup a store. Already been tempted to sell the land at nice profit, since land is hard to come by. Also I'd like to move to an Adult SIM, my property is in a PG area, but the Adult land is all sold out.
My understanding is each SIM (square piece of land, like a city limits) is a server. And they charge 200 dollars per server, and Lindens just break even. The SIM have ratings, so alot of people want Adult Sim's where you don't have to restrict yourself as much, you dont have to worry about your conversations. They even have a new War Sim where you can be killed and respawn back at your home.
Anyone who telneted to a MOO server back in the 90's, will like secondlife. Its a mix of building and socializing. Rather amazed at the things people are building, and annoyed at some things.
Its the most amazing VR world I've seen, currious as to what it will evolve into.
A few years ago (97,98) I used to hang around in a Virtual World called Active Worlds (http://www.activeworlds.com/) quite a lot. It had everything that SecondLife has back then (including bad VRML graphics). It also wasn't terribly uncommon for big companies to buy whole servers/worlds. When the Godzilla movie came out (the NEW even worse one) there was a whole world for that. I believe there was also a whole world for the movie The Thirteenth Floor. I dont see why everyone thinks it's so outrageous for this guy to use a virtual world for advertising means, advertising is almost as prevalent as oxygen in the 'real world', why cant it have the sameyyyyetration in a virtual world?