Slashdot Mirror
Virtual Fashion Thrives in Second Life
Carl Bialik from WSJ writes "The game Second Life — a simulated world with more than 700,000 'residents,' or players, who sometimes refer to their offline existence as their 'first life' — is breeding a virtual world of fashion design, with the same complications as the real world of fashion, the Wall Street Journal reports: 'A continuing headache for many designers is the ease with which others can copy their creations, and several have discovered boutiques that sell knockoffs of their clothes. A well-known Second Life designer was recently accused of stealing skin textures and withdrew from Second Life after receiving harassing messages. Linden says it investigates accusations of design theft, and repeat offenders can have their online accounts closed. Some designers, like DE Designs' Mr. Hester, have taken steps to copyright their work.'"
Maybe.... but to play devil's advocate, people who quit their jobs to start website based businesses 10 years ago were also encouraged to "get serious about life" and go do something real. Some of those guys ended up making millions because they got in on the ground floor. There's no guarentee of success in any business, but there ARE opportunities and they aren't always obvious.
As silly as it seems right now, the succesful Second Life clothier might be the metaverse-based tycoon of the future.... or homeless. We just don't know yet, so it's probably prudent to avoid all encompassing "you won't have marketable skills" statements.
Just a thought.
The business model only works if you have a lot of people playing Second Life who only want to be consumers... and what could possibly be the draw of the game for them? If they want to build a social network, they can make a MySpace page.
There are a lot of people playing SL who are primarily consumers. More than content creators, in fact. Linden's CEO estimates about 75% of the players are primarily consumers. As for the comparison to MySpace: there's something special about having a virtual presence, an avatar, when talking with people. In SL you choose to be at a particlar location, with certain people. That presence makes a difference. As compared to Zwinky and Ragnarok, the possibilities of what you might do or see when socializing are far broader in SL. The user-created content allows for ultra-broad flexibility in self expression.
For example, you're never going to see someone burn themselves at the stake in Ragnarok, or dressed as undead being followed by a train of zombies in Zwinky.
- Unoti Quonset, the #1 scripter of animated animals in SL
I felt the same way you describe when I started SL, but feel totally different now. Here's why.
For weeks when I first started I never bought anything. I built and scriped everything I needed. It was a matter of principle, a matter of pride. I wouldn't dream of buying an avatar, not when I can make my own. I wouldn't dream of buying someone's car, because it's more fun to make my own.
Then I started selling what I made. I started being very successful selling what I made. Then one day someone wanted me to go to a wedding. I needed to look my best at this wedding. Technically I could spend a few hours working on a tuxedo, but my home-made tuxedo won't look at good as a top-notch one made my a specialist tuxedo maker. (Similarly, if that tuxedo guy wants an animated robot-loaded cannon or animated animal, there's no way he can compete with what I make.) So I could save L$500 and make a tuxedo myself over several hours. Or, I could buy a tuxedo for L$500, and spend those several hours doing work that I specialize in that will earn me far more than L$500.
So while the fun is in making things, there's just not enough hours in the day to make everything. And a single person isn't going to be able to make the best of everything.
The fun is making things, for some people. For other people, the fun is in entertaining guests, or cybersex, or gambling, or whatever.
(somehow /. stuck this in the PS3 article....)
What I find so amusing/ironic/sad is that Linden Labs had built 2nd Life on a kind of cool idea - a pseudo-utopian experiment where they were going to build the world and, as I understood it, essentially keep their hands off, letting the social systems and communities grow organically.
Until something doesn't fit their PC-vision of what utopia should be, apparently.
Like utopian socialists whose Pollyanna ideals of "from each...to each..." don't quite survive their impact with the real world, they then turn to despotism to FORCE people to conform to (what they think) is best. The Lindens don't seem to hesitate to employ a mechanistic "hand of god" when it suits them.
Hint: Tyranny for a good reason is still tyranny. It's their world, their money (mostly), and they can ultimately do what they like, of course.
But what value is a 'virtual' version of Biosphere II, if the irresistable, implacable Hand of God can come in and magically set things right?
I was peripherally involved in the "Jesse War" so many ages ago, and I was saddened then as I'm saddened now. They have chosen once AGAIN to insinuate themselves directly in world-affairs and thus taint the entire experiment.
Wouldn't it have been MORE interesting to see how the community might have handled this WITHIN the bounds of the tools available to the avatars in-game? It might have provided a creative insight to our real-world issues of IP, patent, and copyright infringement.
Experiments are worthless if it's impossible for them to go wrong. If they can only travel down the pre-planned course, that's not an experiment, that's NARRATIVE. How do you study how the human animal behaves in the wild, if every misbehaving member of the study group is removed? What sort of valid result will that leave you?
But no, unless we have the magic Hand of God who can fix things in real life for us, too?
-Styopa
Still, there are decent clothes to be found. The best suits in SL (complete with flexiprim ties!) come from Blaze, and they also sell good casual menswear. I found more decent menswear at Swell Second Life, including khaki pants and a polo shirt. Blaze is also good for formal wear, and Simone sells a high-class tux that is top-notch. SIMWEAR Menswear is a good location for relatively inexpensive stuff, including suits and tuxes, and also has a good line of shoes, hats, and accessories. Another good shoe retailer is D2TK, where I've bought a couple pairs of brown nubuck leather shoes that look good and wear well. And I have a couple of outfits from Vitamin Ci that also look nice, as well as a pair of Victorian suits from Silver Rose Designs in Caledon that are quite well done. As for hair, I've found decent men's hair designs at both Pazazz and GuRL 6.
Suffice it to say, there are options for the male avatar out there, if you know where to look. "'Cos every girl crazy 'bout a sharp-dressed man..."
Be who you are...and be it in style!
"I instead got a big 'box' hat that covered my little character and said 'sucker' on all sides."
For what it's worth, the T-shirt was probably inside the box... Putting stuff in boxes is a pretty typical way to sell things. Not that you care, but just FYI.
I signed up for Second Life months ago. I was never interested in actually "playing" it (meaning, I suppose, meeting people, making friends, wearing furry costumes, having virtual sex, etc), but instead, I had a great time making and scripting objects, and subsequently selling them.
Seriously, tell me one other place where you can make your very own casino game, rent floor space, and make (or lose) real US dollars by having people play your game? Not everyone can make and sell clothing for real money, but you can in SL. There's something to be said for that.
Myself, I've made a few casino/dance club type games, as well as some treasure hunt type stuff, and have made a couple hundred bucks over the summer. Nothing to retire on, but, on some level, more rewarding than the time I spent playing WoW...
Adman
You know, lots of women actually use computers too. It's not like the Imsai or Apple I or Commodore PET days when there was a grain of truth to what you're thinking.
"Every computer program" is hyperbole and chauvinism pure and simple. It's almost like you're offended that there might be an online game that women might find appealing.
Second Life is not WoW, it's not Everquest, it's not even like the Sims, which have a lot of female players. Trust me, the number of female players of Second Life is much higher than the traditionally male grind and raid MMORPG's
In most MMORPGS even if the user base is 80% male the ratio of male to female avatars is about even right? That's not the case in Second Life, where female avatars easily outnumber the men. That's because not only do you have some men playing female avatars you also have lots of women playing female avatars.
There's Second Life podcasts, listen to them. Yep, women. Look at all the fashion blogs do you think the average "only plays a female av because she's got big hooters to ogle MMORPG guy" writes them?