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Coldwell Banker To Sell Second Life Properties
Dekortage sends news of what may be a new development in the attempted mainstreaming of Second Life. We've seen plenty of examples of real-world news media, politicos, and PR campaigns setting up in SL. But so far most of this action has been about first-life organizations trying to gain real-world publicity by their forays into SL. CNN is reporting that the real estate firm Coldwell Banker is moving into SL for the purpose of selling and renting in-world properties. From the article: "Coldwell Banker has bought extensive tracts of property on the central 'mainland' of Second Life. (Most companies own 'islands' scattered all over.) It subdivided this digital land into 520 individual houses and living units, half of which it will sell and half it will rent... 'A small number of land barons mostly control real estate in Second Life, and we thought we could bring real estate to the masses,' [a VP explained]."
I've seen the press for this roll by for the last couple of years. Finally after seeing this post I said well I better see what all the hype is really about. I, like your friends, installed it and laughed. Anyone remember MTV's Tikki VRML world from about 10 years ago? Well I was instantly reminded of it. Someone at Coldwell must be delusional, or Linden Labs paid them a heafty sum and gave them free land. It's the lamest thing I've ever seen as far as modern content goes. Is this what they mean by Web 2.0? I think I'll be sticking to my first life with the occational raid in World of Warcraft. Who has time for a second life anyway? I just can't believe businesses are pumping money into this, or is it just media fluff? There is just no way this is going to be very profitable for anyone but Linden Labs. Any company looking to diversify into a market like this really ought to consider sticking to the real world.
I think trying to create an economy that allows for proper speculation while at the same time being completely under another company's control, it like asking water not to be wet. While there's clearly a monetary value to virtual items (like selling MMORPG-equipment on ebay), it's temporary. They could change the rules at any time, but that'd destory gameplay so you can be fairly sure the powerful sword you bought today is a powerful sword tomorrow. That predictability is the only thing that gives it value. It's not just a matter of regulating the content itself, SL could do all sorts of tricks like making TARDIS-like housing, choking the amount of new users which would force a price drop, rearrange the map/view/default starting locations to make the "center" be somewhere else, anything and everything. By the time you have it regulated in well enough, it'll be about as fun as investing in the stock market. Take it for what it is, it's basicly an e-penis. As long as you pay more than Joe Average (both for starters and in upkeep), you'll have this fancy thing to show off to your friends. This speculation is in that SL will be the next big e-penis thing and that it'll somehow be a status symbol to show how much money you've wasted on this. How can you possibly regulate the value of a SL property when the only value it has is perception? Might as well try to regulate the market for pet rocks.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It's easy to miss the point of Second Life, because the eyecandy is nowhere near the same level as WoW or similar. Graphically it's certainly around desktop game circa 2000 and the Lindons certainly do have a bit of a blind spot about upgrading it - largely because they seem predominantly focused on server-side issues at the moment.
:-
/. and the like saying 'I looked and the graphics were crap' - which misses the point about SL being a social thing as above.
:-). Certainly their business methods need to take a step up.
However SL isn't really a WoW competitor. It's more like IRC in 3D - think of it as a chatroom where you can actually do things with the other people there. And of course virtually *everything* in SL has been constructed by the people in it. True the building tools have limitations and there's vast amounts of crap. but equally there's some very imagenative stuff too. The scripting language is by no means a toy too, even though that has some major flaws.
It's also an interesting question who does play it. I see several groups
1. Newbies. Vast numbers of people sign on, hang around the public welcome areas briefly, do a little touring then never play it again. It's quite common to see later reactions from them on
2. Wankers. Literally. A friend of mine who owns a SL club believes 50% of signups do nothing else but cybersex fot the first month. I think she's proberbly right.
3. Designers, Builders, Coders. Although the tools are limited with imagination there's a lot that can be done. SL seems quite a common outlet for amateur designers, coders and 3D artists. It may not be cutting edge, but you tend to get a lot of attention and feedback. If you're a professional coder then SL is well worth a look as it does have potential and some of the Lindons actually hold open office hours so you can talk to the game designers directly if you wish.
4. Roleplayers. There's large communities of roleplayers - most of whom spend 90% of their time in roleplay sims so will never be encountered by newbies. A quite common scenario is for a group to jointly buy a server, construct an enviroment, then play in that. Sort of like design your own game and play it using SL simply as an environment to do that. Roleplay covers a wide range from extreme characterization to mild 'wouldn't it be nice to live in environment X' types. Tends to be very hardcore players who spend a lot of time in SL.
5. Social players. Similar to roleplayers in that they have a community of friends but without the roleplay angle. Again these people hardly ever go near the common meeting places so a newbie will never pick up on them. A large part of the 'core' SL players are in this group.
6. Others - musicians, speculators, educators etc etc
People can belong to more than one group of course. Myself I am uncertain about the future of SL. Against it it has
a. Relatively poor graphics
b. Architecture limitations - the *bloody* asset server is a major pain point. It's not clear how far it can scale. The 50 avs in a sim limit is laughable for example.
c. It has a certain reputation in some influential quarters
d. The Lindons appear to be a bunch of bloody hippies
But for
a. Because the world is user constructed and designed to be at a fundemental level - and not given, as in WoW or other games, then in theory it can evolve. Games with Everquest, WoW, Eve etc cannot move forward in the same way.
b. It is one world and not sharded
c. It does provide enough tools that there is room for professional level interest in it.
d. It's totally generic
e. It has an established user base of people with graphic, building and coding skills who can jointly take it forward as the tools and capabilities improve. Real first mover advantage that.
On balance I think it likely to be here to stay and evolve as the prime metaverse. However I expect it to be the first among many (possibly with interconnections) and remain a minority interest for many years yet. It is worth your time though to look at it on a deeper level than simply 'ooh the graphics are crap' or 'it's just full of wankers'.