[geeks] Second Life is not a game?

[Phil Stracchino]

Mark wrote:
> On 31 Jul 2007, at 02:33, Jon Gilbert wrote:
> 
>> Apparently you don't know what Second Life is. So I'll educate you.
>> It's a 3D virtual reality persistent world. It's not a game; there's
>> no "objectives," "points," "lives," or any other characteristics of
>> games.
> 
> I don't know how you can claim that when it has a full monitory  
> system. If you ask me it's a classical MMORPG with a slightly more  
> open mind...
> 
>> The only similarity between it and a game, is the fact that it
>> is in 3D and you have an avatar that represents you within that world.
> 
> Ergo it's a role playing game. Just because you are trying to be  
> serious about it doesn't stop it being a game. I play EVE Online a  
> lot (although I've been on sabbatical recently) and we take it fairly  
> seriously, have a proper company structure to our corporation etc,  
> but at the end of the day it's still just a game.
> 
>> Now, because the users of Second Life can create custom-programmed
>> objects, many people within SL make and sell games.
> 
> Sounds awfully like making and selling stuff in WoW or pretty much  
> any other MMORPG, just a bit less restricted.


The distinction that you are studiously refusing to acknowledge here is
this:


In World of Warcraft (for example), Blizzard strongly, actively and
determinedly discourages the sale of WoW items or gold for real cash
money, because it messes with the virtual economy in the game when
players can just go buy 50,000 gold.  They terminate accounts on mere
SUSPICION of it.  I know someone who had his account terminated for
loaning his girlfriend 800 gold for an epic mount.  You yourself
acknowledge that the "money" you make in EVE Online isn't real.

Second Life people make REAL SPENDABLE INCOMES that they can live on.
Linden Labs has not the least objection to people converting cash back
and forth between Linden dollars and real negotiable US dollars.  The
ability to do so, to convert your profits inside Second Life's virtual
economy into money you can use to pay your rent or your utility bill, is
half the POINT.  It is NOT intended to be a game.[1]  It is intended to
be a complete virtual environment, literally a "second [virtual] life",
in which you have the potential to make a living for your physical,
non-virtual self.  3D-avatar MMORPGs are virtual *fantasies*.  Second
Life is intended to be a virtual *reality*.


When it comes to this point, you give every appearance of sticking your
fingers in your ears and shouting "LA LA LA LA LA, I CAN'T HEAR YOU."
You can "take your attitude that SL IS just a game around with you", but
people who actually know anything about it will laugh at *you*, because
not only do you clearly not understand the difference, you've made it
clear you don't want to.

No offence intended, but that's how you're coming across.

(BTW, that's not the only distinction between the two.  It's just the
most relevant one right now.  Another is that you aren't allowed to have
multiple accounts and there's no concept ofWoW-style  "characters"; you
create one account, which you have to tie to your real identity, and you
have one avatar permanently associated with your account, and that is
IT.  That's YOU in SL.)


[1]  Apart from anything else, no-one would bother with it if it were
just a game.  Honestly, compared to 3D-avatar games, the interface
*SUCKS*.[2]  It's very hard even to just move around without running
into things and people all the time because the movement interface is so
crude and awkward.  I tried poking my nose into it for about a week and
decided it just wasn't worth the pain.

[2]  Side note:  a week or two ago, I actually ran into a *game*, an MMO
trying to be sort of WoW Lite, "Dungeon Runners" from the makers of City
of Heroes, that actually managed to have a movement/combat interface
that sucked even harder than that of Second Life.  I was stunned.  I
could scarcely believe that anyone could release a game with an
interface that sucked that hard, but was nothing more than a game, and
expect people to pay actual money to play it.


-- 
        Phil Stracchino                CDK#2
 Renaissance Man, Unix ronin, Perl hacker, Free Stater
 phil.stracchino at speakeasy.net   alaric at caerllewys.net
 Landline: 603-429-0220           Mobile: 603-320-5438
        It's not the years, it's the mileage.