A few nights ago I watched a documentary called Gamer Generation on the Discovery Times channel. As I expected it discussed the effect game violence was having on kids. Though the jury is still out on this matter the most interesting part of the show was about virtual life online.
I've heard of Second Life and know about games such as Warcraft that are played online, but did not realize the seriousness going into these virtual lives.
One example was a character name Neverdie. The man behind the character, an actor and musician, hung out in the online virtual world, VW, of Entropia. The first thing about these VWs is that you can make or spend real money. You can buy land, clothes, objects and even established a virtual business.
Well Neverdie took the online business model to the next level. First, he wrote a song that debuted in the VW of Entropia. Virtual characters gathered round Neverdie in an online disco as his song played. Neverdie became the first virtual music star.
Next for Neverdie was actually making a living in a virtual world. So he payed $100,000 to Entropia designers to build him a space station, named Realityport, with shopping, clubs and apartments. Each of the apartments are priced to sell between $100 and $1000 real money. So the apartments alone will generate between $200,000 and up to $1,000,000! The shopping and clubs will also generate revenue. Google for Neverdie and see what pops up.
Next I learned about outsourcing powerleveling. First, what the hell is powerleveling?
While playing online games your characters gain experience points or XPs. In most games you get more XPs the more you play. Someone with a lot of time can get to higher levels while those of us dealing with the real world must settle for substandard characters.
In a capitalistic society anything can happen. So now you can pay someone to play your player and get your character to a respectable or better level. Yes people actually pay other people to play their online characters! You simply request the level you want to attain and receive a quote. If you agree on the price then turn your character over for a few days and you will get back a lean mean fighting machine.
On the show one gamer was offering this service but couldn't compete with other countries pricing. Now he simply outsources his powerleveling business to Russia and the Philippines. Turn your character over to him and some guy in a small apartment in Russia will take it from there.
After thinking about powerleveling and Realityports I can see we are just at the tip of the iceberg for virtual worlds. Characters are actually being sold for hundreds even thousands of dollars.
What if you character was stolen, or your Realityport ambushed by virtual terrorists? Are there virtual police, attorneys, or doctors yet? Or better yet what about virtual politicians. Imagine that vote for someone to rle your virtual world. With real money at stake I can see all of this coming in the near future.
Is all this virtual living good for us? Well I guess it's OK to a certain degree. It does offer some entertainment value and even a way to meet new people all over the world. But totally consuming ones self to a virtual life...well that may be a problem. No doubt this will happen to some, but hopefully the masses will just enjoy VWs and take care of what's going on in the real world.
